To put in to words what I am thinking while reading. That is the rub. I just was reading about two particles, revved up and then sent off, and one is observed and the other is not. Is it possible to know where the other will go by watching the first? Science according to Einstein according to Isaacsons reporting, is based on reality being there, observed or not. There for, if it is real then it has rules and laws which if observed and followed can be used to calculate and predict. Which I am totally with him on. But quantum mechanics does not go this way. It goes the way of random or possible or maybe,maybe not. It is free will in the micro-world of particles.
Last night I lay in bed until 3 in the morning, unable to put down EINSTEIN his Life and Universe. I was enthralled as usual, but I was also antsy, the way one gets when one is reading a page turner like Creighton. You are loving it, but are almost willing to tear the pages out in order to get to the gist of it. And the gist of it is dangled before you, enticing you along, while you are fed almost unimportant information through hundreds of pages, until finally you get to hear what you wanted to hear from page one. In Einstein His Life and Universe, almost every page is gripping but the underlying knowledge that the reader brings to the book is painful, particularly in light of the fact that it is not mentioned right through over half the book. One KNOWS he is German, he lives in Berlin, all his friends are jews, and that he will work on the bomb to end the holocaust. But when? How? Will they all make it? So even though each page is chocked with science and friendships and awards and some tidbits of his personal life, one is only partly satisfied. One has to keep reading through the night, it becomes absolutely necessary to find out this information as soon as possible. But the biographer draws it out. Finally, well in to the last third of the book, Hitler has taken over Germany and the family is slowly all moving to America. But what about his poor ex wife? What about all his Jewish friends and why, if Hitler was so intent on destroying Albert, didn't he go after Alberts ex wife and sons?
The theory Einstein posited regarding those two particles was that they could not know what the other was doing, nothing goes faster than the speed of light, it would HAVE to be a wave between them to alert the other.... But isn't this not taking into account communication? Why do humans persist in thinking if it doesn't look like a person then it can't talk? I have witnessed trees communicating. I have seen animals in conversation. Why not particles? Couldn't one particle shout to the other? Or if sound is a wave, then how about esp? I witness that all the time. What about the queen bee? She need only touch an egg and it is born believing itself a queen. What about animals that know when their baby is sick the minute it is born? What about those monkeys of Darwins that knew when another monkey learned how to use a tool, and they lived on another island and yet they began using that tool too, as if they also had been taught? Our knowledge of how it all works is hampered by our refusal to believe what we already know to be true.
So these two particles walk into a bar. One says to the bartender, "hey gimmie a shot of M C squared, will ya?"
The bartender says, "Don't you want some E equals too?"
"Naw," says the particle. "That leaves me hung over. I'm happy with just some MC squared, and leave the Mister-E to Einstein."
Or maybe it should be: two particles walk into a bar. One says to the bartender, "Gimmie a shot of bud-light for my friend, Mr. M. C. Squared, here." pointing to the second particle.
The bartender says "Sure, one light for mr. M C Squared." then he looks at the first particle closely and says, "Sayy, aren't you E equals?"
The first particle looks around nervously and whispers.."SHHHhhh. That's a Mister-E to you, fella."
Which proves I am a simpleton and cannot do math nor come up with a good joke about physics. But for hope springing eternal, you can always count on me.
Hello Abigail,
ReplyDeleteI admire your writing and the ‘periodicity’ with which you write and I read your Einstein blog with keen interest. As much as we may think we are writing to ourselves, with readers and followers few and far between, it is nice to discover that we don’t actually live in a bubble that is protected, isolated and unobserved.
In my obsession with categorization, I was wondering which genre this blog could fall under; obviously, it’s a blog, but that’s like saying it’s a piece of writing. There are elements of the bibliography, no doubt, but it’s also a comment on a bibliography; there are interweaved into your writing, many elements of the personal story, the story of how your understanding is developing and unfolding, and you kindly sharing that understanding with the reader (who may be lurking, not there, or so we think). Your writing is reminiscent in its own way of a short story, but the end of the story follows in the next sequel. There is no doubt an element of ‘vulgarizing’ scientific formulae, and I like to think you do a good job of that; I mean, I have my own, superficial understanding of relativity, but to get down to a more profound meaning, reading your blog will be a great start. I bet you’ve done a lot of background reading on relativity yourself before you could deconstruct it in such a simple and interesting way for the non-expert reader!
All this is meant to say thank you. Quite apart from everything I learned from your posts, I am going to open myself more and more to what other people write to represent their worlds, and not confine myself to what’s written by world famous poets or researchers. I guess I am looking at a great thinker, blogger, commentator, observer, writer, word lover...
Thank you.