10. Syzygy
Syzygy
[siz-i-jē]
Noun. The arrangement of three celestial bodies in a straight line; The metaphorical alignment of two people, ideas, or events
You can't force three planets to align--you have to wait.
You can't always force people to align. You can't get everyone to like eachother or work together or be at the same place together at the same time every time.
You can't be at three different events at the same time, or sometimes even in the same day.
Syzygy is tricky, frought with frustration, and sometimes impossible. And you just have to accept that.
Scientists throw out hypotheses all the time. Sometimes their hypotheses smack of syzygy. People get harebrained schemes all the times, but scientists are careful with their harebrained schemes. The goal of scientific experiment is to possibly prove that your harebrained scheme isn't actually harebrained at all. Maybe someone who was really stressed out at worked and fed up with the way his or her company or organization functioned thought of the physics law of conservation of momentum (apparently equivalent to Newton's 3rd law of Motion (+F1 = −F2).
∑p = ∑p0
This person thought of how crazy everyone at work was, how they were alternately stressed out and calm. Bouncing off the walls, sitting at desks being productive. Yelling at eachother about meaningless tasks, collaborating nicely together on a difficult project.
He thought, maybe all the momentum in this workplace is conserved and cancels eachother out, and if we somehow measured peoples' productivity and plugged it into a machine with some formula (I'm totally talking out of my ass here), maybe we'd get another verification that this law is accurate.
But wait, do we really need verification? It's a law for a reason, right? This is science, this is a harebrained scheme of someone who barely made it through high school chemistry. I tell a lot of my ideas to my husband who is a physics teacher. He usually says "Be careful about forcing ideas to come together like that. You're great with metaphors. You can't fit all your metaphors so nicely and neatly into science. That's not how the universe works."
Fuck that.
People use science metaphors for situations in everyday life every day, and language evolved with scientific theories. Think of the Darwin Awards, saying people "evolve" itself is using a scientific theory as a metaphor. I wonder if the concept Chekhov's Gun can be related to some law of physics--maybe that everything that rises must fall, that all matter comes from the same place in the universe, whatever. Matiah says I mix metaphors and science too freely. He says I move too fluidly between facts and interpretation. He told me this the other night as I explained to Paige the plot of the 2nd season of Twin Peaks. When we left, he told me she had just asked for the plot. But did her eyes not get big and did she not make extra meaning of it when I told her the interpretation that the whole town killed Laura Palmer (not just Bob), or that Bob is a physical representation of evil that lives in us all and gets passed easily from object to person to person. These are not only my interpretations. Many many people before me have had them, and I've spent hours talking about it with fellow Twin Peaks fans and reading about it.
I'm getting way off the track about syzygy here.
I stopped to talk briefly to Matiah on the phone since I'm out on a beautiful bungalow on Vashon Island. I stayed here last night after Scott and Alisa's wedding at Camp Burton and am staying again tonight. I told him what I was writing about. He said, "Lissa, stop. The universe is just a deep, dark tangle of math. Beautiful, complex math. There's no deeper meaning. But I can't let go of the idea that there is deeper meaning.
He told me he read a book in high school called Einstein's Dreams and absolutely hated it. He said I'd love it.
Time to add another book to my ever-growing reading list? Or should I listen to Rumi:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
[siz-i-jē]
Noun. The arrangement of three celestial bodies in a straight line; The metaphorical alignment of two people, ideas, or events
You can't force three planets to align--you have to wait.
You can't always force people to align. You can't get everyone to like eachother or work together or be at the same place together at the same time every time.
You can't be at three different events at the same time, or sometimes even in the same day.
Syzygy is tricky, frought with frustration, and sometimes impossible. And you just have to accept that.
Scientists throw out hypotheses all the time. Sometimes their hypotheses smack of syzygy. People get harebrained schemes all the times, but scientists are careful with their harebrained schemes. The goal of scientific experiment is to possibly prove that your harebrained scheme isn't actually harebrained at all. Maybe someone who was really stressed out at worked and fed up with the way his or her company or organization functioned thought of the physics law of conservation of momentum (apparently equivalent to Newton's 3rd law of Motion (+F1 = −F2).
∑p = ∑p0
This person thought of how crazy everyone at work was, how they were alternately stressed out and calm. Bouncing off the walls, sitting at desks being productive. Yelling at eachother about meaningless tasks, collaborating nicely together on a difficult project.
