Readers of this blog may have noticed that I write a lot of opinions regarding science or technological issues. For that reason, I have created a separate blog for my articles that focus on science or technology.
Please visit Wilstar's SciTech Blog.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
As Long as I Remember, I've Always had Memories
How much of our lives are built upon our memories?
Memories are what link us to the person we used to be. They make our lives fluid, ever flowing from the past into the present, even into the future. Our legacies are but memories for our descendants to share.
What would life be like without memories? Each day would be as if we were a newborn baby. There would be no experiences for us to build upon.
I remember watching a TV documentary about memory a few years ago. In it, there was a segment about a man who had lost his short-term memory, due to an accident. He could remember people he had met prior to his accident, and all other events of his past. But he could not remember anything that happened since his accident. But it was more than just amnesia. He could not retain any new memory longer than about two minutes. Every moment of his life was as though he were just waking up from a long, dreamless slumber.
Suppose a similar accident happened to a child, who later grew into a man or woman without memories of any kind. How empty this person's life would be. He or she could remember nothing or nobody, nor learn anything new, for it would be gone in a couple of minutes.
Memory is important to us, as humans. It takes the place of instinct. It is no wonder that memory has become the subject of verse, song, and literature. Songs such as "Memory," from the musical "Cats," or "The Way We Were," or "Try to Remember" remind us how important our memories are.
Authors have written volumes on the subject, in every form of literature. Dostoyevsky wrote, "You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all." Essayist Susan Sontag wrote, "Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious." And Scottish poet Alexander Smith wrote, "A man's real possession is his memory."
My earliest memory is when I was three years old. I remember what I got for Christmas that year--two train sets. One was an electric train set from my dad; the other was a wind-up train from my mom. Apparently, they did not consult with each other in advance of purchasing my gifts. I know I was three, because I also remember what my younger brother got for Christmas that year. It was a string of plastic bells meant to stretch across a crib. It was his first Christmas, and since I am two years older than he is, that would have made me three at the time.
I have lots of memories that I recycle in my mind regularly. It helps to keep them fresh.
I try to teach my children how important the memories they are forging today will be to them when they are old. We occasionally watch video home movies that I took of them as they were growing up. I have more than 30 hours of home movies! Sometimes I wonder if the memories my kids have of their younger days are of the actual events, or of the video tape playback.
Memories are much more than just a connection to a past event, however. They are what allows us to see the things we want to see when those things aren't around. British playwright J. M. Barrie once wrote, "God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December." In fact, anything we have ever seen, heard, touched, smelled, or felt, we can experience again in our minds, thanks to that wonderful device called memory.
But just as our muscles will atrophy if they are not used, memories will weaken and die if they are not remembered. Memories can be permanent; they can also be ephemeral. The key to keeping a memory is the frequency of its use.
Comedian Colin Mochrie said, "As long as I can remember, I've always had memories." Bob Hope never forgot to tell us, "Thanks for the Memories." Memory is a truly important commodity. Playwright Tennessee Williams summed memory up best when he wrote, "Life is all memory, except for that one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going."
Memories are what link us to the person we used to be. They make our lives fluid, ever flowing from the past into the present, even into the future. Our legacies are but memories for our descendants to share.
What would life be like without memories? Each day would be as if we were a newborn baby. There would be no experiences for us to build upon.
I remember watching a TV documentary about memory a few years ago. In it, there was a segment about a man who had lost his short-term memory, due to an accident. He could remember people he had met prior to his accident, and all other events of his past. But he could not remember anything that happened since his accident. But it was more than just amnesia. He could not retain any new memory longer than about two minutes. Every moment of his life was as though he were just waking up from a long, dreamless slumber.
Suppose a similar accident happened to a child, who later grew into a man or woman without memories of any kind. How empty this person's life would be. He or she could remember nothing or nobody, nor learn anything new, for it would be gone in a couple of minutes.
