Once in a blue moon you read an article that says exactly, almost word for word, exactly what you feel today. On an even rarer day it might express exactly what you think you will feel 10 years from today. Almost never does it express exactly what you hope you will feel on the day you die. I just read such an article. Its title was: ‘I’m not afraid of death,’ John Wooden says. The article started out:

The little condo on Margate Street in Encino, Calif., wouldn't pass many eyeball tests, not that the old man who has lived there since 1972 has any intention to sell it. If you want it, you're simply going to have to wait for John Wooden to die.

Sadly — and beautifully — you wouldn't be the only one. Wooden, perhaps the greatest American coach in any sport, never thought he'd live to the age of 98. And he never thought living without his beloved wife, Nell, whom he lost in 1985, would be so hard for so long. Of all the love in his heart — for the three generations of family who surround him and the dozens of former players who keep him as close as ever — most of it still belongs to her. All he wants is to see his Nellie again.

The article apparently just appeared in The Sporting News, but I read it on MSNBC today. Of course it was the hook that you just read (underlined) that hooked me, but it was a fairly long article and every single word spoke to me! It is worth reading in its entirety. You might look it up.

John Wooden has always been one of my greatest heroes. Now I more fully realize why. The article spoke of his heroes Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa, both of whom I greatly admire. It spoke of his character and convictions, many of which I have tried to emulate. It covered his success which everyone would like to copy. But mainly it detailed his love and passions much of which I could identify with. His Nell was my Minou. I felt exactly the same way!

Don’t misunderstand me. Long ago, actually just shortly after my days at UCLA when John Wooden was there, I realized I was a B+ sort of guy. I got lots of A’s at school, and throughout my life, but I usually averaged out somewhere around B+. I was proud of that and I enjoyed life. John Wooden was an A+. No question about that, but he loved his wife exactly the way I loved mine. He lived his life after her death almost exactly the way I would like to live mine. I’m fairly sure our last thoughts on this earth will be nearly identical.

AFW pg 60, © 2009 / CIP 1/5/2009, Mixed / SHE

Sometime ago, (April, 2007), I posted an entry with the title Luminaries and Lesser Lights. It bears repeating for a couple of reasons:

Just the names, M’am – a cowboy has to talk straight: Edward Witten, Stephen Hawking, Mark Hadley, Christopher Fuchs, John Mather, George Smoot, Lawrence Krauss, Martin Rees, Brian Greene, Lee Smolin, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Werner Heisenberg, Isaac Newton, Max Planck, George Bernhard Riemann, Andrew Strominger, John Wheeler, John Nash, Bill Bryson, Ken Wilber, Rodney Brooks, Gordon Kane, Barton Zwiebach Raphael Bousso, Matt Crenson, M.C. Escher, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, Lord Kelvin, Marcel Proust, Roger Penrose, Clifford Pickover, Dennis Overbye

I have read of, about, or by all of the above. I always try to give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge attribution when I should, but sometimes I either don’t know or I forget. If I didn’t attribute, and the idea is good, and the subject matter is physics, it probably originated, and or is bent out of shape, and amended from one of the above.

I repeat the above now for two reasons, the first one of which is:

It is still true and undoubtedly there were others that should have been included. I published the list on April 17, 2007, but it was actually a compilation of two lists, one I made on October 2, 2006 and another on September 21, 2003. In them I attempted to remember most of the major influences on my physics since I started semi-seriously working on my current thoughts on the subject in March of 1998.

The second reason is I didn’t include one person because, I am sorry to admit, I didn’t know he existed. Idiots like me sometimes blunder around in the dark not knowing whose thunder they steal. It was not till October 2008 that, after reading a review, I stumbled upon The Lightness of Being by Frank Wilczek. It was not surprising that I was not familiar with that book, because it only came out in September 2008; but he had written a couple of other books before that, and was a Nobel Laureate from 2004. All of which I managed to miss.

Frank Wilczek would rightly be aghast at any comparison between our ideas. His is a theory, mine are shards. Still as I read him now I finally hear a real, modern physicist saying things that seem real to me. He would be aghast at the comparison because of course he says things a hundred times better than I do, and probably a thousand times more accurately. He knows whereof he speaks whereas I only guess. Still it gives me hope that I am not completely off the track. It gives me strength to continue to speculate.

AFW pg 58, © 2009 / CIP 1/5/2009, Best / OAR

For those who could not understand my actions on my Birthday and Christmas; I chose to spend both days alone with only my sweetheart because She and We still deserved primacy. I did not spend it with anyone else because They and I deserved to be spared the embarrassment of my still fragile emotional state. On February 23rd 2009 I will spend a third day alone. After that I will declare myself healed and try to rejoin what most of you fondly call Civilization.

AFW pg 56, © 2008 / CIP 1/5/2009, mixed / SHE

I alternate between Nash and not
To rage or let the light go out

If She Were an Atom (the title got changed)

The distance between 0 and 1 is a fraction. Is a fraction fractal?

What if gravity is simply the universal magnetic/repellent force of opposites?
It’s all in the X.

Heat is everything.

AFW pg 61, © 2009 / CIP 1/5/2009 Best / OAR

The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The Simple Rule: Keep it simple stupid.

The Economic Rule: Free is almost always too expensive.

AFW pg 61, © 2009 / CIP 1/5/2009 / Mixed / SHE