Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind: Volume 2: The Athena Chapters,
Chapter Eleven:
Who the H-E-Double-Toothpicks is John Bardeen?
I had a dream. I know it was a dream because what happened couldn’t possibly be true. I found myself in a world where people loved their children more than they hated those who didn’t look or think like them. As I walked around, I smiled at all the happy people; they smiled back. After a bit, I woke up.
Buford Lister, from My Life as a Figment of Ryan-Tyler N. Mason’s Imagination: A Memoir
This is the last essay (or maybe not). The previous one was supposed to be the last one, but, apparently (and incredibly), nearly everyone who read it misunderstood it. I must admit I am having a bit of difficulty dealing with all this nonsense. The worst thing is not that Athena never took me up on my lunch date request; that doesn’t surprise me at all. The problem I have is with how people have interpreted this book. Apparently, I strike nearly everyone who knows me as the kind of dude who would write an entire book about being blown off by a chick. That, frankly, is a bit discouraging.
Writers, especially novelists, talk all the time about how their readers miss the vast majority of all the stuff that was included in the text or alluded to between the sentences. I must say that I agree. Everything that is in this book is there for a specific reason. I was optimistic that the readers would be able to put everything all together to reach some conclusions, hopefully deep ones, on their own. I wanted those conclusions to be meaningful within the context of their own lives. Still, I also wanted them to get a sense of what this unimaginable experience has meant to me. The bottom line is that I am not nearly deft enough a writer to do this. This book has been a miserable failure on many levels, and I have no one to blame but myself.
I stated many, many times that I wrote these essays in an attempt to convince Athena to go to lunch with me. That means that I would think of an idea, write an essay, edit it, and then send it to her. That is precisely what I did until I gave up. And yes, I do realize this process has created more problems than it has solved.
So, why exactly did I want to eat lunch with her? Did I want to ask her what her middle name is so I could get to work on monogram towels? Did I want to see her so we could go over baby names? I will give everyone a moment to snicker, shake their heads, and roll their eyes before I tell you why I so desperately wanted to see her again. It has something to do with a book, a very special book.
{THIS PART IS ABOUT ERDOS – I AM MENTIONING HIM ON PURPOSE}
I have read a couple of biographies of a man named Paul Erdos, one of the most prolific mathematicians who ever lived. Erdos (pronounced “air-dish”) was a man with no family, no home, and no job. He traveled the world in a quest to do more and better mathematics. He was, literally and figuratively, a logic machine on a mission to discover fundamental truth.
Many years ago, a strange thing happened as I was reading the second biography that was written about Erdos’ fascinating life. About a third of the way through, I put the book down and went upstairs to my library. I was certain that I had read that book before, so I went to find the other biography. As I was walking up the stairs, I was becoming more and more convinced that I had made a mistake and ordered the same book twice. I quickly found the other book on a shelf, and much to my surprise, it was a different book, not the same one I was currently reading. The issue was that the two books were nearly identical. They had to be, Erdos did math (lots and lots of math), and that is all he did. That was the only story about Erdos to be told, and both authors took a nearly identical approach in the way they told it. The books were so similar that I thought I was reading the first one twice instead of reading the second one for the first time.
Satisfied that I hadn’t yet lost my mind, I went back downstairs and finished the second biography. Both books are very good; either one is a fine choice.
Both authors extensively mentioned something called The Book. Erdos referenced it quite a bit. The Book was where the SF wrote all the proofs and theorems that were in existence, ever had existed, or ever could be. They were all deep, elegant, and profound. The SF, or Supreme Fascist, was what Erdos called God. Of course, he didn’t necessarily believe in such a being, but he sure as H-E-DOUBLE-TOOTHPICKS believed in The Book.
Paul Erdos often talked about The Supreme Fascist and The Book. The Supreme Fascist created the Book; straight from the SF’s thoughts to the pages of The Book, or some such. Within The Book are all the mathematical and statistical laws of the universe. If a person was willing to work hard enough and was lucky enough, they were allowed to occasionally peek into The Book. Those glimpses are what make life worth living for people like Erdos. It goes without saying that a person has to have a tremendous flash of insight to be allowed to get a look at the math or science chapters in The Book. Mere dudes don’t get to peek too often.
How bad did Erdos want to look at The Book? Can you imagine being passionate enough about something that you would continue working 19 hour days into your 80s? Wow, let that sink in for a bit. Erdos kept going and going until he literally dropped. He couldn’t get enough; The Book has that powerful an allure.
{THE NAME JOHN BARDEEN IS IN THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAY – ∴ (mathematical symbol for therefore) THIS SECTION IS PROBABLY IMPORTANT}
I suspect that John Bardeen, whoever the H-E-DOUBLE-TOOTHPICKS he is, has also been mentioned for a specific purpose. Then again, what do I know? I am just a dude who has wasted well over two years of his life beating his head against a wall while tapping these little black keys. Maybe that is why no one understood a word that I wrote, maybe I have damaged myself in a fundamental way. I kind of doubt it though, I feel fine.
