A friend observed recently that Myron thinks about big questions. Sometimes this involves actually asking the questions, and sometimes it’s making exploratory statements on the path toward figuring things out. Here are a few Myron quotes that capture the magic.
Rhode Island is the smallest state, but it can stretch to bring all the buildings close to our house. Every building is covered in Rhode Island.
Lights are the things that make the world a cookie, but it’s a cookie that people live on. (said after looking out an airplane window at night)
I can remember things from a long time ago. The rememberings don’t fall out of my head because I have special webs in my head.
Sometimes when a chicken wants to die, it takes off its legs and gives them to a person to eat. It’s okay because it can’t feel the hurting when its legs are off.
In another conversation that happened months earlier, Myron said something about giving the leg back to the chicken after eating some of it.
Another time, Em made chicken for her and Myron for dinner, and she had put some loose chicken meat on his plate. There was also some meat on a bone in the serving dish. Myron said,
Can I get some of that holding meat?
Em mentioned that she pinched her finger in her mouse scroll wheel at work one day, and Myron said,
Maybe you left your window open and a squirrel jumped in and bit your finger.
Myron:
I want to see a volcano erupting.
Em:
Often times they’re not erupting.
Myron:
I want to go at a not-often time.
Myron has a language learning app that he uses in school. I set it up on a tablet for him to continue using at home, and I suggested he play it before playing other games he wanted to play. Myron said,
It’s not a game. It’s for you to grow your brain. Then why did you call it “play”?
Myron has also been mixing up the measurement of time versus distance / area / volume. Myron doesn’t like to eat potatoes, but Em said he had to eat a certain amount before dessert. Looking at the amount of potatoes Em put on his plate, Myron said,
That’s a whole half hour!
Maybe part of general relativity is just remembering how to think like a five-year-old?
We saw some jack-o-lanterns recently, and Myron asked if their lights were on all day. Em said they weren’t because it had to be dark to see them. Myron said something about how people could just turn off the lights to make it dark. We pointed out that the sun would still make things bright, and Myron said,
Oh yeah. The sun doesn’t have a plug.
Also see A four-year-old contemplates mortality.