Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 17:25:22 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>At 08:31 PM 04/02/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>Concerning age, history, etc, one needs a proper appreciation for the
>>awe inspiring depths of geological time.  How can a single century be
>>considered a long time when there have been so many millions of them?
>>And when the universe is still so very young, with a future far longer
>>than its past?
>>
>>Some people were impressed by my computer history exhibit.  But I have
>>fossils more than ten million times older than those PDP-11 manuals,
>>punched cards, and Nixie tubes.  And yet those fossils all came from
>>the most recent ten percent of our planet's history.
>>--
>>People tend to be more aware of direct experience - and I doubt any of =
us
>>will ever be able to experience a millenia.
>
>Not unless someone in this crowd is secretly named Woodrow Wilson Smith.
>
>(It was Smith wasn't it?)

Yup, and an alias was Lazarus Long.

Curiously, another Smith was Michael Valentine Smith, late of Mars.

mjw

>
>Candy
>