The Universe Flies!

We stand upon the threshold of the 3rd Millennium with amazing tools for seeing
and a huge reservoir of art and literature to draw upon. The year 2000 might seem
like a random number, but it does align with an event that occurred in the year 1900:
the discovery of the quantum principle! There is a lesson in quantum physics that
reinforces what wise men have long known about the difficulty -- but not futility --
in reaching the "otherside". It is a lesson on the use and misuse of words and pictures.
Remember how Islamic art (and many other religious arts) makes free use of
mathematical forms in the architectural design of buildings and even cities.
Mathematical ornaments and emblems occur around doors and windows,
on the floors, walls, ceilings and even in the cut of the shrubbery. How good
is mathematics at describing ultimate reality? I am not qualified to answer,
but let me give a quotation from someone living who probably is qualified.

Paper in white the floor of the room, and rule it off in one-foot squares. Down on
one's hands and knees, write in the first square a set of equations conceived as able
to govern the physics of the universe. Think more overnight. Next day put a better
set of equations into square two. Invite one's most respected colleagues to contribute
to other squares. At the end of these labors, one has worked oneself out into the doorway.
Stand up, look back on all those equations, some perhaps more hopeful than others,
raise one's finger commandingly, and give the order "Fly!" Not one of those equations
will put on wings, take off, or fly. Yet the universe "flies".

This quote is from John A. Wheeler (1911- ) on page 1208 of Gravitation: a beautiful
treatise on Einstein's Theory of Relativity written with Charles Misner and Kip Thorne.
I greatly admire Wheeler's ability to write a treatise on physics as geometry and then be
able to say farewell to geometry, to dethrone it, and then welcome it as his dog-like
companion towards his true God. Wheeler is a professor emeritus of Princeton University
who has had the delight of meeting and working with some of the very best mathematicians
and physicists of the 20th century. In 1939, with Niels Bohr (1885-1962) he wrote the
seminal paper on Nuclear Fission. He worked with Einstein and even brought his freshman
students to Einstein's home. Many of his graduate students (Feynman, Zurek, Wootters,
Thorne ...) have done profound work.

Wheeler has worked with the best and has been face to face with Mathematical Beauty.
He has stood upon the shoulder of Giants and declared that mathematics is infinitely useful
and yet limited. He is familiar with the logician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), however, what
really makes him say that mathematics is limited is his understanding of the quantum principle.

This is frightening material. It is impossible to understand.
Hang on, dear reader, we are going to make a path and smooth the way.
You won't learn what mathematicians know and feel. But you'll get your reward.

Click on the wizard for an invocation of Albert Einstein & Johann Wolfgang Goethe
and also for a vision of the grand plan for this Renaissance series.
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