There is no sequential order for reading and exploring this website, but there is an overarching theme. Richard Feynman said that there are “certain kinds of men” in every field, who, when they follow their passion to the end, inevitably find themselves “up against mysteries and awe” that are all around them.
This website is about the mystery and awe that I have found, in every field, in which I have followed my passion to the end.
Whether meditating on the nature of fire, or the enigmatic wave function at the heart of quantum mechanics, or contemplating the most beautiful equation in mathematics, or the fact that 1 and 0.999… represent the same value [yes, 1 = 0.999… get over it] or considering the religious awareness in modern man, this site is my humble record of this eternal quest to find the edge of the knowable and to leap into the brink of the awesome unknown sublime mystery.
The About Page has more about the origins of this website.
“Normal adults don’t stop to think about such concepts as space and time. These are things children ask about. My secret is I remained a child. I always ask the simplest questions. I ask them still.” — Einstein
That quote comes to my mind especially today, reading the headline: “Discovery of New Particle Could Redefine World”
So let us be like children now, just for a moment, and take time to think a bit about time, and space, and everything…
Light and energy, gravity and inertia; these are material mysteries. We cannot explain them. A mystery is not the same as a puzzle. A puzzle can be figured out. A mystery, in the religious sense, cannot. A mystery cannot be figured out, because it defies figuring. We have literally taken lightening out of the sky and made it to sing, yet in a very real sense, we have no real knowledge of it all.
He sat up a bit, away from the back of the couch, and faced me directly as he spoke this next thought, carefully measuring out his words.
“There is nothing which you now know, and nothing about what you think you don’t know, that will help you create the success you desire.”
He paused for a moment, and continued.
“The key to your success lies only in what you don’t know that you don’t know. Do you understand?”
“No,” I told him truthfully. “I have no idea what you’re saying. How can I know what I don’t even know that I don’t know?”
“You can’t,” he said. “That’s the secret.”
Now, you may say that this is all metaphorical, to say that this thing is actually another, and you would be absolutely right. Metaphor is exactly that: an expression that equates two seemingly different things. In other words, mathematics. The equations of physics that describe the universe are metaphors that tell us that this equals that. E=MC2 is the mathematical metaphor that tells is that matter IS energy. We know that space is not separate from time, and yet we speak of time as if it flows through space. This is not correct. Neither is it correct to speak of light and radio as if these are two different phenomena. They are not.
I sought the fount of fire in hollow reed
Hid privily, a measureless resource
For man, and mighty teacher of all arts
… and I purged
The glancing eye of fire, dim before,
And made its meaning plain. These are my works.
What thou wouldst learn I will make clear to thee,
Not weaving subtleties, but simple sooth
Unfolding as the mouth should speak to friends.
I am Prometheus, giver of fire to mortals.
— Aeschylus, Prometheus Unbound
The following excerpts are taken from the book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. These are truly awesome statements.
Astronomers these days can do the most amazing things. If someone struck a match on the Moon, they could spot the flare.
With their radio telescopes they can capture wisps of radiation so preposterously faint that the TOTAL amount of energy collected from outside the solar system by all of them together since collecting began in 1951 is “less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground,” in the words of Carl Sagan.
The one thing you have to always remember is that every interaction in the universe is the result of physical touch. All of our senses are touch. One physical thing touching another. There is no force outside of this. There is only one object touching another object.
Even our sight is nothing more than our experience of the physical objects of the world emitting photons (which are physical particles) which then physically touch and are absorbed by the electrons in our retinas. Even sight is touch.
“If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber.” Albert Einstein
“The faster you go, the shorter you are.” Albert Einstein
“Newton, forgive me.” Albert Einstein
“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.” – Albert Einstein
“It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he – with his specialized knowledge – more closely resembles a well trained dog than a harmoniously developed person.” – Einstein
“The Eye with which I see God is the same Eye with which God sees me”
Meister Eckhart
“Our search for the ultimate meaning of our lives is not a matter of a particular intelligence, or some special effort, or even exceptional means. Rather, finding the ultimate truth is like discovering something beautiful along one’s path. One sees and recognizes it, if one is attentive. The issue then, is this attention.”
Father Luigi Giussani
“Just as God’s will is creation and is called ‘the world’ so His intention is [more …]
I must know thee, Unknown One,
Thou who searchest out the debths of my soul,
And blowest like a storm through my life.
thou art inconceivable and yet my kinsman!
I must know thee and even serve thee.
[…]
Thus do I lie,
Bend myself, convulsed
With all eternal torture,
And smitten
By thee, cruelest huntsman,
Thou unfamiliar – GOD
Nietzsche
“Even in the deserts of the secularized world, the human soul thirsts for God.” Pope [more …]
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
C.S. Lewis
“We don’t love to be loved; we love to love” Unknown
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one… Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
C.S. Lewis
“All serious and upright human conduct, is hope in action.” Pope Benedict
“The meaning of life is to love and be loved in return.” Pope Benedict
Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and [more …]
“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which [more …]
“Empirical success is not a sufficient reason to assume that a theory is true – [more …]
“Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding [more …]
“It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads… There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.”
Emerson