I was thinking today, about projectiles. When I was about sixteen, I studied projectiles as part of my mechanics module for Maths A Level. I was the only one in the class, and Mr Mallarkey (I know it sounds made up but I promise you that was his actual name) drew parabolas and equations on the blackboard.
A projectile is launched, and various parameters to do with its mass and its angle, determine quite specifically where it lands and how long it takes to get there. Obvious really, but the maths part makes it beautiful to see mapped out in Newtonian physics. Plus, I was into the video game Worms at the time, so it was also super useful.
One thing that struck me (then and today) was that a projectile’s path was completely determined at its point of launch. Gravity made it so certain! Before a tennis ball leaves my hand, I know that it curves up, runs out of kinetic energy, stops mid-air, and then comes back down again in a perfect parabolic curve. If I have a way of knowing the parameters precisely, before its journey has even begun, I can calculate its trajectory.
Does that terrify you? It does me. What if the rest of life is like that? What if certain trajectories are so far out of our control, all we can do is watch the curve as the ball flies through the air, knowing well that there’s a thud, or the shatter of broken glass at the other end? What if there’s nothing you can do to change a person’s trajectory? What if someone you love is metaphorically hurtling through the air and the laws of physics are working exactly as you feared? I’d rather not watch, I suppose, but to be honest, that doesn’t feel like one of the options.
I saw a meteor tonight. I was driving along the motorway - it was dark, and I was just listening to the news headlines. A bright flash caught my eye as it streamed diagonally earthwards. Then it was gone.
Perhaps that lump of space-rock had a trajectory all of its own - tumbling and accelerating through our atmosphere as it burned. Who knows where it began, how it came to be spinning through the universe. And for how long? What set it off on its long long journey? Was I the only person to see it?
Mr Mallarkey’s drawings were wrong, I think. At least, he’d drawn them to show the natural ideal path a projectile would take. But, I reasoned, trajectories get interrupted all the time. A fielder catches a cricket ball and prevents a boundary; a trapeze artist trips and tumbles into a net rather than the circus floor. And a meteor, on an endless path through space, collides with our planet and bursts into flame just as I’m watching that exact bit of sky. You could call these miracles if you like. I like to think that God is able to keep us from falling.
Perhaps not every trajectory is set from the beginning then. I like it. That situation that’s a car-crash in slow-motion - it’s not too late to stop it. That report from the doctor - it’s not too late for a divine intervention. That predictable end to what was once a good relationship - it can be changed, it can be reversed. The ball can be caught, the meteor can become a meteorite, the future can be changed, even when it looks bleakest.
I wish I’d thought of that in Mr Mallarkey’s class.
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