Report from the Middle :: Converging Arguments

A more Special Relativity
by Pat Darnell

"I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever. " (Eisnstein, Albert. Letter to Alfred Kneser; 7 June 1918; Doc. 560 in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 8)

Bryan TX, 05.04.2010 | Call it what you want, convergence, theories of everything, or just plan everything is everything. The truth is out there, and actually it is inside you and me.

The greatest accomplishment of our computer age is the mapping of the human genome. Genetic jumps can be detected now that we have a molecular makeup of our selves.

The second greatest advent in our otherwise meager lives is our capability to see and detect distant celestial events via Hubble, and, International Space Station. It has become a commonplace routine for smart, well-trained people to catch a space shuttle up to the ISS, and check out what bothers and stimulates their querying mental processes.

A trip to the ISS, seeing first-hand all that magnified, unfathomable, spectacle, while detached from earth, floating weightless, certainly is the most wonderful thing a person of cranium unrest can have today. This juice, once blended in converging arguments, must make for some Grade AAA pre-frontal cerebellum Mohave mojo.

It is what Hawking has tried to express: Theory of Everything, or TOE. It is the first time mankind in its present state has posed a theory that connects the infinitely small with the infinitely large. Unification theory and the connection was the theory Einstein was pondering in his final years.

Two ideas expressed in modern times in converging arguments come to mind:
1. Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

• When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.
• The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Arthur C. Clarke. essay "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination", in Profiles of the Future, 1962)

2. "The most incomprehensible thing about our existence is that it is comprehensible." *(Einstein)

Physics - Infinitely small as well as infinitely large (SOURCE)

I say mankind in its present state: did you notice that one? The HISTORY Channel has a show "Ancient Aliens" where it argues we have been cousins to extra-terrestrial beings for most of our history, starting with ancient civilizations. Evidences in cartouche made by ancient artisans, or scribes, show us hanging out with spacemen visitors, in eras 50,000 years ago. "What if life on earth began in outer space?" asks the show.

We are not alone in this universe. We are not alone in two universes. To believe in a narrow band of human existence has become, shall we say: "old school?" HISTORY Channel has rattled my tree many times. It now has rattled me with this show: Ancient Aliens. Where's the proof?

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."
(Einstein, Albert. Cited as conversation between Einstein and János Plesch in János: the story of a doctor. 1947, János Plesch, trans. Edward FitzGerald, Pub. V. Gollancz.)

Technology from an advanced human race can be a real attention getter. And there is no lack of wonder in the human cerebellum. Humans wonder about everything; everything from origin of things, to termination of things, and life, and is the quest of every mother's son, father's daughter, and their dogs. Still with me?

"Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed." (Eisenstein, Albert. Objecting to the placing of observables at the heart of the new quantum mechanics, during Heisenberg's 1926 lecture at Berlin; related by Heisenberg, quoted in Unification of Fundamental Forces. 1990. by Abdus Salam ISBN 0521371406)

Converging arguments appear every time humans dicker about things of utmost largeness, and things uttermost small... do you agree? This is why this is all about a more special relativity. We should be most grateful to have these amazing avenues to travel to greater understanding, available right now; open book.

Unfortunately, on the fringes is a lot of head banging and eating of sand. Why the human race acts at this time of all times like goats in the mists, belays our duty, hangs our judgement, and thwarts any efforts for peace.

The infinitely large is directly attached to the infinitely small. There, it is said. Now look for it!

"Our experience hitherto justifies us in trusting that nature is the realization of the simplest that is mathematically conceivable. I am convinced that purely mathematical construction enables us to find those concepts and those lawlike connections between them that provide the key to the understanding of natural phenomena. Useful mathematical concepts may well be suggested by experience, but in no way can they be derived from it. Experience naturally remains the sole criterion of the usefulness of a mathematical construction for physics. But the actual creative principle lies in mathematics. Thus, in a certain sense, I take it to be true that pure thought can grasp the real, as the ancients had dreamed." (Einstein, Albert. from On the Method of Theoretical Physics, p. 183. The Herbert Spencer Lecture, delivered at Oxford. 10 June 1933. Quoted in Einstein's Philosophy of Science)

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. ~ Helen Keller

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* NOTE:
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
While this often-quoted version is given in Einstein: A Biography (1954) by Antonina Vallentin, p. 24, as from Einstein's article "Physics and Reality" in Journal of the Franklin Institute (March 1936), in the actual article "Physics and Reality," reprinted in Out of My Later Years (1956), the quote is:
"One may say "the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." (This rendition reads as if he is quoting or paraphrasing the statement of someone else — perhaps Immanuel Kant, whom he cites in the next sentence.)
Other variants:
"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility… The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle."
"One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
As quoted in Disturbing the Universe (1979), by Freeman Dyson Ch. 5
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
As quoted in Speaking of Science (2000) by Michael Fripp

Ask Mr Science. HERE. http://users.hubwest.com/hubert/mrscience/science1.html#index

That's our Report from the Middle ... you know the rest;
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? -Mary Oliver