NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/sci/physics/11926

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-29 | 3.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!ariel!ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au!lugb!latcs1!burns
From: [e-mail] (Jonathan Burns)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Structure of Time
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Jul 92 06:55:57 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Jonathan Burns)
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia
Lines: 68


In article <[e-mail]>
 [e-mail] writes:

>    I'am very sorry that I have encounter here many peoples who seems to be
> somekind of representative of "inquisition". I always belived that just
> physicists love the truth most, what ever the truth is.
>    These "inquisitors" have contacted to my employer and they have tried
> to insalt me and my paper. My employment is in danger at the moment.

I think this is terribly sad.

First, because there are people who think that their reasonable
judgement, "This fellow is posting rubbish", makes it proper to
complain to his sysop or employer or whoever, without knowing
what it might entail. I'd say they are coming very close to
recommending discrimination on the basis of religion, in the
matter of net privilege. For analogy, do they routinely do this
whenever we have a creationist posting to sci.physics? It's not
as if we're being harrassed by this guy.

Second, it's sad that people at both ends of this are completely
missing the essence of Hanna-Maria's inventions.

When I was little, I used to make up my own subatomic particles.
I'd colour them in with blue and orange and red dots, and give
them spacey names. I'd draw them in nice atomic orbits, and then
using a ruler and pencil, I'd collide them at random, and recombine
the colours so that new particles came out.

This wasn't physics, I knew that. It was _physics play_. I'd been
reading about electrons and positrons, and got so excited that I
wanted to make up my own. The result wasn't any new physical theory.
The result was a child who went on to read calculus textbooks a
couple of years ahead of school, and do Theoretical Physics as a major
at uni.

Same with Hanna-Maria. What she's doing is Physics Play Storytelling.
It's sweet, it's poetic, and it has a definite cosmic oomph. It takes
me right back. What we're looking at is the basic sense of wonder,
from which I daresay many of us got the motivation to become physicists,
whether professional, academic or amateur.

Except for her Dad, nobody is taking this seriously as physics. The
Gradgrinds who sneer at it are just cheating themselves of the poetry.

But Hannu, you should also be cautioned. It may not be good for
Hanna-Maria, at all, to have you treating her as a sort of sibyl,
with a direct tap to God. Especially if you are making this a really
Big Deal for her, exposing her to (frivolous) questions, and setting
her up for rejection. That is using _her_ specialness to serve _your_
need to discover great truths, and it's wrong.

Let her be. Maybe the same flair for invention will serve her in
some skill later. Maybe even physics. But it's not physics now, and
you'll only involve her in a lie passing it off as that.

It's the creativity of children that's the gift of God.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonathan Burns        |  They say you can go to the pits a thousand times
[e-mail]|  and see nothing like the jaguar and the Black Knight.
Computer Science Dept |  I don't know 'bout that either. But I'm going back
La Trobe University   |  just in case I get lucky.
                      |      Lucius Shepard, _Life During Wartime_
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