We could see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wit’s ends for fear. Homer, “The Odyssey”, Book XII In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” Jim Gates, Frank Blitzer and I revisit the first time human set eyes on […]
a view from the shadows
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I found myself recently standing on the shores of Lake Michigan, reflecting on the connections between these human spaces and the most vast spaces of the cosmic shores. The lighthouse on Cana Island in Door County, Wisconsin stands on the shores of Lake Michigan. At a height of 87 feet, […]
When I joined the existing co-authors of “Reality in the Shadows” to contribute to the book, I hesitated. It had nothing to do with them. Jim Gates is renowned in my field for his intellectual prowess, considered a founder of key ideas in the theory of supersymmetry. Frank Blitzer is […]
In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” we devote an entire chapter to the phenomenon of the black hole (“A Shadow Where No Light Shines“). We dealt in things that are known – for instance, that black holes exist and that they can be detected using their effects on the […]
Sometimes, scientific fields move fast. They move so fast, even three authors working with a really responsive and excellent publisher who has fully embraced “print-on-demand” as a business model cannot keep up. Such is the reality of the new astronomy, gravitational wave astronomy. The LIGO, and then the VIRGO, instruments […]
In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” Jim Gates, Frank Blitzer, and I take a look at the history of the Higgs particle, see the day the discovery was announced through the eyes of one of the co-authors (me), and explore what the Higgs might be besides being just another […]
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” could almost, taken at face value, be the plot of a movie in the “Saw” series [1]. Prisoners in a cave, born into chains and forced forever to face a single wall, know nothing of the reality of what lives behind them. A fire somewhere […]
“Reality in the Shadows” is a book that required years to write. I was the latest addition to the creative team, but it is very much a shared vision between three co-authors each with different perspectives on the subject matter. Jim Gates has a keen mathematical mind and delights in […]
A human being is the sum of the influences of all their caregivers and bullies, successes and failures, dreams and fears… all bound together by that something special each of us has inside, that thing that ultimately makes each of us unique. I am no different. As a teenager, and […]