From the notebook of Spin, a 17-year-old boy living hundred years from now.
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| A self-portrait by Spin |
Name: Spin
Age: 17 Years
Date: December 20, 2109
Project: Top 10 News Stories Of The Year 2009
Age: 17 Years
Date: December 20, 2109
Project: Top 10 News Stories Of The Year 2009
1. Barack Hussein Obama II became President of a powerful conglomerate of 50 states called United States in the Continent of North America. The same year, he was
also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His mother was a white American, but his father being an African, he was hailed all over the world as the first African American president of the US. In those initial days of racial mixing, people could be distinctly categorized as Africans, Caucasians, Asians etc. Thus, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination were rampant in every society. Barack Obama demonstrated the audacity of hope and inspired many young people to break the moulds that the society and, sometimes, even their own parents cast on them.
2. A phenomenon called terrorism consumed most of the resources of the human race. According to one ancient dictionary, the definition of terrorism is, “The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for ideological or political purposes.” In other words, while half of the population was hungry and shelter-less, the other half was engaged in killing each other.
This other half was constituted of, a)Active terrorists such as leaders and provocateurs who sat in the comfort and security of their homes, and their henchmen or soldiers, and b)Passive terrorists such as those who funded the terrorism directly, and the common people who paid taxes and either supported the atrocities or remained silent.
3. Swine Flu: The year 2009 is also remembered for the Swine Flu pandemic, which killed more than 10.000 people. It was caused by the H1N1 viral strain. The infection produced fever, lethargy, sneezing, coughing, difficulty in breathing and decreased appetite in pigs. Sometimes it also caused abortion. Although mortality was low, pigs suffered weight loss and poor growth.
In humans, the symptoms were fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. The mortality rate was same as any other influenza. The scientific medical knowledge of that time was less than 1% of what we have today. They knew the symptoms of almost all the diseases, but lacked the cures. The medicines were mostly ineffective or caused many side effects. Once a person visited a physician, he would never recover fully. The surgeons indulged in crude forms of surgery, literally cutting the body, fixing the problem with hands, and then stitching back with a threaded needle.
4. Two scientific events of that year proved to be of great importance. The first one was an experiment related to the Standard Model of particle physics, an oversimplified theory of that time, which was surprisingly able to explain many experimental measurements and the first three of these four fundamental interactions in nature— strong forces, weak forces, electromagnetic forces, and gravity. To complete the Standard Model, and explain gravity they needed to find a hypothetical particle named Higgs Boson.
To detect Higgs Boson, a Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile tunnel was built underneath the Swiss-French border by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It took 15 years and $9 billion to build that collider. In November 2009, for the first time, they were able to produce a collision of protons by accelerating them to energies of 1.2 trillion electron volts apiece. In the coming years, they were able to smash protons at 7 trillion electron volts apiece, and after continued efforts, solved the Higgs Boson enigma.
The second event of that year was the discovery of around 25 gallons of water on Moon’s Cabeus crater. It was in unusable form clinging to dust particles, but it paved the foundation for future explorations and ultimately the construction of Moon Station, not for colonizing it, as was the popular imagination of that period, but for scientific experiments.
5. Eldrick Tont Woods, commonly known as Tiger Woods, rocked the media in the months following November 2009. At that time Woods was the highest-paid professional golfer, and golf used to be an outdoor game. His private act of having consensual sex with women was a big story in those conservative times, more so, because he was married with two children. ‘Marriage’ used to be a monogamous institution encouraged by religion, state, and society, in which two persons—one female another male—were supposed to suffer each other for their entire lives. Although initially, the institution was designed in favor of men, their condition deteriorated in proportion to the liberation of women, who became more and more aggressive with time.
Yesterday, my girlfriend was extremely jealous and enraged when she came across a casual message exchange with my former batchmate. I have been asking that silly friend of mine to stop obsessing about me, and do some productive work and concentrate on her studies. Despite all the progress and change, our basic emotions remain the same. Stories of desire, unrequited love, lust, heartbreak, and betrayal from the distant past connect us to our ancestors more than anything else does.
