Infinity Within Our Grasp

Can we know too much?

photo by Pixabay

How much do we need to know? How much SHOULD we know? Consider the possibilities, in:

INFINTITY WITHIN OUR GRASP

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The greatest discoveries come from the simplest ideas.  But, more on that later….

Robert could procrastinate with the best of them.  Not in all things, but in some things; things that he could handle easily enough, but tended to leave until the last minute.  It goes without saying that the things that he enjoyed got done.  He coached both his son and his daughter in Little League, in the summer.  But spring was just beginning, here in the middle of April, so no Little League just yet.  But he was ready.  He had the names of those who had signed up, and of parents he could count on for refreshments and rides.  He had it all on a spreadsheet. 

Robert took to computer software like a duck to water.  He was the head bookkeeper at the regional bank, and he knew where every penny came from, and where it went. Where others saw masses of incoherent numbers, Robert saw patterns.  He saw probabilities and he also saw inconsistencies.  He took no small pride in having uncovered two separate embezzling schemes before the bank even knew there was money missing.  By the time he had informed the manager of the frauds, he had already documented the parties involved, and all the accounts that had been in play.

But, more on that later…

There was far more to Robert’s life than a son and daughter and Little League.  There was his wife, Lori, whom he had loved since they were students in high school.  She wasn’t the egghead that Robert was.  While he dove deep into accounting in college, studying more math, even, than was necessary, Lori studied English lit, tired of it, and didn’t go back to college after sophomore year.  But Robert respected the things that she knew, things that he struggled to comprehend.  She could blend with anyone, make anyone feel like a best friend.  Robert loved that in her.  And of course, HE was a best friend.  THE best friend. 

Such a life is a thing of fairy tales and such, but this was real.  And it was ordinary.  They liked ordinary, and aspired to nothing greater.  Two kids; one boy and one girl, as they had hoped for.  The kids were seven and nine, now, growing like weeds, as they say, and discovering life with relish. Lori had remained a stay-at-home mom.  She had become pregnant just before Robert finished school, but he already had a great job lined up, so she devoted herself to setting up their new household. Unfortunately, she miscarried fairly early in the pregnancy.  At least that allowed them time to make better plans before the next pregnancy.

There was some sort of symbiosis between Robert and Lori.  She thrived under his organizational skills, and he delighted in her intuitive sense.  He frequently thought of Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”.  He knew, and respected, that Lori could easily see a cat’s cradle in a confusion of string.  And through her, he could too.

Robert never left his initial employment at the regional bank.  He started out, of course, in a minor position looking after some of the accounts of the small businesses that they made loans to.  It was for Robert to keep an overview of the health of a business, especially start-ups, so that informed decisions could be made concerning future loans.  Start-ups routinely needed increased limits on their line of credit.  Sometimes it was wise to grant it, and other times, not.  There was a learning curve, but Robert rapidly showed himself very capable of making the best call.

But, more on that later….

Robert had been at the bank for thirteen years now, and he and Lori were quite settled.  Back when, at the beginning they had rented an apartment, the upstairs of a duplex, from a couple, the owners, who lived on the first floor.  It wasn’t much, but it was what they could afford, and it met their needs.  They became friends with the couple, and even now, living in their own home in a nicer part of town, they remained close to the couple.  The couple was a bit older, and they became de facto aunt and uncle to the kids. 

Robert and the husband got along great.  The husband, Jim, was an appliance repairman.  Two people couldn’t be more different in their occupations and in interest, although Jim and Robert did like to watch some high school baseball games, even when they had no kids in the game.  The two of them seemed to find much to talk about, in spite of their different backgrounds. Robert had a natural curiosity about how things work, although he hadn’t pursued it. He was more interested in the numbers and calculations than in the actual mechanics of things. 

Still, the more he talked with Jim, the more the physical realities involved in mechanical systems interested him.  He certainly wasn’t surprised to find out that there was significant math and logic to appliances, and he got to immerse himself, first hand, through Jim.  Not surprisingly, Jim was mechanically adept at most things, not just the appliances that he repaired. Through Jim, Robert came to see some of the similarities between refrigerators, air conditions, automobile engines, washing machines, and the like.  They are all different, but there is quite a bit of commonality that, once a person like Jim works them out, he can analyze and repair just about anything.

