Enlightenment. A big, out-of-reach kind of word. The kind of word you're reluctant to take too seriously, bringing to mind images of orange togas and Harsesis. But there's no getting away from the fact that it's very popular on social media these days, in the right kind of groups / rubbing keyboards with the right kind of people. Not that there's any right or wrong, you understand, that being the whole point, really. It's as if we've got a kind of new-age hysteria on our hands, where everyone wants to feel it but nobody's quite sure whether it's real.
You're a physicist, right? I like physicists to visit this site. Not because you're brighter than everyone else, although in scientific terms you most probably are, or because I've got some sort of reverence for you, though secretly I probably have. I love you the way people love Sheldon Cooper. The way tigers love water. With a kind of irresistible draw that happens now and then but most especially when least expected.
Love. There's another word filled with improbable connotations. Not the kind of word you'd want to go uttering in the boardroom, or the kind of thing you'd be tempted to write an equation for. Not because you didn't want to, but because other people might find it rather silly. And we don't want to look silly. Not ever.
You're a physicist, right? I like physicists to visit this site. Not because you're brighter than everyone else, although in scientific terms you most probably are, or because I've got some sort of reverence for you, though secretly I probably have. I love you the way people love Sheldon Cooper. The way tigers love water. With a kind of irresistible draw that happens now and then but most especially when least expected.
Love. There's another word filled with improbable connotations. Not the kind of word you'd want to go uttering in the boardroom, or the kind of thing you'd be tempted to write an equation for. Not because you didn't want to, but because other people might find it rather silly. And we don't want to look silly. Not ever.
Photons have been around a long time. You knew about photons when people started talking about them a hundred years ago and they haven't stopped talking about them since. They were the first particles to be introduced to Double Slit and the first to be quantified on a spectrum. Later it became apparent that the entire EM spectrum was composed of photons, so light became more than as we know it, Jim. Light turned into a radican of riddles. When Dark Matter came into view and Dark Energy followed on its heels, Light became another contender in a different kind of race - the race to find its paradoxical counterpart.
Now, it's fair to say that in all the years I've been delving into quantum mechanics, there hasn't been a week go by when I haven't found something new. Today a friend posted up this article on Facebook. I quickly transposed it to Twitter. The question it poses is most interesting. Could light be a communicative carrier? Is it possible that the photons zipping around in our brain are doing much, much more with us than we think?
Now, it's fair to say that in all the years I've been delving into quantum mechanics, there hasn't been a week go by when I haven't found something new. Today a friend posted up this article on Facebook. I quickly transposed it to Twitter. The question it poses is most interesting. Could light be a communicative carrier? Is it possible that the photons zipping around in our brain are doing much, much more with us than we think?
On the Lambda report (in the menu) you'll find references to questions to which the answer was patently inexplicable. Science struggles hard with stuff that veers out of the Standard Model into territory of the philosophical kind. So hard, in fact, that it's prepared to cook the books rather than face the fact - the books don't balance as required. The audit is always going to be there, Nature doesn't let anyone off for good behaviour. So why is the filling of gaps so difficult? Could it be that there needs to be more photon philosophy in the Income column and fewer constants in the Outgoings?
Spending trillions of pounds/dollars/whatever on neutrino traps isn't going to solve problems with constants or free anyone to shake off the constraints. These steps have to be taken inside, where the answers are, and it's going to have to be a physicist that comes through the smoke and mirrors to give everyone a chance to see the light of day. There in the dark recesses of someone's glowing mind lie the gems of information the Universe wants to deliver. We know it wants to deliver because it's delivered an awful lot so far, and too many scientists have reported their greatest achievements to be born of visions and dreams for anyone to argue that the process of ground-breaking discovery isn't in some sense metaphysical.
Oh, and while we're at it, The Petrino is still mine.
Spending trillions of pounds/dollars/whatever on neutrino traps isn't going to solve problems with constants or free anyone to shake off the constraints. These steps have to be taken inside, where the answers are, and it's going to have to be a physicist that comes through the smoke and mirrors to give everyone a chance to see the light of day. There in the dark recesses of someone's glowing mind lie the gems of information the Universe wants to deliver. We know it wants to deliver because it's delivered an awful lot so far, and too many scientists have reported their greatest achievements to be born of visions and dreams for anyone to argue that the process of ground-breaking discovery isn't in some sense metaphysical.
Oh, and while we're at it, The Petrino is still mine.
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