THE SHAPE OF THE SOUND BARRIER

From my apartment window, i can see planes taking off and landing at LAX all day long, as long as i want to look. The other day, i was watching a Science channel program on speed, and was amazed.....Who would think that you can actually see the moment when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier? It's the SOUND barrier--it's only supposed to make that giant BOOM noise that you hear (not at regular airports but) at air shows and on military bases. But, when you look up at the sky, a white cloud of water vapor has formed like a skirt around the plane. These cloud cones form in the midst of crazy chaotic winds circulating around and past the body of the aircraft. Regions of very high and very low pressure are created in the chaotic air flow when the plane is approaching the speed of sound. The pressure difference is sustained long enough for temperature to drop in these low pressure pockets and condensation to form, like it forms on a windowpane in winter. The condensation makes the air appear white, but it is not known why this white vapor takes a cone shape. In addition to military aircraft, large meteors and space vehicles also break the sound barrier before they enter or leave our atmosphere. One day i hope to witness that happen.

CONVERSATION AND THE BRAIN

A great conversation is one of the most satisfying pleasures in life. Some of the best in my recent memory include: the history of marriage and how love was only recently considered a necessary prerequisite to the endeavor--with Jamie (a reporter heard this conversation and wrote a piece for NPR about the subject) both compromise and tolerance are necessary in living with someone, you gotta know when to use each--mom can we ever completely grasp how big our universe is--with Wayne Hooked into these riveting chats, our brain actually works ahead of the banter, anticipating words that are said by the other person before they even come out of their mouth. I must have previewed the words star or milky way or black hole before my friend Wayne had even said them. The experience is the same as having actually heard them, according to a recent study by Jos van Berkum at the Max Plank Institute. Van Berkum shows anticipatory brain waves look identical to brain waves of actually experiencing a spoken word. The brain also consolidates personality traits into stereotypes to speed up understanding in conversation flow. Knowing my friend Jamie very well, if she had said, "I can't wait to get married," instead of, "Im just looking for a good traveling partner right now," i would literally have had a tougher time getting what she was saying. It would have been shocking. If our brain is always jumping ahead, making judgments and assumptions....is that why great points in conversation are truly revolutionary--they give us new information, perspective, and actually surprise the hell out of us?

THE SKY, LIGHT, PHOTOGRAPHY

The sky in Los Angeles has been incredible the past couple of days. The bright white to black gradation of cloud-cover resembles the light contrast in some of my favorite Robert Frank photographs. What is it about black and white photographs, like the slow movement of clouds, that makes you stop and wonder how light or people got here to begin with. How did this cowboy get to this street corner, how do the clouds on a rainy day flicker light and shadows in and out of my window? How did this all become so personal? The sun certainly does not function for just us. Though it feeds us and helps us get around, it is the source of energy for everything else on this planet--of which we are a very minute part. People arose and evolved from an unbelievably large number of exact biological steps--if any were missing, or changed in any way, humans would be much different. So, as you look into the face of an uncertain day--it is sometimes useful to realize that no matter how abstruse the world might seem, there is a simplicity and objectivity to our existence.