Everything you wanted to know about science … that my brain can’t cope with

Image: Pixabay

 

My brain is a soft and squishy thing.

Yeah, alright, I know everyone’s brain is soft and squishy, being made of water and fat and pumped full of blood and whatnot. But in practice, mine seems to be more squishy than others.

Allow me to give you an example.

I used to work with someone who was the living definition of mercurial – she could switch from generous hearted sweety to flame-breathing mega baggage in seconds. One thing she was terrific at was arguing. That girl could take words and spin them in such a way, you’d be trussed with logic and choking on your own views before you could blink.

And this was where my woolly headedness let me down, because even when I was right, knew I was right – even when she knew I was right – I NEVER WON AN ARGUMENT WITH HER. My poor, laggy brain was just incapable of untangling the mesh of reasoning she wove around me.

Having a fluffy bundle of pink cotton wool where my prefrontal cortex should be is probably also why I’m incapable of deciphering maths and logic puzzles and why I get lost trying to understand physics theories and the periodic table.

Which is a shame because I love science. Love the fact that we can work out which gases distant stars are composed of just from their colour, that we know the universe is expanding and that we know there’s still plenty that we don’t know. Problem is, I don’t really understand it.

I’d like to know why spacetime is compared to a rubber sheet and why gravity affects it. I’d like to know how electricity works and radios and why all the colours of the spectrum combine to make white light.

I’ve tried to lern these facts, honest. But as I memorise Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, the difference between a neutron and an electron is pushed out of my skull. 

Part of this is retention, I know. If I had an eidetic memory like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, I’d at least be able to spout facts at people, even if I didn’t understand them.

But a skill I’ll never have and one I would dearly love – and therefore my Wednesday Word Tangle – is,

RATIOCINATION: a process of exact thinking or a reasoned train of thought.

I can’t manage this. My general woolliness trips me up, bundling me off into daydreaming about rats with ears like butterfly wings and what would happen if I snorted ground cinnamon. 

I’d like to think that completing a few books of sudokus would help sharpen me up, create some connections which have been missing thus far, but who am I kidding? I am and always will be woolly.

So remember, don’t pick an argument with me – unless you like winning … 

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With thanks to Kat, the originator of W4W