Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 16, 1993                   TAG: 9312150085
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THAT'S NOT THE GOAL OF THE GAME OF HOCKEY

Q: I have a mysterious pain in my right side, below the ribs. What should I do? - Jacki in Tucson.

A: Have that kidney removed immediately.

For now we will stick with the dismal grind of explaining how the universe works, starting this week with a question from Mitch G. of Bowie, Md.:

"Why don't they take a really, really fat guy, like the late Walter Hudson, or even Bill Clinton, pad him up, and make him a goalie in the NHL? Isn't it possible, with padding and stick, that someone is fat enough to block every square inch of the goal?"

Dear Mitch: That's a really impractical idea. For one thing, Walter Hudson's dead. And Bill Clinton, though capable of quickly skating left and right, would never agree to wear a goalie's mask, because people would think he was not only a tax-and-spend Democrat but also Jason from "Friday the 13th."

Here's your real problem: You are forgetting that people are three dimensional. When someone adds "inches" to his waist it is a reference to circumference, not diameter. For example, when Walter Hudson reached his top weight of 1,200 pounds, he had a girth of 113 inches, according to a newspaper clip we found. But he was probably only about 3 feet wide (we're assuming a round physique and dividing 113 inches by pi).

A hockey goal is 6 feet wide, and 4 feet tall. This means that Hudson couldn't have sat in front of the goal and blocked every shot. Even if he had lain on his side, the "top shelf" of the goal would still be exposed and the skilled players of the NHL would have had no trouble flicking the puck into that space.

Arthur Pincus, spokesman for the National Hockey League, notes that goalies are not just obstacles to the puck. They usually have quicker reflexes than anyone else on the ice, and are the best skaters.

One other thing: All hockey players have to wear skates. We assume that employing a sled would be in violation of the rule book. nn

Bob B. of Phoenix, Ariz., asks, "Does empty space exist, and where did it come from? Does the big bang theory answer this question?"

Dear Bob: As we speak there is a U.S. space probe hurling toward the interstellar void, far beyond Pluto, and even out there it runs into stuff. Pioneer 10 is about 58 Astronomical Units from the Sun (Earth is 1 AU) and it's still feeling the meek gusts of the Sun's solar wind, which is essentially a bunch of ionized hydrogen atoms. There's about 1 atom per 7,000 cubic inches of space out there.

More dense yet are the cosmic rays, which are atomic nuclei that are flying at us from all over the galaxy. You find one of those every 300 cubic inches or so. If Daniel Boone went out there he'd probably complain that you can't find elbow room anywhere.

(By the way, there's a great word for the point where the Sun's solar wind finally stops: the heliopause. You should try to use this in a sentence, such as "He's got the worst toupee this side of the heliopause.")

If you ever left the Milky Way galaxy you'd find yourself in the intergalactic void, and that's much emptier. But it's still not really "empty space" because it is permeated with radiation and gravity. So "empty space" is chock-a-block with energy.

The Big Bang does explain the origin of space. The creation of space, and time, is what the Big Bang is. The Big Bang theory says the universe was once hot and dense, and then began to expand and cool. "The reason there's space at all is because the universe is expanding," says Kenneth Sembach, an M.I.T. astrophysicist.

As the universe expanded, matter clumped together, and left behind "empty space" where it had been. So the void beyond Pluto has not always been so void. It's just void where matter is prohibited.

Mrs. Jack T. of Tacoma, Wash., says, "I suppose blind people dream but do they imagine they see something or do they only dream in sounds?"

Dear Mrs. Jack: What kind of name for a woman is "Jack"? Why not just call yourself "Bruno" or something?

Blind people have dreams that are essentially no different from those of sighted people - it's the same quirky narrative, only with different types of imagery. If they were blinded before the age of 5, they usually have no visual imagery, just auditory and kinesthetic. If they were blinded after that, particularly after the age of 7, they usually have visual imagery, at least for many years.

Dreams don't have to contain visual imagery to be vivid.

"Sighted people have a tendency to underestimate the information they get and use from their other senses," says Judy Dixon, spokeswoman for the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

Oral Miller, executive director of the American Council of the Blind, says that his dreams have as much fear, anticipation, joy and excitement as those of a sighted person. As he puts it, "When you make love, do you always keep the lights on?" Washington Post Writers Group