John Bardeen was awarded twice as many Nobel Prizes as Albert Einstein was. Didn’t know that, did you? He is the only person ever to win two in the field of physics. He was as unassuming as he was brilliant; he never sought the limelight, and consequently, you have almost certainly never heard of him. Even many of his neighbors didn’t know about his achievements. He clearly didn’t care what they knew; he didn’t need their applause, nor did he want their praise. He knew what he had accomplished.
Do you know what Bardeen did after he won his second Nobel Prize, after he had one-upped Einstein? He kept working. He didn’t rest on his laurels; he didn’t sit back and bask in the glory of an incredible life. He put his head down and got back in the lab. Life is too short to stop working hard; there is way too much left unknown. Deep insights are not easy to come by; if you want them, you have to keep at it. Besides, what can possibly bring a person more joy than discovering a fundamental truth of the universe? What could be better than listening to a cosmic whisper of a secret never before revealed? What could be more important than that? What could be more awesome than a peek at The Book?
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: PLEASE LISTEN – THIS PARAGRAPH IS CRUCIAL.) I know how important a look at The Book is. In my life, I got to eye it one time, and you all know exactly when that happened. The curious thing is that my look was not mathematical or statistical in composition, at least not explicitly. It was something of a different order, something not easily understood. But please, please understand; I, little old unworthy me (the dude who wrote this miserable collection of essays), got to look into The Book. What I saw was something extraordinary, something beyond the bounds of language. I am still searching for the combination of keys that will let me explain what I saw; as of yet, I can’t find them.
Bardeen kept working; I suspect, (and I keep writing) because there is nothing more seductive on the face of the earth than a look at The Book. Can you imagine? One moment you are simply a dude or a chick, and then the next instant, you are face to face with the deepest structure of reality. I tell you this: If it ever happens to you, try your best to stand upright as the inner workings of the universe are revealed all around you in a very deep and fundamental way. Please be aware that the flashes arrive outside of time and space; they have their own delivery mechanism, so you can guess that things get a little strange. This is what I know because that is what I experienced and, believe me, all I could do when I saw The Book was try to remain vertical. And yeah, I know better than anyone that if she wanted to talk to me, she would pick up her phone and call me. It might just be possible that I wanted to eat lunch with her to see if that got me another look at The Book. She is my only key, the sole conduit that I know.
{FEYNMAN WAS A BRILLIANT AND INTERESTING GUY – I AM WRITING ABOUT HIM ON PURPOSE}
Richard Feynman (“only” one Nobel Prize) often talked about an analogy between chess and the search for fundamental laws of nature. I love listening to Feynman, he is all over YouTube, feel free to give him a view. James Gleick, a fantastic writer, wrote a very good biography about Feynman. I enjoyed reading it.
I have wanted to write about Feynman’s chess analogy for decades, and now I finally have a chance. I love this analogy; I think it nicely sums up the approach of scientists doing basic research into the fundamental laws of nature. Feynman started his story with The Gods playing a game something like chess. Imagine that you, a mere mortal, have no idea what the rules of the game are, and you have no clue what the board looks like. You don’t even know what pieces are used, and you have no inkling what the object of the game is. Occasionally, you get a tiny glimpse of a move on a small piece of the board. After some time (make that a long time), you can start to piece together the rules of the game. The goal is to come to a complete and deep understanding of what is being played.
One night, a few years ago or so, I got a glimpse at the board and its rules even though I was not on a quest to find it. Totally unprepared and infinitely confused, I saw moves being made this way and that. I saw the entire layout of the board, all the pieces, as well as the table the game was being played on. I saw The Book off to the left, opened to the proper pages. I saw all of it. I was too surprised to document all the rules of the game, but I took away a few things. The problem is, the rules were generated in a place where Occam’s Razor is a mere figment of an overactive imagination, and Quantum Mechanics is the rule. It is a place where everything and everyone is a visible wave function and a collection of particles at the same time. It is a place with multiple dimensions, a place where six and seven-dimensional objects snatch whatever they want, whenever they want, out of our three-dimensional world. It is odd as all H-E-DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS, but castling, that strange chess move, is allowed between and amongst boards in different dimensions. I have to admit, that castling move has confused the H-E-DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS out of me since I saw it with my little three dimensional eyes and processed it through my caveman brain.
Author’s Note: Please understand that one moment I was drinking a beer and listening to loud music (I always wear earplugs), the next moment I saw the board, the equations streaming across the borders in every conceivable direction. I saw the moves and how they are made. No idea if I saw all of them, how could I know that? I got a nice, long view of The Book, but I didn’t retain more because I was distracted. Remember, I had in front of me the most beautiful human being I have ever seen. This book, a mere mortal’s attempt to explain what I saw, is not The Book, it is just a book.
{HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I MENTIONED VONNEGUT? I AM SURE HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN BROUGHT UP ON PURPOSE}
Writing this book has been, to say the least, an interesting experience. I am reminded of Kurt Vonnegut, and all the time it took him to write Slaughterhouse-Five. If you haven’t read that book, please do. It is a masterpiece. It holds its own against any novel ever written, including Nabokov’s Lolita.
