Not given to giving blog titles a full house of capital emphasis, I'd no idea back then when I started writing them that Brian Cox could prove an inspiration to me ever again. Fifteen - sixteen years I've been slaving away at a quantum stove without so much as a knowing smile from anyone. He comes along, grins at the TV and BANG, the singularity suddenly becomes really popular and Quantum toothpaste appears in my local shop. To top this frustration with a solid rubbing of nose in wet salt, he publishes a book stuffed with clock analogies, in which interpreters of the Uncertainty Principle are "charlatans and purveyors of tripe" who use it as "a doorway through which to force their philosophical musings". So, Brian, anyone who disagrees with Positivist constraints is deserving of insult and derision...
I was so angry at his dog-in-the-manger impudence that I made damn sure my book contained a suitable retort.
I was so angry at his dog-in-the-manger impudence that I made damn sure my book contained a suitable retort.
His lecture at the Royal Institute televised tonight actually had me sitting down, as he was talking about past and future world lines and just five minutes before I had been sitting three miles away talking about the very same subject with a friend, agreeing that we sit in the middle of infinity, constantly, no getting away from it - that the retarded past and the advanced future meet in a continual loop system within our own singularities of self and that we therefore CAN in fact comprehend infinity, we have only to do it at the quantum level; living In Finity we'd best ride the wave with a nose to the future, forget about the past, use it to clock progress now and then (preferably from a distance), and get on with what we love. The things we love doing, the homes we want to create, the drives that make life worth living.
Prof Cox doesn't acknowledge our interface with the quantum fields. I REFUSE to be a Cox fan. Bordering on hatred with a vengeance possibly born of jealousy, fuelled by a vicious blow to anyone who dare grant the Uncertainty Principle the right to certain other applications, I snort at his polished acts of knowing best. But w-t-f, here he is saying that Nature brings us gifts of knowledge and "we shouldn't take anything for granted". He treats us self-indulgently to a Dr Who scene in which he stars as the curious student, only to find himself face to face with a black hole that leads to conclusions about time, bringing him to a full stop long before the singularity. All those light cones, all that stuff about twisting futures, all comes to a screeching halt at the event horizon.
Well, go on Brian, amaze me. You described the black hole as "a source of immortality" which for the observer does not change. Spaghettification, yes well, that's fine, that's physics. We know at the time of writing that known physics can't breach the Singularity. What about the Eye of Harmony, Brian? Does the language tell you anything else? Ah, all quiet at the moment, I see. Have you been secretly reading my blogs and stealing my ideas for your TV appearances? Wouldn't put it past you. Every adventure starts with a spark.
Here, you'll need some antishine.
Here, you'll need some antishine.
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