June 23, 2004

The world of blogging

I had lunch today with one of my readers - who was in Manhattan for the day. In my mind, I refer to John as my "national science adviser". Well, I've got lots of science buffs out there - but he is most definitely one of them! We've never met - and so we went out for sushi at a joint right off of Times Square.

It was so nice!

The conversation roamed about - and I learned, once again, why I love this blogging-thing so much.

The people you meet. The people with wide-ranging interests and jobs, such diversity - people I would probably never come into contact with otherwise, and that would be a shame.

Also, John knows a lot about Central Asia. I'm such a geek about Central Asia, so it was great to talk to someone who had actually been there!

Oh, and we also somehow got to talking JFK Jr's death, and how it happened - how JFK Jr. was trying to find the horizon, all while he was in a tailspin. He had no idea he was in a tailspin. I am unable to understand the physics of how this could be - how JFK Jr. could not FEEL that he was going down. I know he was looking for lights on the horizon as opposed to looking at his instruments - I know that. I know that if he looked at his instruments he would have seen the disaster ... Anyway. Very interesting. John explained it. If I squinted, I felt like I could understand.

All of this is just to say - we had a lovely lunch and it was great to meet him. The blogging thing is a never-ending pleasure, gotta say!

(Oh, and because I'm obsessive:

Our conversation about JFK Jr. and the tailspin made me think of a VERY interesting article I had read by Malcolm Gladwell (like his stuff a lot) - The premise of the article is fear. Why some people "choke", and others "panic". There is a distinction between the two - and Gladwell gives a couple of examples. He uses the JFK Jr. airplane crash as one of his examples. I found it kind of terrifying. And also very interesting. I found the article online, if any of you are interested in having a look.)

Very nice to meet you, John. :)

Posted by sheila
Comments

Is that the same John who posts on my site sometimes? PhD in chemistry, lived in Japan and the Soviet Union, wife is Chinese?

Posted by: CW at June 23, 2004 8:23 PM

Also it astonished me how bad a pilot JFK Jr. was that he spiraled a perfectly good airplane into the water on a hazy afternoon. He must not have understood ANY of the instruments in his cockpit. (or that big white button marked "autopilot").

Posted by: CW at June 23, 2004 8:27 PM

Flight instructors like to do a demonstration in which you close your eyes (or wear a hood) and then ask you to tell them what you think the plane is doing. Without visual reference, it's impossible--you may think the plane is in a steep climb when it's actually in a level left turn.

Posted by: David Foster at June 23, 2004 9:24 PM

Shiela, it was nice meeting you, too.

Posted by: John at June 23, 2004 10:12 PM

David Foster:

I still find that so hard to fathom - what you describe. I don't understand the mechanics, really, of how that is possible. But it is very interesting. The article I link to talks about the G-force - and how when you start to spiral down faster (help, I have no idea how to talk about this) - finally, it is your inner ear which tells you that something is wrong.

But you could be in some kind of deathspin for quite some time before your body recognizes it.

sigh. I have NO idea what I am talking about.

Posted by: red at June 24, 2004 11:11 AM

It's just that gravity and acceleration are the same, as far as your body knows...and also, your body has absolutely no way of detecting speed. So if you're going a constant 1000 mph forward, you don't have any sensation of speed unless you can see something out the window. Similarly (and this probably seems stranger) you could have a constant speed of 200 feet per second *straight down* and not have any sensation of falling. (The pit-of-the-stomach feeling you get in elevators is actually due to acceleration, which is the rate of change of speed, rather than the vertical speed per se).

The first rule of instrument flying is, never trust your inner ear.

Posted by: David Foster at June 24, 2004 7:02 PM