Zero
Gee Family
Each
of my family has separately experienced involuntary zero-gee. Each of us had
been on an airplane, flying separate from the other two of us; in each case the
airplane hit an air-pocket and briefly entered free-fall. Our reactions
differed, in telling ways.
My
wife Sherri reports that she, and everyone else on the plane, whooped loud. My
daughter Hannah reports that she had been laughing just before the plane hit
the air-pocket, and she continued to laugh during the plummet.
I
distinctly remember that everyone in the airplane gasped in unison, including
me. Then I reached into my shirt pocket, pulled out my ticket, and let it loose
in front of my face. It floated in zero gee. Then the plane’s wings grabbed
air, and the ticket fell into my lap.
While
falling out of the sky, my wife whooped, my daughter laughed, and I did a
physics experiment. Thus we cope with the stresses of life.
In my own case I was seizing
a rare opportunity to do cool science; and also I was nerdishly distracting
myself from mortal terror. Call it the consolations of philosophy.
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