Thought Experiment

August 1, 2007

Situation

A man is sealed inside a windowless elevator and either suspended above the ground by a crane or towed through deep space at a constant acceleration of approximately 32 feet per second per second. There is no way for the man inside to know the difference. If he were to drop a penny from his pocket it would fall exactly as it would fall if he were to drop the same penny while standing on the earth. He might actually be on the ground. He will just have to take our word for it.

Clarification

The windowless elevator is not unlike a diving bell or what he imagines to be a nautilus which he has always mistakenly pictured as smooth and empty inside, rather than chambered. He has also likened the elevator to a bullet with himself inside the cartridge.

Even if the man were to glimpse the steel eye on the top fitted with a durable cable, he would know only that he was about to hang, not how.

Humans are not sensitive enough to detect the gravitational effects of planets in the same solar system, much less nearby stars. But to keep things honest we must assume that any deep-space towing will have to be out in the interstellar reaches where light and warmth have long since fled.

The situation indicates that a dropped penny would fall the same way it falls on earth, but in fact the penny is always falling, but without falling. As is the man inside. As are we.

There’s no window in the elevator because it is a long-standing principle that what is seen through any window individually cannot be trusted; what is witnessed alone means nothing.

It is possible, but unlikely, that having endured a long voyage, the elevator is no longer underway nor hovering above the earth but is instead drifting slowly at a perfect distance from the dark remains of a collapsed star whose remaining rays shine on nothing, a mere teaspoonful of which would mass more than everything the man has ever touched, even counting the dark bodies in his barely remembered dreams.

Questions

What is the necessary tensile strength of the cable? How was the elevator sealed: bolts? Solder?

Did the man volunteer? Did he question the requirement that he bring a penny? If the elevator is completely sealed how do you know it’s not a quarter or a silver dollar, or a mint coin sealed in plastic still untouched by human hands?

If you are on the other end of the cable would that make you God or just someone set into motion by him? And why do you tow the tiny human? Are you swinging or also turning? Do you get dizzy?

Is the elevator on a path to some unseen destination or is it just sweeping a wide circle, a sloshing, saline bucket made of bone on the end of a knotted silk rope?

Direction

When complete, copy your formulae and supporting diagrams without visible erasures or corrections. File the document in the appropriate sleeve for review.

When you walk to your car, stop for a moment in the unlit lot. Feel the weight of the obscured starstream pressing down on the bowl of city lights. Close your eyes and stand still. Remember: you are only trapped by the limits of your perception of motion relative to the things that leave you. That’s someone else in the windowless room without trajectory. That’s not his faint voice, it’s the radio from the open window of someone’s bedroom, listening with the lights off. That’s your heartbeat, not his muffled fists pounding on the bare, bloody walls.

Tags: AtRandom, journal