UP AND DOWN?

 

   Thinking like a physicist I once tried to convince a skeptical and unbelieving manager at my part time job that there is no such thing as up and down.  By way of a greeting he had asked me, "What's up?" I replied, "There's no such thing as up or down."  This of course demanded an explanation and I offered it to him carefully. I didn't want to overload his thought processes.  He listened intently, gave me a strange look and told me slowly the management line he had learned in his How to Handle Employees Handbook.  "Get back to work."I did but it didn't change the up or down argument.

  Think about it.  If two people are on opposite sides of the world, the direction one calls up is down to the other person and visa-verse the  direction one calls down is up to the other.  How can the same direction be both up and down.  To make matters more confusing.  It they are both facing the same direction (that might require one of them standing on his head), that direction may be east for one but it would be west for the other.  If behind them is west for one it would be east for the other.  To their right would be south for one and north for the other and to their left is north for one and south for the other.  No wonder no one knows which way to turn. 

          I solved the problem for him by explaining the truth about directions.  What we call up is really away from the center of a gravity well and down is toward the center of a gravity well. This is true no matter where you are on the surface of the earth.  As to the other directions i.e. North, South, East and West, forward, backward, to the right or to the left will just have to do until we can accept forward or backward parallel to the center of a gravity well and right or left parallel to the center of a gravity well.

          So the next time someone asks you, “What’s up?”  Tell them kindly, “There is no such thing,”  but don't try to explain it to them.