This presented Robert with something of a conundrum.  No big deal, but the sort of thing that a person with innate curiosity will allow to fester in his mind indefinitely.  In his job as head bookkeeper, Robert delt mostly with very precise numbers; the numbers on the left side of the ledger MUST match those on the other side.  Yet, he was no stranger to fungible assets that could change value overnight, often for no apparent reason.  So, how solid were all those numbers, when you really got down to it?  That’s one reason he preferred being head bookkeeper to going into the investment side of things.  He didn’t need to deal much with markets.  Markets go up and down, and people pretend to be able to predict them, but they can’t. People treat markets like they’re a force of nature, yet they are really in our heads.  Whatever people believe the markets will do, that is the reality, at least for a week or two.  And trends.  What’s a trend?  It’s people all playing follow the leader, with little idea where they’re going.

No, Robert would think to himself, head bookkeeper is the way to go.  Much less frustration and angst.  The number on his spreadsheet might accurately represent reality, or maybe not so much.  But they were the numbers he was given to work with, and he was incredibly accurate and precise in doing it.

And that gets back to Jim.  There was no approximating to Jim.  He knew in advance what needed doing, and then he did it.  Robert saw Jim find equivalencies in things that Robert had seen as entirely different.  A dishwasher might inform Jim as to how to repair a refrigerator.  Robert would discuss such things with Jim.  Jim was bemused by Robert’s attention, given that Jim had not much considered any of it.  He just gained experience and kept developing his abilities .  But he felt a bit like a big brother as he imparted some of his own knowledge to Robert.  Some of the perspective that Robert gained from Jim began to show itself in Robert’s approach to his career as a bookkeeper.

But, more on that later…

Robert’s son had learned a bit about basic astronomy in school.  He was taught of stars, the planets, the solar system, galaxies, and the universe as a whole.  It goes without saying that nine-year-olds studying astronomy in the third grade are not studying in depth.  The basics will do, at this age.  Both parents were involved in the children’s education, and so they became more aware of astronomy right along with their son. 

Out of the mouths of babes, they say.  Robert’s son had asked the perpetual questions in class:  “How did we all get here?  Where did all these galaxies come from?  Have they always been here?  There must have been some beginning; they can’t just appear out of nowhere, but they can’t always have been there, either.”  Not bad, for a nine-year-old.  Then again, perhaps childhood is the best time for such questions.

His teacher explained the Big Bang, not really a “bang”, but still it was a moment when all of the universe came into being.  That didn’t entirely satisfy Robert’s son.  “But that is just saying that something came from nothing.  It doesn’t explain how that could possibly happen.”  “No, it doesn’t,” said the teacher, “but it’s what scientists know to be true.”

His son came to his parents with the conundrum.  His mother smiled, hugged him, and recommended that he not stress over it too much.  “We’re here, we love each other, and that’s what really matters.  Where does love come from,” the Lori asked.  “Did it come from some Big Bang?  It’s the love that matters, not the stars.”

That mollified the son only a little.  Knowing of love did not make the Big Bang insignificant.  As for Robert, he felt the same.  Perhaps he was growing a little frustrated with precise numbers that measured flexible values.  What is the point of that? Can you directly measure value, bypassing the dollar values arbitrarily assigned to them?  It was as conjectural as the Big Bang itself.  A very important question, with apparently no knowable answer.

Robert studied astronomy alongside his son, but soon his studies surpassed both his son’s interest and his ability to comprehend.  Robert learned science that he had never been aware of before.  His math background made the study easier, given that astrophysics consists largely of higher math. He studied, and he pondered, but he could not get at that central question, how did something appear from nothing?

But life goes on.  Reality perseveres.  Knowing the answer to the Big Question was not essential. Lori was right, when you came down to it.  It’s the love, the family, the friends and community.  Who lives their day contemplating the atoms that make us physically exist?  Who stops to think that an atom has more empty space than actual particles, and that, percentage wise, there is far more empty space between atoms, than actual atoms.  We’re mostly empty space!  Yet, here we are!

Robert kept keeping the books. He kept tracking the rise and fall of various accounts, calling out any abnormalities.  These abnormalities were generally the results of those trends that he never really felt comfortable about.  But criminal fraud was only an occasional issue.

