My Quantum Physics Seat-Mate

Quantum physics has been a fascinating subject for me since I read The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, by Thom Hartmann and later saw the movie, What the Bleep Do We Know?

My seat-mate from Auckland to Los Angeles looked interesting – tall, alert eyes, energy rolling from him.  Turns out, he was passing through from the Antarctica to Washington, D.C. Further, he was a quantum physics scientist working on a project in the Antarctica that was sponsored by several countries and a few universities from the US. This project was a humongous balloon that carried ultra-sophisticated equipment that measured a specific form of radiation in the ionosphere – Way Up There. He explained it all very well. I understood about 80% of what he said. He should be a teacher.

And then he started talking about experiments with a super-conducting, super-colliding particle accelerator in Switzerland (they started building one in Waxahachie, TX). Truly he was amazingly interesting. He moved from there to systems and instant, quantum change – how one difference in an atom can immediately effect the same change in an unrelated atom. Now there was something I knew something about and had some experience … except from a humanistic point of view. I immediately saw how it all related. I was about to compare the physics of a system of atoms with the physics of a system in a family. In effect, it seems the same to me – from quarks to atoms to molecules to planets and universes – from one person to a family to a neighborhood to global humanity and life on other planets (why not?).

My attempts to engage verbally in the conversation were over-talked. In hindsight, I can see that his pauses were a time when his mind organized the next explanation. He didn't seem to hear my words. When he did hear, he continued on his own train of thought in the same direction he was heading before my interruption. I realized that it was entirely possible that I could be the backboard against which he would bounce his thoughts for the next 14 hours. Hmmm. I very subtly put on my headphones.

Now why would I have this experience? And why did I experience resignation? Oh yeah – my dad used to do that. He was an out-of-the-box thinker, an inventor, an acknowledged innovator in the thermodynamics of heat exchange (and other stuff). Exact same dynamic. Hi, Dad!

An out-of-the-blue test from Life As IT Is.