Warts, blackholes, and baby universes

  

I live with four nephews.  The oldest is 10 years old and is the son of my first cousin who works overseas and who prefers that his child would be raised by his aunt, my mom.  The other three, ages 7, 3, and 1, are the sons of my brother who live with us in the same compound.  “Makulit” is an understatement for these boys especially if they are all in a single space and time.  But they are smart and their sharpness often leaves me off balanced.

 

The other day, my friend, Kaka, the counsel of the Sumilao farmers, would have a date and wanted to straighten her hair.  After a long drought of beauty rests – with the Sumilao and now Calatagan farmers’ walk – we felt it was time to be beautiful (for Kaka, it was also time to have a date).  We went to the mall and the advice of the beauty attendant (those who still call them “beauticians” did not have a visit to the salons in Manila over the last 10 years) was for Kaka to have a hair rebond.  We were told that the procedure would take more than two hours and since the girl-who-would-go-on-a-date also wants a pedi (if you call this procedure “pedicure” then you did not watch the last season of Friends and therefore you missed the terrific season ender) then she would need three hours inside the parlor. 

 

My hair is as dry as the asphalted street in Teacher’s Village where I work so I didn’t go with her to the parlor.  To pass off time, I decided to have a facial at the nearby dermatological/beauty clinic.  As I was lying there looking into the face of the “facialist” upside down, she remarked that I have warts that must be removed if I want my face to be smooth, supple, and clean.  I didn’t get what she was saying until she showed me what she meant by warts.  Since the wart removal would approximately take two hours then I would only have an hour of waiting time.  At first I was aghast with the price but the facialist convinced me that they are already giving me a good bargain.  Afterwards, I was surprised with the irritating pain of the procedure.  Apparently, coterization or the wart removal process meant that the wart would be removed by burning the little ugly thing.  Lastly, I was shocked with what I looked like after the coterization.  I had small burnt marks it seemed like I had moles all over my cheeks. 

 

When my 7 and 3 year old nephews saw me, they both asked, in their get-off-me-I would-look-at-you-from-afar manner, “what is that on your face?!”  I replied that those were blackholes and baby universes.  Ever since they were much younger I would teach them long words and grown up phrases like “disgusting,” “awesome,” and “what is the matter, peanut butter.”  With the coterization, I figured, it was another chance to introduce a seemingly intelligent and smart concept.  The 7-year old took up my story and said, “Dinosaurs live in those baby universes.”  His ading, the 3-year old said, “yes, dinosaur that ate the girl.”  So much for introducing quantum mechanics to little Einteins. 

 

“Black Holes and Baby Universes” is the title of one of Stephen Hawking’s essays.  Hawking is a physicist who is widely regarded as a genius despite his debilitating ALS.  He wrote “A Brief History of Time” and if I am correct he is developing his unified theory of relativity by working on Eintein’s General Theory of Relativity, his own investigation on the Uncertainty Principle, and his imaginary time.  Einstein, in his brilliance, said that space is not flat but is curved or warped because of the matter and energy that are in it.  His findings led to theoretical questions like if space is curved and nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) then there must be a region, a place somewhere, from which nothing could escape.  A scientist labeled this region a black hole. 

 

By using the Uncertainty Principle and the concept of Imagined Time (that reminds me of Anderson’s Imagined Communities), Hawking proposed that objects which fall into black holes form baby universes that could/might join our universe. 

 

I reread Hawking’s essay after my conversation with the baby dinosaurs.  I remembered my fascination with physics in my undergrad NatSci 1.  I got a high grade in the course and for half a semester I was dreaming of pursuing a degree in theoretical physics.  My dream balloon burst when I saw the math courses and the quanti-based subjects that I would need to take if I would take Eintein’s path.  While I could understand and imagine the concepts, there was no way that I could translate them into mathematical statements. 

 

I didn’t become a physicist but for a moment, as I was discoursing with my nephews, I counted my black holes and joined the boys in their imaginary intergalactic world of baby universes where dinosaurs eat girls.