Mr g by Alan Lightman

Writing good fiction is hard. Writing good science is even harder. From what I've come across over the years, science-based fiction (not science fiction) is a rare talent to be praised. Mr Lightman began his career as a physicist, specializing in astrophysics, and for twenty years, held a distinguished career in astronomy through MIT.

Then he started writing. With previous (and somewhat esoteric) work such as Einstein's Dreams and Good Benito, Lightman's talents have come to lay in weaving descriptive prose with a scientist's curious and detailed view of the Universe.

Which brings us to Mr g.The unnamed narrator, at the beginning of the book,  wakes up from a very long nap and decides to create a universe. In this story of Creation as told from the perspective of the Creator, we can see the development of geometric, scientific, mathematical, and physical ideas as the narrator builds concepts such as space and time from the infinite nothingness of the Void, where he lives with his argumentative aunt and uncle. The creator is at his core a curious personality, learning by trial-and-error as he builds, and rebuilds universes of varying dimension, geometries, logical consistences, and stability. He loves to watch his creations simply grow and change, and see how they react to stimuli, such as introduction of "organizational principles" and laws of physics.

His favorite project begins with Aalam-104729 (the name originates with His Uncle Deva's penchant for creative naming, and the 10,000^th prime number, so he doesn't lose track of it amid the billions of other universes), which His Aunt Penelope randomly selects for him, encouraging that He "take His time with this one, and not rush into things." As Mr g (He is never actually referred to as such in the book, but I'm running out of things to call Him) launches Aalam-104729 by enriching it with symmetry concepts, a simple three dimensions of space, physical laws, and finally matter, which erupts in a fantastic explosion, He is delighted to simply watch his creation grow.

As a strict non-interventionist, the narrator is highly concerned with proper cause-and-effect, in which His own actions should not meddle with the internal workings as the universe unfolds of its own accord, and in a beautiful chaos, developing elementary particles, stars, planets, and eventually biology. His foil, however, has a somewhat more active philosophy. Soon after the creation of Aalam-104729, the tall, whip-smart, and elusive Belhor arrives with an interest in the new creation. While not "the devil" per se, Belhor represents Mr g's intellectual equal, who often serves as a balancing sounding board for ideas concerning thornier issues when conscious life arises, such as morality, and the overarching philosophy of a "disinterested" god who allows beings to suffer.

Perhaps the most compelling moral discussion in the novel is the narrator's discussion with His uncle, who is lobbying for the creation of an immortal soul for conscious beings; the creator is hesitant, well-knowing that a mind from the material universe would not be able to comprehend the Void beyond existence. With input from Belhor, and Uncle Deva, the idea of the beings having an actual connection beyond their universe is a heavy decision for the creator.

While being an exceptionally quick read, Lightman's work weaves together concepts ranging wide from mathematics, science, and philosophy, as taken by someone who has very good reason to consider the impacts of each of His ideas. The science, form the Big Bang to the End, is wonderfully expressed in the text as we read the life story of the universe, and its creator's pure love for all that it is. This is an excellent read for anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy or science, with a shift of perspective to the Outside which only a deity could appreciate

Options.


I have decided that i had now had enough time where I am and things need to change. This blog essentially began almost three years ago, with my drawn-out mourning of the premature death of my career in physics. With little idea what I should do next, I chose to apply my wealth of information regarding the natural world to education. Since August 2006, I have had a wonderful career as a high school teacher in Leominster, Massachusetts, learning a great deal about people, myself, and seeing my life-long discipline through a new lens. I have grown, I have changed, and matured.

However, I something else needs to happen. I need to move, a new direction is necessary, a new discipline awaits, evolution must continue. In many ways, this points back to school again; I will be the last to balk at the idea of earning a doctorate or a second masters, but I would rather have a particular focus at this time, as an enormous investment of time, money, and sanity will be given to any continuation of my scholastic career. Or, this could simply be changing jobs, and then finding a new path.

At the core of this is that I am restless. I really do love my job, but I'm simply not sure where it is going. So much of my path thus far is defined by remaining kinetic, and quite simply, there is little room to grow in teaching. Yes, of course, I am (and am always working on) becoming a better teacher, but beyond my current job, the only other options seem to be administration or another job in pedagogy, in which I simply have no interest.

