What Einstein Told His Barber: More Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions

by Robert L. Wolke

(Actually, it's our eyes that can't separate the images if they come too close together: Our brains are fast enough. But it still takes my brain more than an hour—if then—to understand what's going on in some movies.)

Why don't birds get electrocuted when perching on high-voltage power lines? This question is as old as electric power itself. It has been asked almost as often as “Do you love me?” and with equally unconvincing replies.

Where do the electrons go after they pass through our electric appliances? They return to Mother Earth, which is where the electric company got them from in the first place. Where else, for heaven's sake, could they have gotten them? The moon?

A perfect vacuum, a real vacuum, on the other hand, is a space that contains absolutely nothing, not even a single molecule. But a perfect vacuum is only an abstract concept, like a perfectly trustworthy politician. It just doesn't exist in the real world.