Does this qualify me for the biggest nerd ever?

[Meldread]

Last night I had the strangest dream, normally I don't remember my dreams but this one stuck with me. I don't remember how it started out... but the part I do remember was being in a vehicle like thing and feeling like I was going up a rollercoaster (right before you take the big dive down). I looked over to my side and realized that I was going up into the air, actually, I was already pretty high in the air and could see the treetops down below. It seemed like a long time was passing, and the ride never slowed down or speed up - it was just a constant and gradual climb. I could feel those little butterflies in my stomach that you sometimes get when driving up or down hills in the mountains - except way worse. I could feel gravity pulling me back toward the Earth as I climbed higher, but it really didn't seem to matter.

Some how, I guess I was floating, I ended up above the vehicle and noticed that it looked like it was on a bridge going straight up into the air, at an angle, going off as far as I could see. Then I was floating off to the side of it, and I noticed that it was held up by these beam things underneath. (It kinda looked like these pillar things that came together at an angle, like an upside down "V".)

Anyway, somehow I ended up back in the vehicle and I wondered, "What is this? Where am I going?" And, I'm not completely sure, but I think the song "Stairway to Heaven" started playing somewhere in the background and I laughed and said out loud, "Is this a joke?" THEN, Carl Sagan turned around from the front seat (I was alone until this point), and said "No, this is very real. We're going on a little trip." My response was something like, "Huh?" And Carl smiled at me like I was a complete idiot and explained (in a tone that matched his expression), "We're going up the Space Elevator into space. They built it at an angle to help deal with the pull of gravity. You should know that." I was quiet for a minute and then blurted out, "Didn't you used to smoke pot?" He laughed at me and said, "Yeah, but we're both high now." I laughed and then Carl said, "Let's just enjoy the ride." I said "Okay" and then woke up.

Do I qualify either for the biggest nerd ever for dreaming about space elevators AND Carl Sagan or do I qualify for something much, much worse? :P

(By the way, no illegal substances were involved in this dream.)

Ahhh... recounting this dream makes me miss Carl. I loved the way he talked about Science and History, I could listen to him talk about it forever... and somehow he always had the ability to make even the mundane things seem spectacular. I wish he was still with us. :(

[marmar]

1. Either a nerd...

or a major consumer of Amsterdam's finest. :smoke: :hi:

[Sal Minella]

6. St. John's wort (herbal anti-depressant) does that to me --

weird and wonderful dreams that seem related to nothing in waking life.

[SmokingJacket]

2. You win!

;-)

I have been thinking about and reading books by Sagan a lot lately, and MISSING him. He must be tossing in his grave right now.

There have been a couple threads about him here, too. I wonder why he's on everyone's mind all of a sudden???

[Meldread]

9. I have no idea.

He is probably rolling over in his grave as a result to the insane fundamentalism that is taking hold in America, and how it's battling so hard against science. He'd likely see it as a return to the dark ages.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. With book titles like "Science as a Candle in the Dark" ...

maybe it is obvious why everyone is remembering back to a time when our political leadership wasn't smothering our intellectual leadership, but worked in concert, or at least in parallel, with it.

[Up2Late]

3. Sounds more like Astral Projection or a near Death experience to me.

Astral Projection (out of body travel) is fun, the other is not.

Sorry, I hope it was the first one (or just a weird dream), I'm had some that were that strange before.

[Kailassa]

12. Everyone's different, but for me, a near-death experience

was the most wonderful experience of my life.

And I've had a good many wonderful things happen in my life, so that's saying a lot. ;-)

[Up2Late]

14. What I meant by "I hope it wasn't a 'near-death' experience," was...

...that if it was, it could be that medical condition where the person's heart stops or they stop breathing for short periods, in the middle of the night while they sleep (Sleep Apnea?), which I think is progressive condition. That would not be something to get too excited about.

[Kailassa]

16. Very true, don't want anything bad happening to DUers ;-)

I'd misunderstood and thought you meant the experience itself was unpleasant.

