Samuel's Blog

If Ceilings Were Floors

June 15th, 2007 at 08:33am

Whilst having a rather annoying stomach pain overnight and lying on the floor in an effort (quite a successful one I might add) to alleviate the pain, something occurred to me that has occurred to me on many previous occasions, and probably goes some way towards proving my partial insanity.

If ceilings were floors, they would never meet the applicable safety standards because they have all of these things sticking out of them, effectively posing a trip hazard. It’s not immediately apparent just how much is sticking out of the ceiling simply by looking at it, so what I suggest you do at some stage during the day is look at the room you are in upside-down. Arguably the best way to do this is to either lie on the floor and position your head so that it is almost upside down, or do a handstand (or as close as you can get to it), then look around the room. All of those light fixtures, exit signs, fire sprinklers, uneven grills on air conditioning outlets, smoke detectors, security alarm sensors…and in some cases even the fluorescent lights aren’t level with the ceiling.

If gravity were reversed in buildings, we would have completely useless and dangerous floors (and that’s not even taking in to account the tiled ceilings that would fall in to a gap, exposing all the wiring and air conditioning ducts, in many office buildings…but it’s more fun to imagine that the ceiling is solid).

To the same extent, what if we did build buildings the other way up? It would be rather odd having the lights and air conditioning vents in the floor…and those emergency exit signs would make a lot of sense on the floor, especially as we are taught that in a fire you should get as low to the ground as possible to minimise your exposure to smoke.

I do have to admit though, that it wouldn’t make much sense to have carpeted ceilings.

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Bizarreness,Samuel's Editorials

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