Tag Conservation of Matter

Laws of Nature, Naturally

Michael 1 Comment
There are only two things in life you have to do … die and pay taxes, hahahaha! How many of us have heard that tired line how many times? Actually one of those things you really don’t have to do. Are you tired of pledging a part of your income in taxes? As of last month there are 15 countries you can move to with no personal income tax*. Remember than the next time you feel the urge to complain about being gouged by the government. As for the dying part of the grand equation, well, yeah that is something you can put on your bucket list and be sure of accomplishing.
 
Don’t think though that because we’ve eliminated “paying taxes” on the things you must do list that we are down to a single item. There are the laws of nature that neither man nor beast can circumvent. That saying should go “there are only about 3,845 things you have to do” but I’ve often been accused of hyperbole so maybe not that many. But more than two.
 
For instance, you must march along with time. We cannot stop time and until we sign a treaty with the Vulcans sometime in the 23rd century and they share their vast knowledge of astrophysics we won’t be able to slingshot around the sun and go back in time either. However, thanks to the efforts of retail marketing experts we can expand time. Proof is that one day sales now routinely happen over a full weekend and a single day (Cyber Monday) can last a whole week and another (Black Friday) now takes up almost what was once an entire month. Although marketers have been improving the concept, the idea of time expansion is not new and was first developed by the United States government with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1975 which stretched paltry 24 hour celebrations of key historical events over 3 days eliminating those pesky workdays between weekends and an extra day off for the holidays that had the nerve to land on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday in certain years. 
 
An immutable law of physics is the conservation of matter which states that mass is a constant which cannot be created nor destroyed, but it can change shape or form. This is especially well documented around the holidays when the goodies on that Christmas cookie tray change from the shape of a Santa on his sleigh to the shape of your ever growing midsection. This law also governs why post New Years Resolution diets fail. You can eat all the celery you want but a pound of vegetables is still a pound and when you gobble it up that pound must be reformed into something else, most likely your waist.
 
ChristmasLights
Some things, again most noticeable during this holiday season, seem to defy this law. It is well documented that any new set of Christmas tree lights once removed from their package and placed on the tree then removed from the tree at the end of the season expands in size and never fit into the original packaging again. If matter cannot be created from where is this excess stuff transferred? I suggest you take a look at some of the most common chocolates you fill those Christmas candy dishes with. Those pound bags of colorfully wrapped Hershey’s Kisses are steadily shrinking, this year down to a trim 11 ounces. They aren’t the only ones who suffer when lights, garland, and even extension cords outgrow their storage cartons. Even the niche traditional candies are being downsized in a heroic effort to maintain the conservation of matter. The Italian delight LaFlorentine torrone is down to boxes of 7-1/2 ounces and Terry’s chocolate oranges once a proud half pound now weigh in at a hair over 6 ounces.
 
The other constant in life may be noticed only by fathers with children getting their first bikes this Christmas but is valid year round and is not gender exclusive. That is a new law of nature, the law of actual assembly time (LAAT). This applies to all toys with the back of the box fine print “some assembly required” as well as to DIY home improvement projects and with appropriate extrapolation, to luggage retrieval times at airports with more than one gate. The LAAT states to determine the actual assembly time multiply the given estimate by 3 and adjust with an additional 5% for every tool required, known as the tool locating variable. (For luggage retrieval substitute “TSA approved lock used” for “tool required.” If locks are not TSA approved actual retrieval time approaches infinity).
 
So you see there are more absolutes than death and taxes, even in The Bahamas.
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*Countries with no personal income tax, in case you are planning a big move sometime in the future. (You probably will notice some of these places are potential paradises while others don’t get so high a AAA travel rating. Of the most desirable places what you save on taxes may end up going to buy a quart of milk. Probably another one of those absolute laws –  The Law of You Get What You Pay For.)
 
Bahamas
Bahrain 
Brunei
Cayman Islands
Kuwait 
Maldives 
Monaco
Nauru 
Oman
Qatar
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Somalia 
United Arab Emirates 
Vanuatu 
Western Sahara

Conserving Matter

Michael Leave a comment

As a scientist, one of my personal commandments was thou shalt not deny the conservation of matter. What we have we always had and always will. Never more. Never less. Always was, is, and will be. It can change, but it won’t disappear. It might look new, but it’s only rearranged. Ice melts into water, water vaporizes into steam, steam condenses into water, water freezes into ice. Always there, always the same, even when different.

Sociologists have their own sort of conservation of matter. Everybody we have is every body we will have. Old people move from the cold of New York to the warmth of Ft. Lauderdale. Immigrants from Caribbean refuges move from south Florida to Chicago to open diners specializing in arroz con gandules. Bright eyed 20 year olds move from Naperville to the seek fame and fortune in Manhattan.

Now, economists want to horn in on the fame afforded to our anything but fortuitous conservation of matter. You’ll recall the landmark post uploaded to this very blog not even some 30 months ago about the ever increasing sizes of American sizes. (If you don’t, you can read it here. If you do but don’t recall it as “landmark,” then you must have a pretty low opinion of yourself reading such drivel. If you do and you do recall it as “landmark,” have I got a bridge to sell you!) To refresh your memory, there is no more small or medium in American. It’s all large, extra large, and full size. This would seem to contradict the natural order of the conservation of matter. Where are the extras going into the larges coming from? In a word, coffee.

Coffee? Yes, coffee. For some time coffee package sizes have been dwindling before our very eyes every time we bring them (our eyes, not the coffee packages) into a grocery store. Years and years and years and years ago, and a few more before that, the standard coffee sizes were one pound cans or bags (for single coffee drinker households), two pound cans (for those teetering on the brink of narcolepsy), and three pound mega-cans (for households with small children). (If you ever had small children you understand that.)  The three pound cans disappears years ago replaced by 36 ounce canisters and the one pound varieties lost 4 ounces to become sleek 12 ounce bags. Now the largest single size container of coffee you can buy is a 30 ounce plastic jug, the small choice is a mere 11 ounces (8.4 to 10 ounces for designer brands and flavors), and medium has disappeared altogether.

So you’re going to say that you don’t drink coffee so your matter is indeed growing every time you order a large sweet tea or test drive an extended cab pickup. No, no, no. You might not drink coffee but if you’re partaking of the classic American coffee break you’re part of the proof of the hypothesis, eating one (or maybe two) out of a pack of 21 prepackaged cookies that used to come in cartons of 24, or one of a new baker’s dozen of donuts that now total a mere ten. Crackers that used to be sold in 12 ounce boxes are now 11, and cream cheese for your bagel is in a 6.5 ounce container when once it was 8.

So there you have it. The modern iteration of that most ancient of all absolutes. Everything indeed is as it once was, merely changed.