Did she conspire with Cynthia Mills, the author of Missing, Believed Killed, who quoted the poem, and it alone, on the frontispiece of her book? Did she collude with Mary Elizabeth Coleridge the poet who wrote the haunting lines? Did she know I would buy that book and read those lines on my first Birthday without her? Perhaps, perhaps not! No matter. I thank my Minou for her gift – and I thank Cynthia Mills and Mary Elizabeth Coleridge for their part.

Whether I live or whether I die,
Whatever the worlds I see,
I shall come to you by-and-by,
And you will come to me.

Whosoever was foolish, we were wise,
We crossed the boundary line,
I saw my soul look out of your eyes,
You saw your soul in mine.

October 28, 2008 / AFW pg 46, 742 / Excluding poem (c) 2008 / Whether I Live, M.E. Coleridge, Gathered Leaves, 1910 / CIP 11/12 / SHE

A couple of caveats. The list is not nearly complete, but I do believe it is representative. What it does contain is a thread. From Cusanus to Witten – often with arguably the representative genius of each century pointing in a line to the future. I am not wise enough to understand each, or any, of these geniuses completely – parts perhaps, sometimes even outlines, but no more. From the beginning let it be known that it is only a portion of each man that is my concern here. It is the thread, and more importantly the quiver and the quaver of that strand, that is central for me. The vibrations of the string, as it were. It’s not the same string, but it is a string.

To be sure we could have included Galileo, Newton, Hegel, Heisenberg, or Hawking. Or, in fact, any of a host of others. Gone backward to Aristotle or given more emphasis to the current cutting edge. When you consider what happens between Big Bangs, specifics pale in comparison. What does or doesn’t get included is relatively unimportant. Five hundred years, five thousand, five hundred thousand – a blink. And mine may be only one of a trillion possible scenarios, but it is at least in a line. The thread is everything and nothing.

December 2007 / Opposites Aren’t (2) / Caveats / 809 / Physics / Best / AFW, Pg. 11, © 2007 / CIP Nov 2008 / OAR

On a more global scale progress is at minimum arguable, and from many points of view essentially non existent. Except in a few areas quality has plummeted. The concept of built in obsolescence is now the principle; and, except sometimes for appearance, design is obsolete. Education each decade aims for a lower and lower common denominator, standards slip and personal responsibility is getting very close to extinction. There is in fact more and more of less and less. The quantity is there, but the quality is not . Nothing lasts. The saddest part is that nothing lasts by design. The cookie cutter won.

Certainly there is a little bit of overstatement there. Automobiles do seem to be safer and better built than in the good old days. Medicine has certainly made strides in some areas. Computers have as many benefits as drawbacks, and definitely they are faster. Still technology promises everything and delivers plastic. If we survive another hundred years of progress, we’ll probably know then that plastic causes cancer.

October 2007 / (pp paragraphs) Possible Progress / 804 / Perspectives / Mixed / AFW, 804, © 2007 / CIP Nov 2008, par. 3 & 4 / SHE

All religions, after their founder, are run by mortal men with human fallibilities. They may be closer to God than you or I, but they are not God. They must, as all humans must, play the odds. They cannot be certain they are right, even if they think they are. Even if they think they are right all the way up to a certitude – it’s still the feeling, not the being. Even if the vast majority of people on earth think they are right, it is still not enough. Only God knows.

If he, or she, or it, were the Second Coming possibly it could be God. Or the First could be God in any, or some, or all of its incarnations. Or the Second Coming could be on Pluto. There are lots of possibilities. Possibly even some probabilities, but there is no certainty. Only God knows - at least between singularities.

This could be the difference between finite and infinite. The difference between right and wrong. The difference between 0 and 1. It could also be the difference between a point particle and a string. The fuzzy math. It could be where Cusanus pointed and Witten wants to go. It could be all, or nothing. Most likely it is in between. No matter – I think, but I do not know, that Opposites Aren’t.

Opposites Aren’t (3) December 23, 2007 / Are They or Aren’t They / 814 / Physics / Best / AFW, Pg. 15, © 2007 / CIP Nov. 2008 / OAR

It appears to me the beginning and the end, like Absolute Love and Absolute Hate, are identical. Only the PBU knows for sure and it doesn’t have to deal with fuzzy math.

Physicists are now hearing the music they just need to learn to dance.

Under absolute extreme conditions the hottest hot and absolute zero, like the speed of light and the speed of stop, merge. Opposites aren’t, or at most they are a Planck length apart.

Visualize the shimmering beauty of two strings intertwined that are now as long as the expanding universe’s circumference. Perhaps they contain the molecular code of everything, and they started out as a Planck length loop twisted at the junctures of placro, micro, macro, and, (on the last day, or should I say first day), placro again. The X Factor of Universal DNA writ large. Ah, to be sure there is nothing but fuzzy math now, no confirming experiments, and only a few vague hints of the possibility of a Unified Theory of Everything. A brane, a brain, or a drain away?

Picture a full moon at dawn. It’s still bright enough to shine luminously through the stray thin clouds, wafting on their way and occasionally drifting in front – let’s say its very close to perihelion. It was. Watch the light. It can almost pulse, but the dance is with the clouds. Finally, 99.9999% of the way to your eyes, a thin layer obstructs. That is the beauty of a photon and you.

More Musings (4) / 815 / Just Call it Placro / Physics / Best / FF 77 / AFW, Pg. 16, © 2007 / CIP Nov. 2008 / OAR