Monday, October 22, 2012



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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