Light Waves, Sound Waves, Wi-Fi and the Universe

"Beyond Imagination"

At the beginning of the film Oppenheimer there’s a scene or sequence that conveys this sense of the young physicist’s mind being blown by his awareness of the incredible universe we live in. As I watched that scene it triggered thoughts and imaginings of my own regarding the nature of reality. It’s almost strange how we lose our curiosity about the galaxies and matter and how do our minds and bodies work and where life comes from. 

I remember learning about the structure of atoms in high school chemistry. There's a sense in which atoms are like our solar system. There is more nothingness than substance. That is, we have this huge space but a handful of planets circulating within it. So, too, an atom has a tiny nucleus made up of protons and neutrons which has even tinier electrons floating around it. In other words, there is more space than substance. And this is what our bodies, tools, furniture and everything else is made of. 

One of the questions that crossed my mind back then was this. What if you could line up all the molecules in your body in such a way so as to be able to walk through a wall? Those kinds of questions are where sci-fi comes from.

In 2014 I wrote a blog post about another physics conundrum. I was thinking about all the things that surround us that we can't see. In fact, it's somewhat staggering. 

I started the strange thought that the room I'm in is filled with sound waves but I couldn't hear them. Wherever you went, if you had a the right kind of radio you could pick up a radio station.

When we were kids, my dad had purchased a multi-band radio that could pick up short wave signals from all over the world. Even though he mostly listened to WOR on the AM dial I remember occasionally tuning in to strange languages on some of the other dials and trying to guess where they were coming from. "Is that Russian? Is that Finnish?" I imagined that I was listening to a submarine captain in the Baltic Sea.

All these sounds were accessible, surrounding us, but we couldn't hear them. Nor could we see those sound waves even though they were streaming all around us.  It was interesting to contemplate.

Fast forward to the present. Think of the bombardment nowadays. Satellite radio is spraying signals continuously, and satellite television. Your GPS device signals are ever instructing, and the old fashioned network TV towers keep singing. We're surrounded by a cloud of noises we can't hear at all.

Now consider this. Science has shown us that we're also awash in light waves. We don't see light waves, of course, but only see the objects that they reflect off of. Our light bulbs emanate photons likewise invisible to perception or comprehension. The sun, too, is perpetually spraying light in all directions. Scientists point out that light is a wave but also has particle-like properties. So we're surrounded by all these sound waves and light waves we can't see.

And then there is air. Oxygen and nitrogen not only fill the rooms we sit in and the atmosphere outside, but also go into our bodies as we breathe. We can't see these gases either. It's simply amazing how much stuff is wrapped around us that we are blind to.

So here is the question I asked in 2014: What if we could see all this unseen "stuff"? 

It might be interesting for a moment, but somehow I have to think if we could see all those sound waves and light waves, and all that air swirling around, it would be a little challenging. I can envision my room here stuffed with a giant mass of shredded cottonball-like material, and myself absorbed in it. Maybe I wouldn't even be able to see this computer monitor because all that "stuff" was in the way.

Bottom Line: I think I like it just as it is, the room an empty space with an easy chair where I can curl up and read a good book.

What do you think? 

Air

Swiss Miss

In the fall of 1970 I was introduced to the music of the Incredible String Band, unaware that they had been introduced to U.S. audiences by virtue of their appearance at Woodstock the year before. The simple character of their songs expressed a joyful celebration of life and seemed to express that awe-attitude with which children first see the world, unfettered by social games and pre-conceived expectations.

Every now and then this song from their album Wee Tam returns to me in its entirety.

Air

Breathing, all creatures are

Brighter then than brightest star

You are by far

You come right inside of me

Close as you can be

You kiss my blood and the blood kiss me

It's a wonder how the air we breathe goes right inside of us, not simply into our lungs, but all the way into our very beings. The wonderful, incredible way in which oxygen is carried by the blood stream and its tributaries and capillaries to nourish and cleanse every cell in our bodies is a wonder of creation.

Breathing is something we usually take for granted. But until our last breath, it’s the ongoing miracle that sustains us.

At the end of a busy day we can sometimes collapse in our beds so weary and spent we have no energy left for anything, even reading. Yet we go on breathing, replenishing our cells, sustaining our bodies with vital air.

I am reminded of the instructions Tom Hanks gave himself in the film Castaway. “Just keep breathing.”

And I am likewise reminded of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, a book whose opening chapter was initiated by visits to a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps while his wife was suffering from lung issues. The thin air at high altitudes was likely more accessible to lungs whose passages have been swollen or constricted by asthma or tuberculosis. In other words, breathing is something most of us take for granted, but many can not.

Air is something real that we all believe in yet seldom see. That, I find, is a fascinating concept.

Whatever else you're doing today, please keep breathing