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THE ABSURD TIMES
ON SCIENCE
BY
HONEST CHARLIE
ILLUSTRATION: Feyneman: The Organizer of the Manhatten Project that created the Atomic Bomb. He wasn't the greatest Physicist in the world, but he was able to keep all the really great ones working and happy, and eventually got a Nobel Prize in Physics. Anyway, he did win a Nobel Prize eventually, but what I liked most about reading about him and seeing one documentary was his sense of creativity.
For example, during the project (which we did seem to need at the time), these guys were forced to leave all their notes and papers at the office in a damn safe. Who needs that paranoid crap? Well, he managed (several versions of how) to leave notes "guess who was here" inside the "secure safes''. He once found an opening in the fence in the back, was able to leave that way, circled around, and checked in again at the gate. "BUT YOU ARE ALREADY HERE!" the guard would shout. "So? I'm here again." "But, but…" Well, he was reported by the military security, of course, but there was no rule against checking in without checking out – no matter how many times. Eventually, I think, they found the hole in the gate.
There was a crash of a rocket, the first woman to launch from NASA, burned in flame, live on TV. There was an attempt to cover it up. It came down to the last minute of the investigation when Feynman was able to take the O-ring from a glass of ice-water and show how easily it shattered when frozen. If he had not done it that way, it would have been covered up.
No, there is more: he was opposed to the H-Bomb. As you may know, fusion is much more powerful than fission (which is the A-bomb), but more difficult to start. Essentially, the detonator for an H-bomb is an atom bomb. Edmund Teller managed to lobby against Fyenman, make him out to be a communist, get his security clearance revoked, and become the self-appointed "father" of the H-Bomb. (I think LBJ finally called B.S. on that and restored it.)
Earlier
I have a long time, perhaps too long. Still, I remember too much. For example, during the end of the Eisenhauer Administration, we were forced to participate in "air-raid" drills. Mind you, this was in Chicago (a major target in the midwest, second only to Sedalia Missouri, which we were not supposed to know about). I was fortunate enough to fall in with a group of fairly bright and inquisitive friends and we knew the effects of a thermonuclear "device" and it was not pretty. In fact, it would be far more merciful to be dead center in blown to bits rather than slowly die, getting weaker by the day and in more pain by the hour. I was one who refused to participate. The teacher, in her authoritative type mother voice, said "I'd like to see how fast you changed your tune if one really came. What would you do?" I said I'd volunteer to try to catch it, and started to give the reasons why that was the most logical reaction. Needless to say, I was not one of the highest ranked students (although my scores on national objective tests always put me in the top 1 or 2%). I was therefore an "underachieving genius". I think it indicated that I lacked a skill at social engineering, otherwise known as bullshit.
Later, I went on with the intention of studying Physics. However, what I expected from Physics was not presented. Instead, we were expected to do time-consuming tasks of arithmetic, especially on exams. It was being taught for people who wanted to become engineers. By the time the TI-55 was produced, I had long since said farewell to a meaningless manual exercise. Today, or even back when the Kaypro had been released, I would have become a physics graduate. With the aid of computers, I was able to obtain a flawless record in the study of statistics. In other words, the fields had to concentrate on MEANING, rather than INDUSTRIOUSNESS. In my case, if there was meaning, I could supply all the industry necessary with no effort at all.
So, I figured why not Mathematics? Not as much drudge work. Well, at one time the topic was solving quadratic equations. This required too much factoring, division, etc., and finding the lowest common denominator (you must remember that). Well, I didn't want to sit there and go though all that and learn absolutely nothing. I came up with an intuition, something like that, of taking the first derivative and setting it to zero and then solving for X. Easy. (This is just an example, I really don't remember what "discovery" I actually came up with.) The teacher, er professor?, became very angry, accused me of cheating and "reading ahead" (to the next course, much less). He tried to get me suspended, then tried to flunk me for the course, and finally just gave up.
I had made the mistake of assuming that anyone teaching math or science actually knew something about their subject, but such was no more the case than any other field. After Calculus, I took a course in Non-Euclidean Geometry. The teacher (why call her more?) drew a circle and asked how many points does the straight line intersect. I said two. She said no. I asked why. She said because I did not include so-called imaginary numbers (the square root of minus 1). I said, it could intersect at integers. She said no and that I was on the path to failure.
About that time, I figured I was in the wrong field. I mean, I even saw flaws in the Fundamental Theory of the Calculus (it does work, but the proof leaves unanswered questions). So, where could I go to actually think and, still, stay out of the military? English, yes, Literature, that would work.
So, off to the Department to change my major and the advisor decides everything is ok except I have not had the INTRODUCTION TO COLLEGE MATHEMATICS. I said, "Just use Calculus instead, it's ok." She did not like that idea.
She had never heard of such an outrageous thing. I told her the Math department would allow it. She had to check.
Well, she gets on the phone and winds up talking to the chair of the department, a very rare happening. I know this guy got phone calls from NASA as he was a consultant, and talked to Von Braun from time to time in German (word gets around). I did not hear the first few words, but this is what I did hear, and I remember it almost word for word in her nasal Indiana tone of voice): "Yes. I have this potential student and he claims that this course called klacku (she looks at me and I say 'Cal-cu-lous') callkculous is ok. Is that true? Yes, sir. I mean, yes sir, Really sir, you don't have to use that language with me, sir, Sir?" Obviously, he had hung up on her.
"Well, he seems to think it's all right." I can't wait to get out of that office after substituting German as a course in its place. Free at least! In addition, I managed to have a minor in Physics and German, as well as a Major in Mathematics (or maybe the other way around – it doesn't matter now).
I should add that I found the same sort of conventions in literature as I had in the sciences (with the exception of one established full Professor who taught an entire course in the Plays of Bernard Shaw). It seemed there was sort of a canon in literature at the time, although the 16th Century field seemed fairly sane.
The teachers in German were also quite sane about things and I enjoyed those classes.
Back to today
Looking back at some of the older books I still have in my possession is one titled THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE. [I've just wasted 15 minutes looking for the author with no luck.] Anyway, what was extremely staggering is that the date of publication was 2005! I believe I remember some controversy over discarded embryos then, but am not sure. The point is that this has been going on for some time. Trump was just an accelerant.
At any rate, I remember a comment from a prominent theoretical Physicist at the time: "I never thought I'd ever be demonstrating in favor of facts, never." He shook his head sadly and moved on.
When we got to the Trump administration and Kelley Ann Conway, (I heard she was a Harvard graduate) we were told there were "alternate facts". The Fox News Channel sprung up and gained a large following. And here we are.
I'm going to end this right here as I see no need to get even more depressed. We live in the land of fools and can not escape. It is a large-scale NO EXIT, never imagined by Sartre.
