Clever Magazine, Vol. 6, #4 " Convergences " (www.clevermag.com)

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Convergences

by Martin Green

The car-tree convergence

Probably everyone has seen that cartoon where two cars, traveling in the vast spaces of a desert, meet in a head-on collision. The cartoon illustrates what I’ll call the principle of convergence. Think of the space-time continuum as a vast space, like a desert. Events are not evenly dispersed in that space but tend to converge at certain points in the continuum.

We say that people involved in accidents were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A person walking along a downtown sidewalk to a store at the exact instant that a girder falls from above and crushes him. If he’d left a moment earlier or later he wouldn’t have been at the fatal spot. It’s the principle of convergence.

Scientists have attributed the recent rash of accidents—the mid-air plane crashes, the cars colliding with trains at railroad crossings, the ocean liners crashing into icebergs—as well as the other unusual occurrences—the increased traffic at commute time, the series of earthquakes in California, even restaurants being crowded at certain times while remaining empty at others—to any number of causes. These may be called the usual suspects: the greenhouse effect, the coming of another Ice Age, the destruction of the rain forests, the influence of aliens from outer space, the effect of nuclear testing and of course that old standby, sunspots.

My belief is that the actual cause is an acceleration of the convergence principle. It’s as if some giant had lifted the space-time continuum at one end and all of the events had spilled down into the other. Why such an acceleration at this particular time? One obvious reason is the tremendous increase in world population. The more people in the world the more the events involving them and so the greater the probability that these events will converge with one another. Quite possibly some critical mass in world population was reached and this at least helped to set off the acceleration.

My own personal awareness that events were converging more started a few months ago. I live in a house in the suburbs; the garage has a sloping driveway. Whenever I back my car down the driveway I look both ways to see if any traffic is coming. Mine is a typical suburban street, usually quiet, but, in accordance with the principle of convergence, more often than not the one car driving down the street in that hour will be doing so at just the time I’m backing down the driveway.

I began to notice that I had to stop to let not only one car go by but two or three and then even a half dozen before I could safely turn into the street. Thus alerted, I also noticed an increasing number of cars converging at the street turning out to the main artery to the highway and then the same thing on the ramp to the highway. I mentioned this to my wife one day as she, our three sons and I converged on the kitchen to get snacks to eat. She shrugged and said there were too many cars in the neighborhood and it was also getting harder to find a parking space at the local supermarket.

Needless to say, it soon developed that the problem was not simply an excess of cars. Eventually, when the nation’s highways became clogged (this was promptly labeled the Los Angeles syndrome), the government had to act. People were ordered to take public transportation wherever possible. Ramps to highways were strictly policed and only a limited number of vehicles were allowed at specific times.

Governments tried to regulate air traffic in a similar manner but when, despite all the restrictions, planes continued to collide -- all air travel except for absolutely necessary flights were canceled. A whole array of other regulations were devised to put the suddenly erratic movements of life into some semblance of order. Telephone calls were restricted by last name so that A’s through D’s could call on Monday, E’s through H’s on Tuesday, and so on. Store hours were extended so that most places were open all day and people were given specific days and times when they could shop. Of course, a vast new bureaucracy sprang up to administer and enforce all of these new regulations.

People tried to regulate their own lives to keep inconveniences at a minimum, not to mention trying to insure their safety. The result was that most people took to staying home at nights. Television ratings soared as did sales of video movies. The birth rate also started rising. The travel industry virtually disappeared. Auto sales plummeted. Hotel and motel chains followed each other into bankruptcy. Of the fast-food chains, only McDonald’s remained, just barely, in business.

But there were beneficial effects. With everyone staying at home, crime went down. The computer companies did a roaring business. Companies that produced other products for home entertainment, from CD’s to VCR’s and DVD’s, also prospered.

On the whole though most would have agreed that they’d be happy if things went back to what was considered normal. In my own case, despite all my care in backing my car out of my driveway, one day the inevitable happened and one more car than I’d anticipated came speeding by and we had a collision. Luckily, nobody was injured but my car was left with a big dent in its side. I decided not to have it repaired, figuring there’d be more to come.

Then one evening, my wife and I, desperate to get out of the house and away from the kids, drove our dented car to a restaurant that was just opening. Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to have the same idea and traffic was so heavy we couldn’t even get near the place. No, we definitely wanted things the old way.

Every now and then some expert unveils a study showing that the convergence of events (only they don’t call it that) is decreasing. One prominent scientist claimed that the current phenomenon was just the latest in a series of cycles occurring throughout history, like booms and recessions. The reason nobody else has come across these cycles is explained as being lack of data. t’s inevitable, he says, that the pendulum will one day swing in the opposite direction.

I myself can’t be so optimistic. I sent a little piece describing my own theory to one of the popular magazines. A few weeks later, it was returned with a rejection slip saying this was the 400^th piece expounding this theory received in the past month. So it doesn’t appear that the pendulum will be swinging back anytime soon. Uh oh, I just heard a crash outside my house. I have to run outside to see who or what has converged this time.