Memory is important to us, as humans. It takes the place of instinct. It is no wonder that memory has become the subject of verse, song, and literature. Songs such as "Memory," from the musical "Cats," or "The Way We Were," or "Try to Remember" remind us how important our memories are.
Authors have written volumes on the subject, in every form of literature. Dostoyevsky wrote, "You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all." Essayist Susan Sontag wrote, "Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious." And Scottish poet Alexander Smith wrote, "A man's real possession is his memory."
My earliest memory is when I was three years old. I remember what I got for Christmas that year--two train sets. One was an electric train set from my dad; the other was a wind-up train from my mom. Apparently, they did not consult with each other in advance of purchasing my gifts. I know I was three, because I also remember what my younger brother got for Christmas that year. It was a string of plastic bells meant to stretch across a crib. It was his first Christmas, and since I am two years older than he is, that would have made me three at the time.
I have lots of memories that I recycle in my mind regularly. It helps to keep them fresh.
I try to teach my children how important the memories they are forging today will be to them when they are old. We occasionally watch video home movies that I took of them as they were growing up. I have more than 30 hours of home movies! Sometimes I wonder if the memories my kids have of their younger days are of the actual events, or of the video tape playback.
Memories are much more than just a connection to a past event, however. They are what allows us to see the things we want to see when those things aren't around. British playwright J. M. Barrie once wrote, "God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December." In fact, anything we have ever seen, heard, touched, smelled, or felt, we can experience again in our minds, thanks to that wonderful device called memory.
But just as our muscles will atrophy if they are not used, memories will weaken and die if they are not remembered. Memories can be permanent; they can also be ephemeral. The key to keeping a memory is the frequency of its use.
Comedian Colin Mochrie said, "As long as I can remember, I've always had memories." Bob Hope never forgot to tell us, "Thanks for the Memories." Memory is a truly important commodity. Playwright Tennessee Williams summed memory up best when he wrote, "Life is all memory, except for that one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going."
My Experience with Earthquakes
Did you feel last week’s earthquake? I did. It was my third one.
Back in 1968 Nixon was running for president, I was a sophomore in high school, and Indiana experienced an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale. I didn’t feel it. But almost everyone else did.
Back then, the Indianapolis Star ran is daily quip on the front page by a cartoon bird called Joe Crow. In the edition following the quake, I clearly remember Joe Crow’s political wisecrack: “Nixon said he had some earthshaking ideas, but this is ridiculous!”
Fast forward to 1980. It was in the summer and I was sitting in a swivel rocker on the back porch of my parents’ house on Kyle St. when I thought I noticed the chair quivering just a tad. I looked around to see if the dog had brushed against it, but he was lying on the floor across the room. About 10 seconds later, the chair started rocking. I’d never felt an earthquake before, but I thought perhaps I was in one. It turns out, I was.
Then, in 1987, I was sitting on a bench on my deck in Hobart, Indiana. Again, I felt a very slight jolt. I looked out at the kids’ swing set. I felt it again, like I was in a boat. The swings started swinging on their own. It was my second earthquake experience.
I know we had an earthquake five or six years ago, but I didn’t feel that one. But the one last Friday, I felt. I was lying in bed on my back, fully awake. Again I felt a very subtle shaking of the bed, and again I blamed it on the dog. But she was nowhere near the bed. Then, as the first time, 10 seconds later the bed started heaving, the bottles on the dresser started shaking loudly, I heard pops and crackles from downstairs. I just lay their and enjoyed the ride because I knew what it was.
Earthquakes in Indiana are not frequent. And for the most part, they are not severe or damaging. But there are clear exceptions. Southwest Indiana lies on the Wabash fault zone. It is a northward extension of the famed New Madrid fault system.
One of the biggest earthquakes in U.S. history happened here in the Midwest in 1812. The epicenter was in New Madrid, Missouri, just across the Mississippi River from Tennessee. It changed the course of the river and added a new lake in eastern Missouri. It was the largest of a series of quakes running from late 1811 into January of 1812.
