Ladies and gentlemen, what you are observing here are magnified examples, or facsimiles, of human sperm. Generation after generation of these tiny creatures have sacrificed themselves in the persistent, often futile attempt to transport the basic male genetic code. But where’s this information coming from?
They have no eyes. No ears. Yet some of them already know that they will be bald. Some of them know that they will have small, crooked teeth. Over half of them will end up as women. Four hundred million living creatures, all knowing precisely the same thing. Carbon copies of each other, in a kamikaze race against the clock.
Now some of you may be surprised to learn that if a sperm were the size of a salmon, it would be swimming its seven inch journey at five hundred miles per hour.
If a sperm were the size of a whale, however, it would be traveling at fifteen thousand miles per hour, or mach 20.
Now imagine, if you will, four hundred million blind and desperate sperm whales departing from the Pacific coast of North America, swimming at fifteen thousand miles per hour, and arriving in Japanese coastal waters in just under forty-five minutes.
How would they be received?
Would they realize that they were carrying information? A message?
Would there be room for so many millions?
Would they know that they had been sent for a purpose?
— Laurie Andersen, ‘Mach 20’, off of United States Live
“Mach 20” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 2:47).