One bit of national news caught my eye the other day.

Apparently, a missile intercept test went awry in Hawaii and we missed the target drone. The way it was explained it seems like an almost impossible task “like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet” was how it was explained.

I can see how that would be very difficult, unless it’s in the plot of "The Matrix."

In response, it was pointed out North Korea was working on firing missiles in a salvo, making it a near impossibility to get them all and even missiles that can be guided to avoid anti-missiles.

I guess some people would worry about North Korea hitting us with a nuclear missile but lately I’m not one of them. Actually, worrying about being blown up doesn’t even make my list these days.

With my wife’s passing in December, I’ve had a lot of priority shifting going on in my life and if I go out in a big bang so be it.

These days, my thought processes have been more like the Jackson Browne song with the same title.

“Well I’ve been out walking
I don’t do that much talking these days
These days-
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you

And all the times I had the chance to”

I’m not alone facing personal tragedy I know. There’re so many others out there who have similar stories, are going through hardships in their lives so I can see how politics and global crisises can take a back seat in someone’s life.
I think it boils to down to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity which he used to describe to layman as such:

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity,” he said.

I know I have quirky hobbies, with one being the fascination and study of quantum mechanics and theory. It seems the smaller we look at things, the bigger they get and the rules of general physics go out the window.

Quantum mechanics (QM; also known as quantum physics or quantum theory), including quantum field theory, is a fundamental theory in physics which describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic particles.

Classical physics (the physics existing before quantum mechanics) is a set of fundamental theories which describes nature at ordinary (macroscopic) scale. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.

Some scientists spend their entire lives pursuing the knowledge of the very small which theoretically can be as large as the universe is big. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around, I know.

So you see why I’m not as concerned about being at ground zero if the world comes to an end.

I have faith it’s not really the end.

Contact Steve Warner at news@smithvillereview.com