Must-Haves

Ok team, I have new topic for consideration.As I was going over Maxwell's equations earlier today, I thought: if I ever teach high school physics again, I'll definitely have to show my classes Maxwell's Equations in their full, elegantly simple glory. Here they are (I would show them in differential form):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwells_equations#Table_2:_Formulation_in_terms_of_total_charge_and_currentThey wouldn't understand what the equations meant, I barely do. But that's not the point. The point is that these equations represent immense human accomplishment and greatness. Everything in electrodynamics can be derived from those 4 compact equations. The information contained in them is astounding. And so I would make a point of telling my classes that the understanding isn't important - that can come later if you happen to pursue physics. The important thing is to recognize that you are in the presence of greatness. These equations have had such an unbelievabley pervasive impact on our society (how often do we use things relying on light and electronics?) that everyone should at least see them once in their life. 15 years from now you'll be at a cocktail party and some interesting fellow will be talking about Maxwell's equations, and you can say, oh yeah, I remember seeing those one time. So this got me thinking - what other experiences are "must haves", even if we don't appreciate them at the time. I'm thinking of two types of experiences. The first group I would say are ones that represent the highest achievements of our culture/society/species, as I claim the Maxwell's Equations do. An example on the other end of the spectrum might be a night at the New York Opera. I would probably be bored most of the time, and certainly couldn't appreciate it the way some art fart could, but hopefully I could recognize the quality of it all, and maybe someday I would be at a cocktail and some interesting fellow would be talking about Opera and I could chime in and say, oh yeah, I've been to one of those before. This leads to the second group of experiences that I would catergorize as "must haves": the big, important, universal ones that everyone has (or should have). These are the ones that we can commiserate over and bond over - go to a baseball game, swim in the ocean, stand on top of a mountain. These are just things that everyone should do at least once in their life.So, that was a round-about way of getting to my list. Our goal is to expand this list and then go check off the ones we haven't already done. Without further ado:

• See Maxwell's Equations
• Got to a baseball game
• Spend a night at the Opera
• Swim in the Ocean
• Stand on top of a mountain
• Drive across the country
• Hold a baby
• Get punched in the face (Croftina, you can have dibs on helping me accomplish this one)
• Get drunk
• Make out in the back seat of a car
• See a symphony
• Go to The Louvre
• Speak in front of a large audience
• Go hunting
• Camp out in the woods
• Volunteer to help someone really needy
• Stay up all night
• See the stars on a clear night
• Do something active until physical exhaustion
  

Alright, I'm running out of steam. I'm a little light on high culture ones, so you need to help me out there. Surely there are hundreds more. I turn the list over to you guys.Coach, out