GENERATION A (DOUGLAS COUPLAND) AND SCIENTISTS´ WORK

The first thing I want to say is that I don´t share the main idea of the following text. And I´m not even willing to admit that it may be an exageration. In spite of that, and for being refutated, I post it here.

So, because of his near-crippling jealousy, our young scientist found it hard to concentrate on his specific laboratory task, which was this: he aimed laser pulses through a micromisted protein broth. This allowed him to isolate and separate specific proteins within. It was a job that needed much skill and decades of education but was about as fun as stocking cardboard boxes at a Body Shop. The scientist wondered if his entire youth had been wasted in attaining what was essentially an ultra-high-tech McJob

THE LITTLE PRINCE ( ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY) AND THE MOVEMENT OF PLANETS

“I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now.”

“But we must wait,” I said.

“Wait? For what?” “For the sunset. We must wait until it is time.”

At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me: “I am always thinking that I am at home!”

Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France. If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like...

“One day,” you said to me, “I saw the sunset forty-four times!”

I first heard of The Little Prince in the Spanish TV series Blue Summer. There, a child asked his father what he was able to see in the famous drawing: a hat or a snake. Of course, the father saw a hat and that made the child huff.

Both this book and that series transmit the idea that adult people are a bit stupid, just for being adults. I myself admit and recognize the superiority of childhood, but I think you can show it in a more elegant way.

With regards to the scientific comment, apart from whether the median density of the planet could generate a gravity field for the little prince, I can see another problem. The relative distances and perspectives in such a small planet make us wonder whether it is possible that this planet (named asteroid B612) could create sunsets. But these words come from an unpleasant adult, with no fantasy and no imagination.