Slaughterhouse-Five is about the allied bombing of Dresden during World War II. Vonnegut’s view of Dresden is something along the following lines. He, among many others, did not think that it was a legitimate military target. Dresden was an open city; it was undefended. It had a community populated by artists and the like. It was a beautiful city, that is until it was destroyed. Vonnegut was there during the destruction; he was a prisoner of war being held in an unused slaughterhouse known as slaughterhouse number five.
Vonnegut’s experience in the war gave him a long look into The Book. When he stepped out of slaughterhouse number five the morning after the bombing, he got a very close look at the footnotes at the bottom of the page The Book was opened to that day. His observations, while unlike those of Erdos, Bardeen, and Feynman, were equally as profound. Due to that experience, he wrote one of the greatest novels ever written. The novel, at least in my estimation, was his account of what he saw in The Book.
That book, Slaughterhouse-Five, took Vonnegut a long time to write. Whenever asked, Vonnegut used to tell people he was working on his “Dresden book.” “What are you up to?” Working on the Dresden book. “Can you go to so and so with us?” Can’t, busy trying to finish the Dresden book, and so on. I was reminded of those stories just a few days ago. I was struggling mightily with Chapter 8, the Cinema Paradiso essay, when I picked up my worn copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. I ended up reading the entire book again.
I am sure people are getting tired of hearing me. “I can’t go out, trying to finish the “Athena book” (I don’t really say that, I use her real first name. Lots of people have that particular name so it won’t give her away). “Hopeful of finishing a draft of the entire Athena book this weekend.” “Might be done tonight. Blah, blah, blah.” There is a novel on the back burner because of this. It is very close, but I can’t finish it yet, I have to first finish my Athena book.
What do people do when I say my “Athena book” is close to completion? They snicker, chuckle, and make contorted faces. The message is always the same: Dude, give it up. You have lost your mind. She doesn’t want to talk to you. If she did, she would. Get with the program and stop wasting your time.
After I wrote the Beef Stroganoff chapter, the one where I let everyone know that this volume is my life’s work (it is) and that I have been living the first line of my obituary for the last 29 months (I have) they still snicker, chuckle, and make contorted faces. Their message is consistently the same. Am I the only one who is astonished by this? That is a largely rhetorical question I am throwing out to the universe as a whole. No comments from the peanut gallery are necessary.
I wrote extensively in a previous chapter about wavelengths and the fact that I have spent my whole life on one devoid of human companionship. Of course, that is until I met Athena. Stuff like this serves as a prime example of what I am talking about. Shouldn’t the people who know me best pause for just a moment when I say that this volume encompasses my life’s work? Shouldn’t they consider, at least for a second, that this is not simply a book about a dude meeting a chick at a punk rock show? If I stand up and tell them that meeting her was the most profound experience of my life, why do they all insist on claiming that I have wasted my time chasing a woman who clearly doesn’t want to get caught? I am literally speechless. I will now turn the tables and roll my eyes at them.
I didn’t expect this to happen, but when I wrote this book, I was inadvertently constructing a mirror that allowed me to see how others view me. I am more than a little shocked by the reflections coming back my way. I literally looked into The Book when she spoke to me; I wrote this collection of essays because I had to know if Athena got to see what I did. She didn’t. I was sure that she did. I have no explanation. I was gloriously wrong.
One other thing: Don’t think for one instant that I am comparing myself to Vonnegut or any of these great scientists and or mathematicians I have been talking about in this essay. They all made major contributions to humanity; all I did was fail to convince a punk rocker chick that I was worthy of a lunch date. Not much there to compare.
{THIS IS THE END – IT IS AN EPIPHENOMENON, I SEE NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN THE SIMPLE FACT AN ESSAY HAS TO HAVE AN END (IN THAT WAY IT IS MUCH LIKE A HUMAN CHIN – YOUR CHIN DOES NOT SERVE AS AN ADAPTATION, YOU HAVE ONE SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU NEED SOME KIND OF STRUCTURE TO HOLD YOUR FACE TOGETHER)}
I don’t remember my dreams much anymore. I haven’t slept through the night in decades. I guess you have a better chance of remembering your dreams if you get continuous hours of sleep. At least I suppose that is true. I think maybe that meeting Athena was a dream. It had to be, didn’t it? As I recall, there was a book, The Book, and I was allowed to look at it. There was a beautiful woman (you have no idea) who was on the same wavelength as me, she smiled and laughed while I simply tried to stay upright. We both wrote on a napkin; it is in a frame on my special shelf. There were three CDs with scribbles all over them; they are keeping the napkin company. There were extra dimensions, one of joy (that is where the Random Pulses of Bliss come from) and curious ones filled with mysterious stuff I wasn’t too interested in at the time (Athena is very distracting). And, of course, we all know what happened at the end. I woke up.