[htuttle]

4. So have you sketched out the design you saw in your dream?

Brains are funny things. Sometimes they come up with their best ideas when we're not using them.

[Meldread]

8. No, but...

...it was pretty clear in my head. It was basically just a bridge like structure that went up at an angle into the air. It was really long, it seemed endless, and under the bridge were column like things to support it and keep it in the air that came together at an angle under the bridge. They formed a sort of upside down "V". The purpose of the bridges design was to try... I assume... balance out the pull of gravity... or something like that. It was pretty simplistic looking and didn't seem unordinary, really, aside from the fact that it was a bridge going way up into the air, eventually leading to space.

Of course, you have to imagine the scope of the bridge. It's what? Roughly 1,200 miles from Earth's Surface to Space? That means there would be a bridge longer than 1,200 miles (because it goes up at an angle) and a bridge that long would demand many columns to support it, the longest of which would be roughly 1,2000 miles up into the air. (Could you imagine if one of those things collapsed? Pity the fools below.)

[htuttle]

10. I think we'll need a new kind of stuff to build any sort of space elevator

I don't know of any material that can support a column of itself 12,000 miles high for the final pillars (or even a more traditionally conceived space-elevator 'cable').

Maybe some kind of 12,000 mile long fullerene nanotube...or something made out of a bunch of them. :shrug:

[Scribe]

19. And it goes straight up 24,300 miles - to a geostationary landing

where the centrifugal force holds the weight of the nanotube cable. At least, that was Arthur C. Clark's suggestion, as I understand it. Well, Clark didn't propose carbon nano Bucky balls cables as far as I know but people who have recently taken up his idea have.

[Carni]

5. Did you wake up with a bustle in your hedgerow?

Please..don't be alarmed now.

[Meldread]

7. LOL.

Well, I didn't actually hear ALL of the song... it was strange. It was like very faint and sort of far away sounding. It reminded me of Elevator music. (Appropriate for the dream I suppose.) The only part I really heard was "she's buying a stairway to heaven." The rest was faintly familiar but to dim and faint sounding to really be audible.

Was a very interesting dream, very vivid in my mind. When I think about it I can still feel the butterflies in my stomach and the sensation of moving up into the air.

[frogmarch]

11. What a wonderful dream!

Music, speeding toward the cosmos with Carl Sagan...wow!

And to think that in my most memorable dream I was a bicycle basket. (I was a skate key once too.)

[Kailassa]

13. My feeling is that when you dream like this about a person,

you are actually meeting with them in another dimension.

I'd say Carl came and dragged your spirit out of bed and took you to a dimension he'd invented specially, just for fun.

Once, at the beginning of a complicated court case, I dreamed I met the judge in the locker-room of his club, and we talked until he knew the whole story behind what had happened. The next day in court he was treating me much better than he had the day before, and it was obvious we had a real rapport. As far as I could suss out, he knew things after that night which he had no other way of knowing except me telling him in the dream.

But then I believe this whole world is an illusion that we have made between us, and that the whole idea of "us" is just a trick of overlapping multiple realities anyway.

[Esra Star]

15. Carl Sagan is still present, in the millions of people he inspired. n/t

[OhioNerd]

18. You are not a Nerd unless...

You are not a Nerd unless you can recite Pi to more than 10 decimal places... from memory. :D

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3.14159265358979

[Tesha]

20. Why do I need to derivmemorize it? I have a neat-o Perl script that...

Why do I need to memorize it? I have a neat-o Perl script that
can derive the value of Pi for me any time I want. ;-)

Tesha

[OhioNerd]

21. Bah! ANYONE can use a calculator. :p (n/t)

[Tesha]

22. Do you not see me say "derive"?

As in, compute Pi from first principles?

No measurements, no pre-canned values.

Tesha

[OhioNerd]

23. You said you were using a script. Same thing. :p Cheater! (n/t)

[Tesha]

24. It's a script *I* wrote. :P (NT)

[OhioNerd]

25. *yawn* I once wrote this cool little program...

...that says "Hello" when you click a button. :P

[Tesha]

26. Golly! I hope you didn't strain anything! (NT)