When earthquakes happen in the Midwest, they are felt for hundreds of miles around the epicenter. That’s for two reasons. One is that the fault lines are deep within the bedrock. Primarily, though, it is because most of the Midwest and the Northeast lie on a hard, continuous sheet of bedrock. The surface waves from an earthquake carry for long distances uninterrupted by unconformities in the rock layers.
Contrast that to California. That state has many more earthquakes, and usually they are more severe. But the bedrock of California is a hodgepodge of younger rock formations that have been tacked on to the West Coast as the entire continent slowly moves westward.
When an earthquake happens in California, it usually isn’t as deep, and the bedrock that carries the waves is discontinuous. So even a larger earthquake than the one most of us felt last week will be very localized. It typically won’t travel more than a hundred miles or so.
Unfortunately, since Midwestern earthquakes are so infrequent, and typically not as strong as those in the West, most buildings here are not designed to withstand a major shock. But as the big one of 1812 has shown, we here in the nation’s midsection are not immune from catastrophic earth shaking.
Back in 1968 Nixon was running for president, I was a sophomore in high school, and Indiana experienced an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale. I didn’t feel it. But almost everyone else did.
Back then, the Indianapolis Star ran is daily quip on the front page by a cartoon bird called Joe Crow. In the edition following the quake, I clearly remember Joe Crow’s political wisecrack: “Nixon said he had some earthshaking ideas, but this is ridiculous!”
Fast forward to 1980. It was in the summer and I was sitting in a swivel rocker on the back porch of my parents’ house on Kyle St. when I thought I noticed the chair quivering just a tad. I looked around to see if the dog had brushed against it, but he was lying on the floor across the room. About 10 seconds later, the chair started rocking. I’d never felt an earthquake before, but I thought perhaps I was in one. It turns out, I was.
Then, in 1987, I was sitting on a bench on my deck in Hobart, Indiana. Again, I felt a very slight jolt. I looked out at the kids’ swing set. I felt it again, like I was in a boat. The swings started swinging on their own. It was my second earthquake experience.
I know we had an earthquake five or six years ago, but I didn’t feel that one. But the one last Friday, I felt. I was lying in bed on my back, fully awake. Again I felt a very subtle shaking of the bed, and again I blamed it on the dog. But she was nowhere near the bed. Then, as the first time, 10 seconds later the bed started heaving, the bottles on the dresser started shaking loudly, I heard pops and crackles from downstairs. I just lay their and enjoyed the ride because I knew what it was.
Earthquakes in Indiana are not frequent. And for the most part, they are not severe or damaging. But there are clear exceptions. Southwest Indiana lies on the Wabash fault zone. It is a northward extension of the famed New Madrid fault system.
One of the biggest earthquakes in U.S. history happened here in the Midwest in 1812. The epicenter was in New Madrid, Missouri, just across the Mississippi River from Tennessee. It changed the course of the river and added a new lake in eastern Missouri. It was the largest of a series of quakes running from late 1811 into January of 1812.
When earthquakes happen in the Midwest, they are felt for hundreds of miles around the epicenter. That’s for two reasons. One is that the fault lines are deep within the bedrock. Primarily, though, it is because most of the Midwest and the Northeast lie on a hard, continuous sheet of bedrock. The surface waves from an earthquake carry for long distances uninterrupted by unconformities in the rock layers.
Contrast that to California. That state has many more earthquakes, and usually they are more severe. But the bedrock of California is a hodgepodge of younger rock formations that have been tacked on to the West Coast as the entire continent slowly moves westward.
When an earthquake happens in California, it usually isn’t as deep, and the bedrock that carries the waves is discontinuous. So even a larger earthquake than the one most of us felt last week will be very localized. It typically won’t travel more than a hundred miles or so.
Unfortunately, since Midwestern earthquakes are so infrequent, and typically not as strong as those in the West, most buildings here are not designed to withstand a major shock. But as the big one of 1812 has shown, we here in the nation’s midsection are not immune from catastrophic earth shaking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)