Into the Fray

Notes from the Prairie: I Wonder #22

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

When I finished telling my brother, Dale, a story of a classic family-dinner debate from my childhood, he didn’t respond as expected. Others (my husband, cousins, and friends) had chuckled, sighed, or shaken their heads in disbelief when I shared it with them.

Due to a multi-year gap between Dale and his older siblings, he did not remember the event. However, he didn’t chuckle, sigh or shake his head. He wrinkled his brow instead, and I wondered briefly about his strange response.

Here’s the story I have told, as I recall it, from childhood.

Our three brothers were perhaps 12, 13, and 14. I was 15. Dad, a car mechanic and later a tool salesman, used the word “vacuum” to describe either powering our car or our Hoover carpet sweeper.

My brothers saw their opportunity and leaped into debate mode.

“There is no such thing as a vacuum,” said Don.

Marv added, “The power doesn’t come from a vacuum.”

Rog chimed in, “The power is atmospheric pressure.”

Dad maintained a vacuum existed and provided power.

All four added details and facts and logic to support their views.

I didn’t say a word. I liked science well enough, but preferred being reading “Gone with the Wind” and Avalon romances.

The discussion grew loud, then heated. It consumed the entire mealtime. Mother and I ate in silence, not wanting to enter the fray.

Over the years, I became a storyteller. I worked with words and launched a small writing-services company. I helped my mother publish a book of maxims she had collected in three notebooks. My three oldest brothers became computer programmers, mathematicians, and owners of tech companies. Their interests resemble our father’s. Several of them have told me I am like our mother.

Now, back to Dale’s odd response. His puzzled look lasted only two seconds. Then he said with total surety, “They can’t have been debating the word ‘vacuum.’ It had to be the word ‘suction.’”

He was too young to remember this, but he was sure I was wrong. I paused, took a deep breath, and zipped my lips.

At home months later, I’m still troubled. I wonder if I can learn more, so I do a dictionary search. Merriam-Webster tells me a vacuum is emptiness of space or a space absolutely devoid of matter, or a space partially exhausted (to the highest degree possible).

Wow! This gets very complicated. My head becomes a vacuum. But my Wonderer self wants to know. She wakes my hibernating Scientist.

My Scientist and I sort the concepts, beginning with the original conversation.

If a vacuum is defined as a space partially exhausted of matter, Dad was right. A vacuum exists. But can space be totally devoid of matter?

I fire up my AI program Perplexity. It tells me, “A space completely devoid of matter does not exist according to our current understanding of physics. While classical definitions describe a vacuum as a region free of matter, quantum mechanics reveals that even ‘empty’ space teems with energy fluctuations and transient particles.”

So, a half-century after the dinner debate, I discover that both my father and my brothers were right. It depends on which definition you use. My brothers were probably excited about the physics they had learned, and saw it as the only valid definition. Dictionaries list all popular usages of a word, whether scientifically correct or not.

What about Dale’s word change? Merriam-Webster says suction is an act of sucking—of reducing air pressure, or of a force exerted in this way. Again, Perplexity tells me “Suction is not a force by itself but rather a phenomenon resulting from a pressure difference.” So, again, in common understanding, suction exists, but according to science, the push of higher pressure supplies the actual power.

I wonder why Dale was convinced the debate was about suction instead of a vacuum, when it could have been either. I suppose* he might have quickly reached his conclusion because adolescents are more likely to study atmospheric pressure than quantum physics. But I have no facts.

Neither do I have facts about which word was truly used. Over the years memories generate and alter “facts.”

I suspect, if Dale ever reads this, he will supply me with more of them.

Oops.

Although I have not debated aloud, I have joined the fray through the wondering and writing door.

How did I get sucked into this?

Oh, that’s right. Science says we contain DNA from both parents.

*Read the earlier column on “supposing,” here.

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Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She has a BA in English and an MA in Theater Arts, and she is available for reading performances of her work. Her email address is carolvk13@gmail.com.

Her latest book, A World in a Grain of Sand: Lively Little Stories of Household Stuff, is available in Pella from Carol or from Pella’s Curiosity Shop. It can also be ordered from Amazon. Readers are calling it “stirring,” “winsome,” and “delightful.”