Continued here.
also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His mother was a white American, but his father being an African, he was hailed all over the world as the first African American president of the US. In those initial days of racial mixing, people could be distinctly categorized as Africans, Caucasians, Asians etc. Thus, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination were rampant in every society. Barack Obama demonstrated the audacity of hope and inspired many young people to break the moulds that the society and, sometimes, even their own parents cast on them.
2. A phenomenon called terrorism consumed most of the resources of the human race. According to one ancient dictionary, the definition of terrorism is, “The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for ideological or political purposes.” In other words, while half of the population was hungry and shelter-less, the other half was engaged in killing each other.
This other half was constituted of, a)Active terrorists such as leaders and provocateurs who sat in the comfort and security of their homes, and their henchmen or soldiers, and b)Passive terrorists such as those who funded the terrorism directly, and the common people who paid taxes and either supported the atrocities or remained silent.
3. Swine Flu: The year 2009 is also remembered for the Swine Flu pandemic, which killed more than 10.000 people. It was caused by the H1N1 viral strain. The infection produced fever, lethargy, sneezing, coughing, difficulty in breathing and decreased appetite in pigs. Sometimes it also caused abortion. Although mortality was low, pigs suffered weight loss and poor growth.
In humans, the symptoms were fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. The mortality rate was same as any other influenza. The scientific medical knowledge of that time was less than 1% of what we have today. They knew the symptoms of almost all the diseases, but lacked the cures. The medicines were mostly ineffective or caused many side effects. Once a person visited a physician, he would never recover fully. The surgeons indulged in crude forms of surgery, literally cutting the body, fixing the problem with hands, and then stitching back with a threaded needle.
4. Two scientific events of that year proved to be of great importance. The first one was an experiment related to the Standard Model of particle physics, an oversimplified theory of that time, which was surprisingly able to explain many experimental measurements and the first three of these four fundamental interactions in nature— strong forces, weak forces, electromagnetic forces, and gravity. To complete the Standard Model, and explain gravity they needed to find a hypothetical particle named Higgs Boson.
To detect Higgs Boson, a Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile tunnel was built underneath the Swiss-French border by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It took 15 years and $9 billion to build that collider. In November 2009, for the first time, they were able to produce a collision of protons by accelerating them to energies of 1.2 trillion electron volts apiece. In the coming years, they were able to smash protons at 7 trillion electron volts apiece, and after continued efforts, solved the Higgs Boson enigma.
The second event of that year was the discovery of around 25 gallons of water on Moon’s Cabeus crater. It was in unusable form clinging to dust particles, but it paved the foundation for future explorations and ultimately the construction of Moon Station, not for colonizing it, as was the popular imagination of that period, but for scientific experiments.
5. Eldrick Tont Woods, commonly known as Tiger Woods, rocked the media in the months following November 2009. At that time Woods was the highest-paid professional golfer, and golf used to be an outdoor game. His private act of having consensual sex with women was a big story in those conservative times, more so, because he was married with two children. ‘Marriage’ used to be a monogamous institution encouraged by religion, state, and society, in which two persons—one female another male—were supposed to suffer each other for their entire lives. Although initially, the institution was designed in favor of men, their condition deteriorated in proportion to the liberation of women, who became more and more aggressive with time.
Yesterday, my girlfriend was extremely jealous and enraged when she came across a casual message exchange with my former batchmate. I have been asking that silly friend of mine to stop obsessing about me, and do some productive work and concentrate on her studies. Despite all the progress and change, our basic emotions remain the same. Stories of desire, unrequited love, lust, heartbreak, and betrayal from the distant past connect us to our ancestors more than anything else does.
Continued here.
(Picture courtesy Flicker.com)
His own analysis makes it an interesting read, although i'm not quite sure if he is right about Higgs Boson particles.
ReplyDeleteGirl, you seem to have some inside information!
ReplyDelete