By the Moon Uncertain

I woke at 4 in the morning because the moon was shining on my face. It was as bright as the sun and as round. It shone too on the book I am reading, Einstein His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. And I saw for the first time the sticker on the book saying it was a New York Times bestseller. I don't know why I hadn't noticed that before...it is my simpleton-ness I suppose. But I can see why it did so well. The fact that I can almost comprehend the elusive theories of physics by reading this is astounding. While riding the subway home the other night, I read about the Uncertainty Principle. Now this made sense, I thought. Just as I have felt for a long while, nothing is the same as when you are observing it. When observed, it changes. As a believer in two great forces controlling the whole, I can accept this completely. It is almost the physical spectrum of what Shakespeare said, "nothing is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so..." So too nothing is neither there or not but seeing makes it so. And so we are back to Keats who said, "Life is but a dream".
The thing about Einstein is, he was so adorable looking. He was as charming and appealing as Charlie Chaplin. How could the greatest brain in the world ever have been so cute? The photo's of him in this book show his broad shoulders and sweet face, a face that does not seem to age much. While his hair gets whiter and wilder, his face remains darling. His wife Elsa looks more and more like a German frou though and that is depressing. I wish he had stayed with the brilliant Mileva Maric. She was strange and interesting. But according to this book, he opted for comfortable surroundings and German food. One wonders. One wonders how much he lost by leaving the scientist. On the other hand, Elsa was his close relative so she must have been very intelligent herself. It's also tragic about his son Edmund, who was stuffed away in a sanatorium. So far all that is said about him is that he was sickly. Never mind, the point is to stick to the point, and that is The Uncertainty Principle.
The moon shone in the window like a powerful flashlight. I sat up at four in the morning and considered reading by moonlight. But instead, I covered my face with the blanket and fell back asleep. I have always believed the puzzle of language has to do with the puzzle of the universe. And the fact that Albert said God doesn't play dice with the universe seemed to me a telling remark. After all, the basis of God is built on our getting to Pair a Dice. Even so, which is true? A place that is constant whether or not we are looking at it? Or a universe that comes into being by observation? Einstein wanted the former. Quantum mechanics is the latter. So as far as I have read, it comes down to light jumping. The big world is ordered and the tiny world of electrons circling the atom are, for lack of a better way of putting it, free will. I wrote a novel once that supposed this... How we were nothing more than tiny particles within a dust ball in a giants house. It stands to reason does it not? Everything breaks down to the same circular thing... even the universe is circular. When we finally find out we are just a tiny something which is part of a bigger something belonging to a bigger something, perhaps the wars will cease. Or perhaps the wars are merely the functioning of our tiny selves to conduct energy to the slightly bigger picture. Maybe thats why we cannot get along. Maybe we are supposed to explode, and in that way assist the larger atom way beyond our vision.