Remember when we all had a good laugh at Insane Clown Posse for daring to ask how gravity works? Me too! So I was a bit flummoxed to learn that the original rhyme was about magnetism, not gravity. This may be another example of the Mandela Effect, like the Barenstein Bears, or it might just be my mistake. Either way, it’s yet another reminder to show humility about the things I think I know, to be humble in the face of all that I don’t, can’t, know.
I think they were really asking why, more than how, and expressing comfort with not having a good answer. The song was called “Miracles,” after all, and was filled with childlike wonder at the everyday ineffable. We should be impressed that these hardscrabble Detroit clowns could see the world like this - unjaded by their past, uncalloused by their success.
Find me an explanation for magnets or gravity that answers “why?” Google it up, and you’ll find your betters at NASA and the universities subtly redirecting you to “what?” and “how?” What these forces are, and their mechanics of action, have all been well described by physicists. But that’s not what I asked! Why are some materials magnetic? Why does an electromagnet have magnetic force? Why does mass have gravity? Why does spacetime curve?
Please, if you know, share. If you don’t, quit laughing and enjoy the damn universe. It’s OK. No judgment here. We are all in the dark. We are all clowns.
I think they were really asking why, more than how, and expressing comfort with not having a good answer. The song was called “Miracles,” after all, and was filled with childlike wonder at the everyday ineffable. We should be impressed that these hardscrabble Detroit clowns could see the world like this - unjaded by their past, uncalloused by their success.
Find me an explanation for magnets or gravity that answers “why?” Google it up, and you’ll find your betters at NASA and the universities subtly redirecting you to “what?” and “how?” What these forces are, and their mechanics of action, have all been well described by physicists. But that’s not what I asked! Why are some materials magnetic? Why does an electromagnet have magnetic force? Why does mass have gravity? Why does spacetime curve?
Please, if you know, share. If you don’t, quit laughing and enjoy the damn universe. It’s OK. No judgment here. We are all in the dark. We are all clowns.
