A friend of mine, some time back, expressed his keen interest in reading about the fall of the Roman Empire, but bemoaned the length of a few of the books that chronicled the fall.
Wringing his hands in despair, so to speak, he asked how could the author possibly fill up 1312 pages on this topic.
I honestly don’t know. If I knew, I would have written that book, isn’t it?
But here are my three cents, in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
Newton’s Classical version
Page 1 – they started falling
Page 50 – the acceleration due to gravity was x.yz
Page 250 – value of g was z.xy at this time
Page 1000 – they finally touched the ground in their trajectory
Page 1100 – dust starts to rise due to conservation of momentum
Page 1312 – dust settles down
Einstein’s Relativistic version –
Page 1 – they had already been falling, relatively, for the previous 200 years
Page 50 – this was the time when the world could finally see them falling
Page 250 – this was the time when the Romans themselves realised that others could finally see them falling
Page 600 – the Romans were falling, relatively, to most other dynasties at the time. But they were rising, relatively, to a few others as whether you rise or fall is dependent on your frame of reference.
Page 1000 – relatively speaking, the fallen empire was still more powerful than most other standing kingdoms
Page 1312 – they had finally fallen, according to every frame of reference
Darwin’s Evolutionary Version
Page 1 – the struggle of existence, for the Roman empire, had been technically going on since eternity
Page 50 – they had finally realised that they hadn’t adapted as well as they had needed to
Page 300 – there were plenty of competitors who had slowly come into the areas formerly occupied by the Roman empire
Page 600 – the Roman empire was not the fittest one, so its survival was at stake
Page 1000 – in its adamant stance to not change, it allowed other competitors to invade the political niche it had earlier occupied
Page 1312 – the last surviving member of the Roman empire took his last breath, and the Roman empire was now extinct owing to its inability to adapt to its changing surroundings