by Rob Perez
Columnist

I was listening to Sam Cooke sing about all the things he doesn’t know, and it’s quite a list. History, biology, French, etc. And I was thinking, that guy should maybe go back to school and get a few fundamentals under his belt because you never know when you’re going to need them. But then my 8-year-old daughter and I went to a science museum, and I’m not sure I know any more than Cooke.

This museum is highly regarded. It had all kinds of exhibits, hands-on, interactive, informative, educational, entertaining. It covered a pretty vast array of topics, from the earth to animals to outer space. And about halfway through the museum I realized, I don’t know any of this.

I mean, I guess I know a little bit about gravity. Like that if you knock a coffee cup off a table, it doesn’t fall up, or sideways. That sucker falls down. But that might be it. Like everything.

I was going from exhibit to exhibit, from the periodic table to a pendulum, from how planes fly to how the brain works, and at some point I wondered: How did I make it this far in life without knowing this?

I mean, I guess I took a different path. Like Sam Cooke knows love. I know words. I can make words go. As Steve Martin once said, “Some people have a way with words, others… no have way.” I comfortably plunk myself in the former camp.

But then you put me in front of a pendulum that explains that the Earth is really rotating and I’m like, um, what is going on here? I’m not a science denier like some people. I accept the science. They tell me the Earth is spinning about a thousand miles an hour, and that pendulum somehow proves it. Fine. I’ll take your word for it. But don’t ask me to explain it because I have no idea. Like, not the foggiest.

Then I’m in front of a wall displaying the periodic table of elements. I think, mmm-hmm. But if someone ever asked, what’s an element? I’d say: An element is a thing without another thing, like it’s one thing, not two.

There was an exhibit on how planes fly and I sat there and I tried. I really tried to comprehend. A plane goes up because of this. And if you asked me what “this” is, I’d say magic.

Then there’s the Big Bang. Now, this one I know. First, there was nothing. Then there was a bang. A big one. And it was pretty loud. And then, somehow, a universe.

But what caused the bang? In my experience, a bang happens when you walk into something, like a wall. Usually because it’s dark and you can’t find the lights. But there weren’t any lights. Or walls, for that matter. So the big bang’s still a bit of a mystery.

There’s even a bit of science in my blood. My dad was a physicist, and I have to tell you, I have no idea what that guy did all day long. When I think of physics, I think of leverage. So maybe he was just working with pulleys and banging objects into other objects all day long? I lived with that guy until I was eighteen and he tried to explain it to me more than once. I just didn’t get it. Now I don’t even think I came close.

And yet, my shoes and clothes and cars and planes and computers and phones and medicines exist because of someone else’s science. So that same someone else should stay in charge of the science. Sam Cooke can take care of the love. And I’ll be in charge of the words.