A speculative mind

  Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz both invented the application of mathematics known as calculus. When I say they both did, I don’t mean to imply they worked on it together. They both independently invented calculus. Newton began working on calculus in 1666 but didn’t publish anything about it until 1693. Leibniz began working on it in 1674 but didn’t publish anything about it until 1684. Most people today believe that the two men developed their ideas separately. Charles Darwin had been working on his theory of evolution for years. He developed the theory in the 1830s but knew it would be controversial so he didn’t tell anyone about it and continued to gather evidence to support his theory. In 1858 Alfred Russell Wallace, an acquaintance of Darwin, sent Darwin a letter outlining a theory of evolution that Russell had come up with. Darwin was shocked. Reportedly some passages were almost word for word the same as Darwin’s. The two men had come up with the same idea. The reas...

  As I was casting about looking for something to read, my wife pointed me in the direction of a book she had purchased from a local book store: Cinder by Marissa Meyer. From the name and the cover, it was obvious to me that this was a retelling of Cinderella . “Isn’t that like a Cinderella story?” I said with faint distain. “It is and it isn’t,” she said. “It is science fiction.” Like that was supposed to make up for it. Cinderella is not my favorite story. I probably liked it well enough when I was seven or eight and first saw the Disney version. But there have been sooooo many versions since (and before) in movies and television that I am pretty sick and tired of Cinderella. It almost seems like a rite of passage for an actress to play Cinderella. Actresses who have played Cinderella include Leslie Caron, Hillary Duff, Julie Andrews, Lilly James, Drew Barrymore, Brandy Norwood, Selena Gomez, Leslie Ann Warren, Mary Pickford, Anne Hathaway, Deanna Durbin (and let’s not forget, ...

  Was Frankenstein the first gothic novel? Not quite. Gothic literature as its own genre is said to have begun with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story , which came out in 1764. But Frankenstein which came out in 1818 is probably the earliest example of gothic fiction that is still well known in the mainstream today. In 1815 Indonesia’s Mt Tambora erupted. It was the largest volcanic eruption in human history. The eruption caused global climate change. 1816 was called the year without a summer. Why am I telling you this? Because that summer Mary (Shelley) was vacationing on Lake Geneva with the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley (her future husband), Lord Byron and others. The weather was so dismal that they stayed inside and read ghost stories to each other to amuse themselves. Then Byron challenged them to each write their own ghost story, and they would vote for a winner. The idea of someone trying to build and animate a human from body parts came to Mary in a dre...

  It is a bit hard to remember back to like March as Covid-19 was beginning to impact our country. It didn’t even have a name back then. They just referred to it as a new type of Coronavirus. It seems to my mind that the time from when we first were growing concerned about it, to complete lockdown, passed very quickly. The vast majority of people took the lockdown seriously and followed the rules. Once the restrictions started being eased, still most people took it seriously. I know in my household we did. We were scrupulous about wearing masks, keeping our distance from people, quarantining our groceries, and going out only when necessary. We still do. After months of living in the plague of 2020, I see Covid fatigue setting in. I see it in everyone else, and I see it in myself. The mind starts subconsciously letting the guard down. I am still careful, wearing masks etc., but whereas in the beginning, I didn’t have to think about being careful, I just did it. Now I find I have t...

  Just about every culture that has ever existed on Earth has developed some kind of religion. Is this in itself evidence that God exists? Or is this just a quirk of the human mind?   As human beings, we struggle with the big questions of life: why are we here etc. Some people look for answers in religion. Some look for answers in philosophy. Some look for answers in science. No one has ever come up with a universal answer, an answer that works for everyone. Why not? If there was one right answer, everyone should be able to recognize it. The rightness of it ought to be self-evident. There would be no need for competing religions or philosophies. If the answer was true, it ought to be as obvious as a volcano. Maybe we struggle to find the answer because we are not very good at asking the question. Questions like: “why are we here?” Or “What’s it all about?” are really pretty vague and open-ended aren’t they? What specifically are you asking?   You might as well be aski...

  Science fiction that veers into the realm of the impossible, is really not science fiction anymore but should probably be categorized as fantasy. For example: time travel. Travelling forward in time is certainly not impossible; we do it every day. Even jumping forward in time is not impossible. Einstein’s rules say that if you can go fast enough, you will move through time faster then a person you left behind. You are not really moving faster in time. The rate of time for you stays the same. But you are moving faster relative to the person who is not moving Actually no one is ever not moving. If you are on the Earth, the Earth is rotating. It is also going around the sun, which is moving through the galaxy etc. How fast are we moving? Well that is all relative to the observer, who is also going to be moving. The universe itself is expanding so there is no place you can be that is a fixed point that is not moving. When we talk about speed, we are usually talking about a speed r...

  Creativity is a great gift. Not everyone is given that gift. Some glimpse it. Some receive intermittent bursts. But for those upon whom the full gift is bestowed, they can lift the world. But beware. There is often a price that comes with that gift. Many of the most creative people have struggled with the non-creative parts of their lives. Many times have we heard stories of depression or other mental health issues that have stalked creative geniuses. I have not been blessed to be immersed in the pool of creative wonder. Rather, if I am lucky, a few drops may land on me from time to time. But then, neither have I had to deal with the problems that plagued Van Gogh, Curt Cobain, Hemingway, or Robin Williams. To be sure, being creative does not mean you have mental health issues, just as having mental health issues does not make you creative. But I am struck be how many creatives have problems. It isn’t just the arts that benefit from creative genius. Where would physics be today i...