emergency almanac - summer 2003
 Acceleration

by Bryan Tomasovich

Our symbol for acceleration is

so acceleration is the bulk
of our daily speech...
like the indefinite article, "a machine"...
a constant demand to accelerate. Call it coincidence
yet we act not on a concept of a machine at rest
but one accelerating...an indefinite or arbitrary
demand for accleration, the most common gesture
of our speech.  
I'm accusing us.
And a coincidence is just as faulty as centrifugal force. Rule is
that centrifugual force /center fleeing/ is really only the absence
of centripetal force /center seeking/.
Outside physics our hotrod impulse is to hammer against circles and bends
and peck away at the straight line. If we are thrown
against a car door when negotiating the curve
we notice impact on our bodies...this is my body craving the straight path.
We behave as motorists, and
our attention strays from car 
to juice in our organs. We forget
the brute power once buckled in it
plastic contours molded to animal shapes
of our digits and buttocks.
We behave as motorists...this is
our aerodynamic fit of a time
not an assignment 
made of latin syllables
someone catching us if centripetal force
is not explained 
inside the physics classrooms 
where force is scratched formulas and not noise 
of factors we 'ignore' or 'negate'...too difficult to calculate.
None the less...
Factors = Thrills
acceleration
wind in our hair
and friction.
Attention strays from factors to thrills. Great distances can
result in zip-o displacement...going nowhere fast.
Of course, to take physics farther
we need to talk about evil.
Beastly noise of acceleration
is about brinkmanship
excess express!
and the cure-all, 'the jaws of life' (not a jaws of life).
But who cannot bother to take part...
contribute? For now. It's a free country
after--not all--but what's in our exhaust.
What begins in the nerves is free
to work its way to the periphery. 
Our nuts drive such freedom.
 
In freedom, evil is 
in noise and silence.
Good noise means
taking into account that a thrill
lands up and down someone's spine.
Do we know what a 'second squared' is?
If 
acceleration = final speed - original speed 
                                       total time 
what if we factor in more than one dimension?
And where do we measure
not average acceleration
but instantaneous acceleration...at the open-air concert? 
the classroom?
garden?
a death-bed to tend to?
If more than one dimension is too complicated...
do we contribute? More than one 
is not a vacuum. Calls up 
wind resistance. Can not ignore that the bulk
of noise is deflection, swat, clap.
Wind-made noise is the catalyst
of far-reached noise...change wind
and we change climates. Try to find a breeze
that's not lofting waves of noise. 
And calls up friction...our normal force despite
the pure hard math.
Ff  =   µFN 
Values of the coefficient of friction (µ )depend on the surface.
Textbook examples are asphalt, steel, and ice.
Again, the spine? 
Simple machines fool us, a pedal
a treadle, a trigger that start the ball
rolling, complicately, into combustion
and propulsion, rhythms we cannot detect
by listening, only centripetal force.
Our imagery consists 
of our own bodily motion.
This dimension.
Revamp the books...
no more cannons
tossed balls
planets around the sun
Show us
rushing to the job
sirens doppling outside windows
experimental military aircraft
mowing weeds
garbage trucks.
Show us
evil in noise.
Show your work.