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The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I cannot go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
--Theodore Roethke
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Joy's Updates - Straight from the Horse's Mouth.
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Friday, June 16, 2006
SSC
I just finished reading Herman Wouk's novel A Hole in Texas, which is about a NASA astrophysicist who worked on the Superconducting Super Collider (info here). In the novel, the Chinese proved the existence of the Higgs boson (link), which set the scientific community on the alert since the cancellation of the SSC ruined the American physicists' chances of doing it first. It was an interesting novel, enjoyable and instructive to read. Wouk's novel was dedicated to his brother Victor, who received his PhD from Cal Tech in 1942. The information about the SSC project, cancellation, and politics was based on reality. Here is what a physicist wrote about the novel and the project.
Earl said he presented a slide show about the SSC and that he thought the main problem with the public relations for it was that most people don't care about what caused the universe to form, how it exists, and any of that. He's probably right. I am interested in it, so I'm sure most people aren't. I used to think I was the average American and a litmus test for what was going on in the minds of the country. I've since changed my mind and realize I'm somewhere outside that parameter on some kind of limb. Although I don't claim to understand particle physics, I believe information about our existence, our interrelation to each other and the universe, and so much more is there.
9:43:00 AM
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