made of
“We are all made of stars,” people like to say,
intending to imply how special we are.
But what is not made of stars?
The Earth is made of stars, and stars are made of other stars.
We are also made of water and minerals and air;
even the dead bodies of others are in our nails and hair.
I was walking my bike downtown today,
when a woman who I had heard
yelling unintelligible things
asked if I wanted to go for a ride.
We talked for a minute as I tried to understand
where she was coming from, and what she wanted
from me, with little progress.
It seemed like maybe chaos was her thing,
and that's dangerous for me, so I declined,
and said I was going home, which ended up being true,
though I wasn't certain of it at the time.
Hydrogen, helium, and lithium.
It is thought that these three elements
came from the big bang directly,
with all others being created inside of stars.
The minimum temperature required for the fusion of hydrogen
(the main ingredient of stars) is 5 million degrees,
with some elements requiring far higher temperatures.
Barium, for example, which has a thermal conductivity of
18.4 W/(m⋅K), an electrical resistivity of 332 nΩ⋅m (at 20 °C),
a bulk modulus of 9.6 GPa, and which has 40 known isotopes,
ranging in mass between 114 and 153, is.... um........
well I seem to have lost my train of thought.
When two people can't see eye to eye, how do they know
which one's camera isn't capturing the full spectrum of light?
~
2024 - 2025