The Witching Hour

What Darwin would observe these days (Should be read with Werner Herzog voice in mind):

Just after the majority of everyone reaches their climactic enjoyment of an establishment, and as people cross the threshold of being tipsy to disorderly, the dynamic changes sharply and suddenly. Any mingling after this point is pointless.

Girls, who have not made a carnal connection with someone, will huddle together in their cloister of girlfriends, playing with cell phones, and clearly are not interested in anything the party has left to offer.

Guys, who have not managed to meet someone, will either show decency and leave the girls alone, or not, and awkwardly flock to the gaggles of females and make an awkward fool of themselves.

"The dynamic" is more or less a measure of the energy of the environment. Given a good ratio of slightly too many females, good music, and a positive mood the energy of the system is easily sustainable for the entire night. In this regime, there is no witching hour. The end product is actually an exponential decay in energy instead of a sharp drop, with no one wanting to leave, until they are too tired to stay.

A Lesson

I was told I should write a book about astronomy for dumb people. I would hate to have a dumb audience for any topic, let alone for my academic passion, thus I would revise that and say I'll write a book for the uniformed, and those lacking patience to learn it the proper way, with the goal of having an intellectual audience by the end.

Some things really do need math though.