What keeps you up at night? (Read 648 times)

Last night I was WIDE awake well after bedtime. For some dumb reason I got it in my head that our smoke detector battery needs changing. So I started thinking about the fact that I'm not sure if DS knows what to do in case of fire--his bedroom is upstairs, ours is down. So we need to teach him about feeling the door and how to get out of his room if he can't use the stairs to get out of the house. Why do I think of this stuff in the middle of the night?

I think all of those are true except for the the Chinese...but I did have paczkis!

but I did have paczkis!

hmm...if you had a few...maybe a few too many....that would keep anyone awake....yikes...

Now I wonder what I will obsess about tonite...

How about the fact that in a few billion years, the Earth will fall into the sun and every trace of human history will be erased forever, meaning that nothing we ever do or say will actually mean anything, for all time. All we are is dust in the wind. I find a little existential angst is really fun at 3:00 a.m. You're welcome. Enjoy!

I think there's more than ample evidence to strongly support #1.

Birds of a feather...

How about the fact that in a few billion years, the Earth will fall into the sun and every trace of human history will be erased forever, meaning that nothing we ever do or say will actually mean anything, for all time. All we are is dust in the wind.

No, you've got it all wrong. The earth will not fall into the sun; the sun will expand into a red giant with a diameter roughly equal to Mars' orbit and swallow up the earth. I hope this clarification makes everyone feel better.

Well, maybe this will make you feel better. And worse. Wikipeida

While it is likely that the expansion of the outer layers of the Sun will reach the current position of Earth's orbit, recent research suggests that mass lost from the Sun earlier in its red giant phase will cause the Earth's orbit to move further out, preventing it from being engulfed. However, Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space. The increase in solar temperatures over this period is sufficient that by about 900 million years into the future, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it. After another billion years the surface water will have completely disappeared.

So, the earth might not get swallowed up, but will be uninhabitable far sooner than the few billion years I used to believe. I don't know how I'm gonna sleep tonight.

Jeff...you seriously are a cross between did and my brother. This confirms it. How do you sleep at night?

Heh. Sleep like a rock. With two young kids who don't sleep worth a damn, I'm so tired all the time that I very rarely have trouble sleeping. Though when I do, it's bad and I'll be up to 4am thinking about death. By runaway solar heating.