“Astronomers use a star’s light to determine the star’s temperature, composition and motion. Astronomers analyze a star’s light by looking at it’s intensity at different wavelengths. Also known as Wien’s displacement law (developed by German physicist Wilhelm Wien) links the wavelength at which the most energy is given out by an object and its temperature. Astronomers put filters of different standard colors on a telescope to allow only light of a particular color from a star to pass. In this way, astronomers determine the brightness of a star at particular wavelengths. From this information, astronomers can use Wien’s law to determine the star’s surface temperature.”
–Microsoft Encarta. 2001
I stood there, with my booted foot on his bad knee and my Beretta Tomcat in his face.
“Don’t you fucking move” I said as calmly as I could. He just laughed. This frustrated me to the point that I dug my heel into his kneecap. I think I witnessed a wince of pain but I couldn’t tell if it was the drugs at that point or not. I couldn’t tell much of anything. I could only feel the rage that boiled inside of me with an intensity comparable to the surface of a white dwarf stars. For some reason my astronomy class was running through my brain. The different intensities of stars and the scale they used. They were hard to remember because letters were assigned to each one.
“Are you going to shoot me?” he laughed under his breath. All I wanted to do was remember the letters.
“You better shut the fuck up” I snapped back. I shot the gun in the air and the pieces of stucco ceiling fell lightly on us like snow. And then everything was quiet. And we starred at each other for a moment. Assessing the situation. What could either of us do, or for that matter, what would we do?”
