Kent State and the Event Horizon
When history develops enough mass, it becomes impossible to see the future.
Warning: Tomorrow we’re going to talk about the No Kings protests. Today we’re jumping up to a higher level because I want to explore the limits of our ability to anticipate the future. I think the best metaphor for this conversation is a phenomenon called an event horizon.
We’re going to have to talk about physics as a setup. But eventually, we’ll wind our way to a discussion of Kent State and, finally, to what happens after this Saturday. Because my thesis is that Saturday could be an event horizon for America.
It’s a long way around the barn, but I hope it will be worth your time.
1. Gravity
In physics, gravity is one of the four fundamental forces. It is powerful enough that if a gravitational force gets sufficiently large, it affects both space and time around it. We refer to this phenomenon as a black hole; black holes are defined by what we call an event horizon.
It works like this:1 A black hole is a localized area with enormous density. Meaning that it has tremendously large mass packed into a tiny volume. Think about this on the scale of a collapsed star.
You understand intuitively how gravitational effects work: Mass has an attractive force. So when you jump, the earth’s gravity pulls you back down to the ground. Well, density compounds gravitational force. Meaning that if you pack enough mass into a small enough space, the amount of gravitational force it exudes starts to do strange things.
Get enough density and the gravitational force becomes so large that even light can’t escape it. Hence the term black hole.
But if you were to look at a black hole, it wouldn’t be a literal black hole. You would see something in space—a sphere. And this sphere’s boundary would be defined by something called an event horizon.2
And here’s where things get a little trippy.