So where do interests lie? This is troublesome. Since junior high school, I had an intense focus upon physics (as lamented in prior posts), so finding a new one is difficult, but I believe I have this narrowed-down to several options:

• History
  Long-time fan. This largely goes back to an interest which has been at a "hobby" level for a long time. I have thoroughly enjoyed every history class I have taken from high school to today, and actively read about the history of science (fascinating topic-- particularly in the Renaissance). In fact, I briefly toyed with minoring in history during college. Exciting stuff, plus on a professional level, I would be allowed, nor encouraged, to dive into academia once again in studying, writing papers, and being an over badass with my mind.
  
  On the other hand, what professional level? A college professor? A teacher again? Perhaps its my poor research, but in pure academia, there is a relatively barren field outside of the physical sciences. No stipend, few scholarships, rare government work, and little to no money. And what will I have then, A PhD? And I have saddled myself with decades of more education debt, with little path. And what if I do no finish? Another doctoral program quite simply terrifies me after my last experience. This idea shows amazing glimmer, but only if it works out the way I want it to. I am no so foolish to think of that again
  
  
• Archivism/Library Science
  Related in the same vein as the last option. I believe that this would lead me a great deal into preservation and study of this field (duh). But the short of it is that I am a bit of a bibliophile. As a child, my family was always certain that a book for me to read was nearby, and later as a teen, I found myself working in the library and spending my breaks at a local antiquarian bookstore. This was one of the the first ties which Megan and I established upon our first conversation. Today, I have about a thousand books in my house and actively read at least two at a time.
  In respect to my prior work, this is a bit different. To be honest, this mixes a long-time interest with pragmatism-- an MLS is marketable. Ideally, I would like to see myself working with a museum (particularly a science museum); in reality, there might even be connections to curatorial studies, which is a true formalism of museum work in the simple act of preserving knowledge. I've done some research, and there is a school in Boston which offers this degree, but again, I am uncertain of job placement and in particular, how and when I could pay for this degree. Speaking of placement, this brings me to...
• Geography
  If I had known that this was an actual field of study ten years ago, my life very well would have taken a different path. Anyone who knows me can tell that that I'm an absolute map geek. Whenever the opportunity arises, I will gladly spend hours staring at maps (particularly antique ones); a few years ago, there was a special exhibition at the Boston Public Library on map history, and was absolutely wonderful. What I know about the professional field is vague at best, but I've meant to learn topography from a mathematical approach for a long time. Most of it involves civil engineering applications, census data, population distribution, trends, etc. Jobs? Well, I have found this, which lists a few options, but I have a feeling that a lot of these jobs are few and far between (or at least the particularly interesting ones), and I simply have no idea where these would go
• Physics
  There is a small part of my mind that still wonders about returning. Seeing my friends from the Brandeis program grow in their research allows a slight sting of envy despite my happiness for them. Still think I'm a bit shaken about the '06 qualifier though. I think this will later be demoted to "hobby." I plan to buy Gravitation one of these days.
  

I guess that I'm done for now. I really could go on, but much of it is speculation. This was probably more of a catharsis of my own sorting process. Let's see if I follow through.

NB-- this blog will return to actual writing, rather than whining soon, I promise!

The other day, I had a conversation with Alex about his advanced exam subject-- the Higgs boson. Last week, I watched Dan's practice lecture for his own (about finding Z particles at CERN). Anyway, Alex was explaining to me about the Higgs field and how it couples with other particles to give them mass, and then found this awesome equation, the Lagrangian for the Standard Model. The Standard Model is pretty much an overall explanation for how 3 of the 4 Fundamental Forces work (General Relativity explains the fourth, gravity), and a Lagrangian is an equation which describes and interaction of a force; so this one piece of math which was being explained to me describes everything in the Universe other than gravity-- heavy stuff.

So, this made me masochistic and I began reading all about the various details again-- I think that I might have a better understanding of how the weak force works, as well as some more details of the Higgs. And, yeah, reading these again made me really miss doing physics. I had been working to be a physicist since I was twelve years old, and having to leave the program at Brandeis just felt destructive. Well, this has been my jeremiad today... the hard part is figuring out what's next. Meg has just been so absolutely wonderful and supportive and loving and utterly perfect, but I feel like I need to be moving somewhere-- after all that she's done for me, the very least I could do is something to make her proud.

I always liked the phrase "not all who wander are lost". And I have wandered and loved it, but it's a new thing to be lost.