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Cartoon Laws of Physics
Cartoon Laws of Physics

I hesitate to tell you this but here goes: cartoons probably account for 30% of my early childhood influence. Sorry kids if your moms and pops suddenly rush up from the screen in a desperate attempt to turn off the tele in time to save you from my outcome.

Fact is cartoons were one of three places that characters behaved in anything like "normal" fashion. The other two places were sci-fi films and horror films. Which by the way account for the another 60% of my upbringing. The other 10% we can divide equally between school and homelife. The news and soap operas were not normal by any standard that I cared to use. Sherlock Holms (which I alternately categorized as sci-fi or horror depending on the story line) taught me much of my current attitude forward what's possible and what's not possible. It's not often possible to tell whether Nigel Bruce or Basil Rathbone contributed the more to that make-up. What does this have to do with cartoons? Everything my dear Watson.

Cartoons and Sherlock Holmes and science fiction and horror all followed a self-consistent set of laws. Even the inconsistencies were consistent. The laws formed a kind of symmetry that for me as a budding mathematician and physics (I did have a life before I became Dead Elvis) exhibited a beauty of their own.

I appreciated the straightforward conflict and resolution. Soaps and news (both run by the same producers if you ask me) have a self-involution in which the purpose seems to be agitation without relaxation.

Hence, I very much enjoyed the "Cartoon Laws of Physics." I do believe that some University should encourage a theatre, art and physics department to cooperate in a joint-venture to bring these laws into full flourish -- graphs, diagrams, symposia, the works. They are always trying to create interdepartmental exchange. Here's their chance. If they needs a spot to post the results let me know. There's always plenty of room for projects as worthy as that.

Yours truly,
Dead Elvis