Chuck in his Gleneden Beach, Oregon bachelor bungalow (circa early 1970's).
Jerry Foster in his office (circa early 21st Century).
Jerry writes: Well Chuck, I'm seeing the point of your theory of gravity, though I don't really believe in all of it. Tell me, how did you come up with the theory?
Chuck writes:
I was in the 7th grade at the time, must have been 13 years old. The reason I was younger than my classmates is that my Mother started me in the first grade when I was only five years old. Shades of Forrest Gump!
It was my first winter in Kinzua, Oregon. It had snowed.
My family lived on Schoolhouse hill, just a tad below the school.
Except for the paved road that came from Fossil and ended in front of the town’s mercantile, other roads within Kinzua were dirt, unpaved with no gravel. The only road that had gravel was the one that left Kinzua headed for Camp five.
I owned the standard two runner kid’s snow sled, decided to sled down to the railroad tracks just behind the mercantile.
My Mickey Mouse watch had no second hand, but I was able to time seconds by estimating, looking where the minute hand was in relation to adjacent minutes.
I was wearing a cloth jacket and a cloth cap.
Recently, after consulting with members of the Kinzua Facebook group, the consensus was the distance to the bottom of the hill was between one-half mile and three-quarters mile.
Sitting up, my feet on the steering bar (wooden), holding in both hands the steering rope that was attached to the steering bar, I set off down the road.
Unfortunately, today I no longer remember the elapsed time the trip took. But that winter’s day of sledding I figured I could cut the time by waxing with wax paper the bottoms of the sled runners.
To lessen wind resistance I changed from the cloth coat to one with a vinyl outer covering. I removed the cloth cap because the vinyl jacket had a vinyl covered hood. I also decided to lie down on the sled rather than sit upright.
About 100 yards down the road, next to Carroll Sizemore’s house (7th grade best friend) was a major intersection connecting four roads.
I dragged my left foot to help make a tight turn through the intersection.
Going on down the hill I was excited, figuring I would vastly reduce the elapsed time.
I was much disappointed at the end of the run, not cutting off any time.
I tried once more that day, this time not dragging my foot at the turn. Still took the same amount of time.
That evening, after my Dad came home from work, I told him of my problem of not being able to get down the hill faster.
My Dad, who was a WWII veteran and also a voracious reader, told me of a WWII Russian bomber gunner. Seems he was not wearing his parachute, was thrown out of the bomber when it was attacked by a German fighter. The bomber had disintegrated.
His falling speed was reduced by crashing through limbs of a fir tree, then falling into a deep snowdrift. He survived with a broken leg. (Or maybe it was an arm, I forget.)
My Dad then told me that when falling one has a TERMINAL VELOCITY!) One cannot exceed that speed. I went to Kinzua’s library, discovered the TERMINAL VELOCITY to be 120 MPH (miles per hour.)
In Boy scouts, when I built an electric motor for a merit badge, the instructions warned builders to always have a load on the motor given if it had no load it would spin so fast it would self-destruct.
I wondered why that fact had no connection to TERMINAL VELOCITY. To my thinking, only wind resistance would lead to TERMINAL VELOCITY.
Jerry, you know I’m somewhat perverse in my thinking. I began to formulate the idea that gravity was in fact the Earth expanding outward.
When my family moved to McMinnville, Oregon the libraries there were far superior to the one in Kinzua. I knew Albert Einstein had some ideas concerning cosmological issues. It was then when I became aware of cosmological or universal expansion. I came to the conclusion that the famous observation proposed by Einstein that light from a distant star was bent by the gravitational attraction of our sun was incorrect! The light was in fact refracted by the denseness of space that was being compressed by the expansion of our sun!
In 1969 after I had returned to the world from Vietnam I bought a house in Gleneden Beach, Oregon. I began to ponder what I knew then of Gravity.
One day Ron Anderson was visiting. I was outside on the northern side of the house, sitting on a chopping block the previous owner had left.
I had just then finalized my theory when Ron came outside, asked me what I was thinking.
I figured my theory was to other people a gonzo explanation. I replied, “Oh nothing really. Just thinking.”
So, recently I’ve been watching on the History Channel the weekly show “THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND.” I became fascinated because of the possibility that the KNIGHTS TEMPLAR in the 1300’s may have buried treasure and other artifacts on the island. In a recent episode of said show Rick Lagina who is the principle person in the show disclosed that he became fascinated with Oak Island when Rick was only 11 years old. I immediately fixated on the fact that my gravity theory was founded when I was only 13 years old. Thanks Rick. You spawned the writing of this article.
Jerry, more than 40 years after my sled trips came your article and our continuing discussions.
Many thanks!!!!
NAMASTE
Chuck AKA Pappy AKA C.E. Gee AKA this world’s first Solarian.
Click here for this blog's TABLE OF CONTENTS. Then scroll down until you see Jerry's picture under the heading of GUEST COLUMNISTS. There you will find the various articles related to this post.
For this blog's HOMEPAGE click her
Our very popular series of Jerry/Buck Science Fiction stories, which are based upon Jerry and Chuck's theories, is found in this blog's Science Fiction article. In the stories Chuck is named Buck.
Click here for our Science Fiction article.
To read of SOLARIANS click here.
To read of KINZUA click here.
To read of the KNIGHTS TEMPLAR click here.
| C.E. Gee in his Las Vegas studio. THANKS FOR READING |