He thought, maybe all the momentum in this workplace is conserved and cancels eachother out, and if we somehow measured peoples' productivity and plugged it into a machine with some formula (I'm totally talking out of my ass here), maybe we'd get another verification that this law is accurate.
But wait, do we really need verification? It's a law for a reason, right? This is science, this is a harebrained scheme of someone who barely made it through high school chemistry. I tell a lot of my ideas to my husband who is a physics teacher. He usually says "Be careful about forcing ideas to come together like that. You're great with metaphors. You can't fit all your metaphors so nicely and neatly into science. That's not how the universe works."
Fuck that.
People use science metaphors for situations in everyday life every day, and language evolved with scientific theories. Think of the Darwin Awards, saying people "evolve" itself is using a scientific theory as a metaphor. I wonder if the concept Chekhov's Gun can be related to some law of physics--maybe that everything that rises must fall, that all matter comes from the same place in the universe, whatever. Matiah says I mix metaphors and science too freely. He says I move too fluidly between facts and interpretation. He told me this the other night as I explained to Paige the plot of the 2nd season of Twin Peaks. When we left, he told me she had just asked for the plot. But did her eyes not get big and did she not make extra meaning of it when I told her the interpretation that the whole town killed Laura Palmer (not just Bob), or that Bob is a physical representation of evil that lives in us all and gets passed easily from object to person to person. These are not only my interpretations. Many many people before me have had them, and I've spent hours talking about it with fellow Twin Peaks fans and reading about it.
I'm getting way off the track about syzygy here.
I stopped to talk briefly to Matiah on the phone since I'm out on a beautiful bungalow on Vashon Island. I stayed here last night after Scott and Alisa's wedding at Camp Burton and am staying again tonight. I told him what I was writing about. He said, "Lissa, stop. The universe is just a deep, dark tangle of math. Beautiful, complex math. There's no deeper meaning. But I can't let go of the idea that there is deeper meaning.
He told me he read a book in high school called Einstein's Dreams and absolutely hated it. He said I'd love it.
Time to add another book to my ever-growing reading list? Or should I listen to Rumi:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
But really I want to listen to Jonathan Richman's beautiful song "Higher Power":
I know that magic is an easy word to abuse
But I've tried other words but what words can I use
And I knew it from that first kiss so stingy and so spare
That there must be a higher power somewhere.
It's magic It's magic the way we got together
It's magic It's justice, it's grace
It's magic It's magic, no not at random
And there must be a higher power some place.
They say that magic and the science world collide
But Einstein saw me looking at her and he joined my side
And I knew how it would be the way she hated me
And there must be a higher power somewhere
It's magic It's magic the way we got together
It's magic It's freedom, it's fair
It's magic It's magic no not at random
And there must be a higher power somewhere.
Yes, Jonathan Richman, yes!! I'm there with you. I want to believe. But there is too much push and pull between science and literature. Maybe I should just keep listening, and take a cue from T.S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
But really I should play that instrument Rumi was talking about. I'm listening to a lot of music and reading a lot of stuff but not writing my own.
I need to calm down. Maybe I should remember why I came to this bungalow on Vashon Island in the first place and just..sleep.
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
But really I want to listen to Jonathan Richman's beautiful song "Higher Power":
I know that magic is an easy word to abuse
But I've tried other words but what words can I use
And I knew it from that first kiss so stingy and so spare
That there must be a higher power somewhere.
It's magic It's magic the way we got together
It's magic It's justice, it's grace
It's magic It's magic, no not at random
And there must be a higher power some place.
They say that magic and the science world collide
But Einstein saw me looking at her and he joined my side
And I knew how it would be the way she hated me
And there must be a higher power somewhere
It's magic It's magic the way we got together
It's magic It's freedom, it's fair
It's magic It's magic no not at random
And there must be a higher power somewhere.
Yes, Jonathan Richman, yes!! I'm there with you. I want to believe. But there is too much push and pull between science and literature. Maybe I should just keep listening, and take a cue from T.S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
But really I should play that instrument Rumi was talking about. I'm listening to a lot of music and reading a lot of stuff but not writing my own.
I need to calm down. Maybe I should remember why I came to this bungalow on Vashon Island in the first place and just..sleep.
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