Rectangles, assignment 5, zachary langdon

Humans like rectangles. Almost to a worrying degree. Nearly all media we cram into rectangles, be it books, movies, pictures, even windows. If we view something, its probably through a rectangle. If we store something, it’s probably in a rectangular container from binders to laptops to shipping crates.  And from many angles this makes no sense. Our field of view is elliptical, and yet we wear rectangular glasses. Our hands and fingers operate on circular fields of movement, and yet keyboards and touchscreens are rectangles. The simplest shape, the one our brain unconsciously organizes the world into, is triangles; so where did all the rectangles come from?  

I’ll tell you, but first we must learn a lesson; Newtons 1^st law of motion. To save you the jargon, it essentially states that objects will stay still if still, and keep moving if moving. If given the choice, as in gravity doesn’t pull it and nothing touches it, it will keep doing exactly what it was doing. The odd aspect of this is that it matters not whether it is still or moving.

So how can something be different and not be treated any differently? Because their difference is subjective. Movement is determinable by using a reference point; if a speedometer reads 60mph, it is referring to your motion relative to the reference point of the earth. If you set the reference point of the moving object and the stationary object to the respective object, both travel at 0 speed with no direction; In that frame of reference the two have no difference.

Let us leave the physics and try another example, one more down to earth. As I write the Emmys are being awarded. It is now that the best actors on television are being recognized for their achievement. I’ve muted twitter just for the occasion. But the fact I had to do so highlights an important frame of reference. I don’t care in the least who got what trophy or what the prettiest dress was on the red carpet. But the amount of people who do is so large I have to erect walls between me and them in order to carry on writing and hold on to my last marble. Surely if this is the case, then I must be missing something, right? To this I am forced to respond maybe, but I would also have to ask, have you heard of Arthur B. McDonald?

Metaphorically, he tore up the fabric of reality and demanded it be made into a snuggie. Technically, he, along with Takaaki Kajita, discovered that neutrinos had mass, something they really should not have in the current standard model of physics. So the standard model must be rewoven to accommodate his discovery. For this, he was awarded the Nobel prize for physics last year. And where were you when this reality shattering development unfolded? Probably talking about how Kevin Spacey was amazing in House of Cards or how hilarious Amy Poehler is as Leslie Knope in Parks and Rec after they won Emmys the preceding week if you're anything like the people on twitter right now. Not quite on the same level as Arthur “remake the universe as a quilt in my image” B. McDonald are they?

And yet in all probability, this is the first time you’ve heard of Arthur. And that’s ok, I looked him up just for this piece; I had no idea who he was 30 minutes ago. You may vote Knope, some may honor Arthur, and I was probably listening to a new album I had gotten the previous week for my birthday. We all have different reference points in terms of what is important; these reference points create our rectangular frames of reference.

I could tell you that we love rectangles because gravity likes right angles for structural reasons, that putting information are right angles allows it to be compact, or that making an arc keyboard is really hard to do. But we like rectangles because we’ve always like rectangles. We started using rectangles because they were good at some things and just never stopped. We've put ourselves into a rectangular frame of reference for various rational reasons, and rather than make a new frame for new things, we just use the rectangular one. We’re blockheads. So the rectangles make more rectangles until eventually someone taps some rectangles on his rectangle while looking at rectangles displayed on his rectangle to write a rectangular column about why we like rectangles.

All through round glasses of course.