"TURBULENCE WAS A PROBLEM with pedigree. The great physicists all thought about it, formally or informally. A smooth flow breaks up into whorls and eddies. Wild patterns disrupt the boundary between fluid and solid. Energy drains rapidly from Large-scale motions to small. Why? The best ideas came from mathematicians; for most physicists, turbulence was too dangerous to waste time on. It seemed almost unknowable.
There was a story about the quantum theorist Werner Heisenberg, on his deathbed, declaring that he would have two questions for God; why relativity, and why turbulence. Heisenberg says, "I really think He may have an answer to the first question." - CHAOS 1987 James Gleick
PROLOGUE
I've been reading up physics' and mathematics' exploration on this idea of Chaos. I started the conversation a few months back with my quickie on Fractals and Karma. Looking back, it’s evident to me what I was trying to say, but I'm not so sure that I even knew the measure of this hydra at that time. Elegant as the piece may have been, it was a half-explored idea, based on intuition's shapeless and fascinating beauty. Not that exuberance should be censured, quite the contrary, but we must attend to inspiration to realize the possibility of freedom whispered to us.
Apologies aside, I'm feeling overwhelmed and humbled with an understanding of what I feel to be a paradigm shift in human consciousness. Like a sailor on his first extended voyage, my legs and stomach are weak with a young man's lack of confidence of skill at his chosen profession. Replete with the joy of a poet, as yet tempered by the vast emptiness in front of me. Perhaps someday I will compile these articles into a book, but for now as the author learns to trim the sheets he asks the reader to employ a measure of empathy.
Lastly, I'd like to qualify all this by admitting that none of this may be new. I haven't done the exhaustive research required by scientific law to discover and cite proper authors. Where possible I will link to articles and books which I've based my thoughts upon. I plan to write some portion of this diary in the 1st person, uncited except for my own intuition about certain principles discussed. Just as the pioneers of Chaos discovered, they were left isolated in academia as neither mathematicians nor physicists. It’s seemingly plausible that in humanity's current fascination with self reflection and spirituality someone has already overturned this rock and looked beneath at the wonders abounding, hidden; revealed. As this series develops, I will strive to draw upon established research and place it in context with the concepts that will be imparted to the reader. I don't claim to be the owner of any of this at all, rather like most scientific study; it is based on the strong back of those who have shared inspiration before. I am the scribe, in the spirit of a child eagerly collecting snowflakes of a sparse early winter snow molding the form of a snowman. There are children up and down the street doing the same, all experience the same snow storm, and our individual creations are invariably as different as the flakes we create from.
Perhaps Albert Einstein was on to something with his quest for a unified field theory. Or perhaps it was life in a box which overtook his mind, unable to create anew. It’s a state we're all familiar with; in fact I hold that we live most of our lives bound by our own beliefs and ideals. Unable to create new thought while stuck in our web of (dis)belief. I think we're all guilty of idealizing Einstein himself. What article or reference to him cannot begin with credentials to the effect of "greatest scientific mind of the 20th century"? In his own time a legend already, the pressure to create was immense. All indications are that he was in fact a human and following his own intuition, with wild disregard to the quantum vogue. Reminiscent of another inventor of similar caliber and similar end-of-life focus: Nicola Tesla. I suppose I'm only trying to extend a nod to great men who've gone before me, and faced the wrath of the scientific cadre. Mentioned, before I start, before attempting to use the thoughts of thinkers past without a degree of credibility myself.
0 comments:
Post a Comment