1932 CHALLENGING THE SYSTEM
I have finally started my book on
Einstein.
I bought it a few weeks ago- and
never had the chance to break it open.
I also am working my way thru the
Catechism of the Catholic church- quite a volume indeed.
I watched a couple of
documentaries on Netflix over the weekend- Last night I caught a documentary on
Hunter Thompson.
He was the character that Johnny
Depp played in the movie ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’.
Hunter was a sort of counter
culture hero- he wrote for Rolling Stone and had his own unique style of writing.
He called it Gonzo journalism- he
said the writer needed to inject himself into the story- and become part of the
story.
Sort of like what the reporters
did in the Iraq war- we called it ‘Embed’.
He covered the campaign of George
McGovern- who sadly passed this week.
George was the quintessential
liberal- but a man of conviction- he was a good man.
Hunter made it into the headlines
a few years back- he killed himself with one of his favorite things- a gun.
Yeah- Hunter was a gun lover- a
liberal- and in some ways a moralist of his time.
Now- with all the doc’s I saw
[also finished Greek civilization] and the books I’m reading- it’s hard to pick
one subject to cover at a time.
But let me go with Einstein for a
few minutes.
In this biography- by Walter
Isaacson- he doesn’t go too deeply into the science of Einstein- which would
take a whole physics course to understand.
But he does cover some high
points.
One of the things that Thompson
and Einstein had in common- was their willingness to challenge the system.
They took on the ‘received
wisdom’ of the day- and were daring enough to take the ‘path less trod’.
Just one area- Ether.
At the start of the 20th
century Ether was an accepted ‘scientific truth’ that most [if not all]
scientists accepted.
It would be like Dark Matter
today- something that seems to be ‘true’- most of the scientific community
speak of it as real- yet- as far as we know- we have never once actually detected
it.
So- ether was this theory that
said light/energy is a wave [not particles] and therefore for this wave to move
thru space- it needs a carrier.
Ether was this so called vapor
like substance that allowed Energy/light to travel.
At a young age Einstein accepted
this idea- but he was learning at a time when particle physics was just getting
off the ground.
Though atoms and molecules [particles]
were indeed part of the conversation- yet they were not totally proved yet.
So- part of the great breakthrough
of Einstein put to death the idea of Ether- and instead we learned that light
is not a wave so to speak- but a sort of particle beam- we did not really need
the Ether concept- and to be honest- it never was really there.
This is just one little tid bit from
the book that I thought interesting- today you would be considered a fool if
you still talked about Ether [in this way].
Yet- at the time of Einstein you
were a fool if you did not accept it.
Einstein would later challenge
the field that he launched- Theoretical/Quantum physics.
He felt like some of the ideas
were not really scientific- too much speculating.
That’s what I see as I watch/read
about some of the most popular ideas that seem to make it into the TV specials
that cover these subjects.
It’s often the theories/ideas
that are ‘way out there’ that are the most interesting- and get the most
viewers.
The problem is- many of these
ideas are [in my view] modern day Ethers- they are accepted ‘fact’ even though
we don’t really know if they exist.
When I see shows on alternate universes-
parallel worlds- where we supposedly have duplicate lives and all.
Well- this is not science- this
is not even Ether- its fairy tale land.
Yet- these same theorists will mock
belief in an omnipotent being- because they want to see the facts.
Sad.
So- over the next few weeks I
will try and hit a little more on the books I’m reading- cover some more
important news stuff- and try to be as challenging as Hunter.
Sometimes it’s when we go against
the status quo- when we are open to see things differently- that’s when we make
major breakthroughs in our thinking.
We should not cast off all the
stuff that has come to us down thru the ages- but we need to realize that some
of the stuff that seems to be accepted fact today- just might be the Ether of
yesterday.
Note- Do me a favor, those who
read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read
them on. Thanks- John. Don’t forget to scroll down on the timeline [Facebook] -
I have posted lots.
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