Black as a thousand midnights
Published Monday, July 11th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
As I was riding home from work today I hear the phrase “black as a thousand midnights” on the radio. I found it pretty strange to talk about blackness as something that can be superimposed. Isn’t blackness the lack of color? If you look at the amount of light present in one midnight and add up a thousand of them I think you would get a pretty bright night. It got me thinking of what other silly phrases I can think of that have this same logic (or lack of).
As cold as a thousand ice cubes. (each cube is less then 0C (270 K) so 1000 should be about 270,000 C or 45 times as hot as the outer surface of the sun).
As quiet as a thousand mice. (a quiet room is 40 dB or 10^-8 W/m^2. If we take this as the intensity of a mouse then a thousand would be about 10^-5 W/m^2 or 70 dB, almost shouting).
As empty as a thousand vacuums. (can you get less stuff then nothing?).
Slow as a thousand turtles (a thousand turtles traveling at 4 mph all travel at 4 mph but if we add that would be 4,000 mph, about twice the SR-71 speed record).
As fast as a thousand beams of light. (nothing can travel faster then c so it must be c).
As dense as a thousand black holes. (Can you get any denser then a singularity).
As boring as a thousand English classes (ok, I can understand that one).
As cold as a thousand ice cubes. (each cube is less then 0C (270 K) so 1000 should be about 270,000 C or 45 times as hot as the outer surface of the sun).
As quiet as a thousand mice. (a quiet room is 40 dB or 10^-8 W/m^2. If we take this as the intensity of a mouse then a thousand would be about 10^-5 W/m^2 or 70 dB, almost shouting).
As empty as a thousand vacuums. (can you get less stuff then nothing?).
Slow as a thousand turtles (a thousand turtles traveling at 4 mph all travel at 4 mph but if we add that would be 4,000 mph, about twice the SR-71 speed record).
As fast as a thousand beams of light. (nothing can travel faster then c so it must be c).
As dense as a thousand black holes. (Can you get any denser then a singularity).
As boring as a thousand English classes (ok, I can understand that one).
July 14th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
LOl @ “As boring as a thousand English classes”.
I like the analyses and mathematically perpetrated explanations =)
aria
August 5th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Hi, I was searching the title of a book I heard of while listening to NPR Radio. I disagree that blackness means void, or lack of color. Blackness is a perception, such as a sista girl’s evident demeanor. It is the reason one is proud to be ‘Black’ for our ancestor’s skin was often a deep and rich black, like tilled dirt, like the water of the Nile; Blackness cannot be devoid of itself, because we exist here in every hue of “Blackness” and we cannot change that for our ancestors were spread around and within the Diaspora. There may be many phrases that seem nonsensical, but I would not include ‘black as a thousand midnights.’ It was the midnights captured Africans dreamed about, as they recalled lives left behind. It was these same midnights that led them along the trail of freedom, to the Undergroung Railroad, and to the North to what we now take for granted: FREEDOM! Keep expressin’, keep it real.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Rofl, like you analogy with the mice. This is definitely a different way to approach the phrases.
-Jon
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