I’ve never been much for theoretical thinking. As many of you know, my knowledge of physics and higher math comes straight out of watching Star Trek and an interest in Astronomy. I get how light speed works, and comprehend the doppler effect. But there are a few things life under the tutelage of Kirk and Picard can’t explain.

First, there’s algebra. Algebra was my downfall in high school and the Romulan-Borg-style nemisis that nearly defeated me in college. I can say I’ve never used algebra since I managed to pass it.

Next, let’s examine the semantics of the expression Black Hole. The word hole (get your mind out of the gutter), has a very specific meaning. I’ve never quite understood why a black hole was called a black hole because something that sucks matter into it can’t actually be a hole, now can it? It’s not exactly empty now, is it?  Nothing passes through to the other side (at least as far as we know). Infinite light-sucking web would be a better way to describe the mechanics of a black hole.  Don’tcha think?

Then, in the real world, using the math you’re taught in high school, when you multiply two negative numbers you suddenly have a positive result–which has always perplexed me since bank balances sure don’t work that way.  Obviously, the economic world was using the theoretical side of integers. Banks were borrowing money they didn’t have to make money that wasn’t there and was never going to be there. Yes. it’s a black hole in the "red" got sucked into the great black nothingness scientific sense, and yet it perfectly highlights the impractical, not very useful in day-to-day life application that multiplying two negatives gives you a positive. It is a gargantuan, non-theoretical indication that this sort of math has no place in real life. Leveraging and sub-prime mortgages were a BIG mistake.  My very basic mathematics skills apply here. I could have told Wall Street they were being plenty stupid to buy into the -2 trillion x -2 trillion was Not going to be a be +4 trillion. 

Finally, with all those puzzling facts of mathematics, physics, and big banking, why did I decide to make the heroine of my current work-in- progress a nuclear physicist?  

I ‘anno (said with a shaking head and slack-jawed voice).