And, speaking of books, it was the Sunday before income tax returns were due.  One might think that Robert would be right on top of that, but just as the roofer’s own roof is the one that he neglects, Robert procrastinated concerning his own books.  Yes, he had records.  But they were not organized into the neat, tidy spreadsheet that was necessary concerning tax returns.  Robert had developed a bit of a tradition.  The Sunday before tax filing, he would sit in his home office, and get all the entries, income and expenses, entered properly onto the spreadsheet.  That was the time-consuming part.  After that, filing the taxes consisted of little more than pushing a button.  He had some paper receipts that had to be entered manually, but mostly everything was electronic and just had to be manipulated into the spreadsheet.  After a few hours, he had it all there, the income, the expenses, the equity; everything.  So he punched the button.  When he saw the result, he laughed.  The grand total of their worth, with everything totaled up, was ZERO!  Precisely ZERO!  Thousands of entries, money in, money out, the mortgage, the cars, the equity in the house…everything added up to exactly ZERO!  Not a dollar more, not a dollar less.  ZERO!

Robert simply sat there for a while, contemplating that number. Initially, he contemplated the odds that all those numbers would break right at zero.  But then he contemplated what any of it meant.  Financially speaking, his household and his family had no value.  None whatsoever.  Yet he was delighted with his life.  His family and his career, his friendships and activities, and, yes, the love, filled him with a sense of richness that no spreadsheet could value.  Well, he thought, I only did this so I could file my tax returns, so I’ll file them and move on. And he did.

Still, Robert couldn’t stop contemplating.  They had a full, rich family life that added up to zero on the spreadsheet.  Maybe, that’s what the universe adds up to.  Zero.  Robert knew that scientists were only confident about approximately five per cent of the universe.  The other ninety five percent was Dark matter; known to exist, but unknown.  What if we could make an accounting of all of it, all the matter, anti-matter, energy, dark matter?  All of it.  What if it all added up to zero?  Then, in the Big Bang, out of nothing came….nothing.  Organized nothing, but still a grand total of zero.  Why not?

But what was Robert to do with that thought?  He’s an accountant, not a scientist.  He wanted to explore his hypothesis, but it was daunting.  This played in Robert’s head for months on end.  He did further research into current theory in astrophysics.  He discussed it with Lori, who was more bemused than anything.  She was not dismissive; she knew the quality of his mind.  But she felt no need to buy into any of this, beyond being a supportive wife.  Jim was more receptive.  Jim never had more than a passing acquaintance with the Big Bang, but he caught on quickly to what Robert was saying, and encouraged him.  But to Jim this was just a chance for two guys to talk shop.  And why not?

Robert contemplated not only his hypothesis, but its relevance.  After all, even if he could find a proof, what would it change?  He had been doing some thinking lately, about science itself.  Science quantifies all that it can about nature.  Numbers for how fast things fall, how fast they accelerate.  Numbers for the motion of the planets in the solar system.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.  The odd thing, Robert thought to himself, is that the nature we are quantifying DOES NOT HAVE NUMBERS!  Numbers are a creation of man, not nature.  Numbers are a device to help make sense of things.  But, sense of what?  Not of a family’s love.  Not of the enjoyment of coaching the kids, or talking shop with Jim.  Numbers certainly in no way enhanced his making love to Lori.  For billions of years, the universe has existed without numbers.  The Big Bang happened without numbers.  But man came along, and after a while, there were numbers.

All of this played in Robert’s mind.  Why did he so much want to mathematically prove something that would in no way be affected by that proof?  He just couldn’t let go. He became more familiar with the rock stars of physics.  He found that Albert Einstein was very human.  He could barely have been called a scientist when he determined that e=MC2.  He was a patent clerk.  He attained his proof of that elegantly simple equation using some fairly basic calculus.  And, did the scientific community shout Eureka! in unison when they saw that equation?  No.  They barely noticed.  It took the efforts of world-renowned physicist Max Plank to draw the attention of his peers to this unknown man and his unknown equation. Even then, it took some time before there was general acceptance.

And Einstein also determined, or at least guessed, that there was a doppler effect for light, just as for sound. Hearing a train go by, with the resulting drop in the sound frequency, just as Doppler had experienced, Einstein absently wondered why light wouldn’t do the same thing.  Perhaps he thought of this while he was waiting for his train to go to work.  Or waiting for some relative to arrive at the station. But his mind wouldn’t stop thinking, considering, wondering.  In the end, Einstein’s guess about Doppler shift for light blew open the field of astrophysics….

Penicillin was discovered, because Alexander Fleming was an untidy researcher.  Having left some bread out long enough to mold while he studying a bacterial culture, he discovered that the mold that grew from it, killed the bacteria.  It was by no means the first time it had happened; it was the first time that anyone had noticed…,.

Newton and his apple.  Was it really an apple that led newton to “discover” gravity.  Certainly, gravity was always there, and everyone knew it. Apple or not, what made the difference was that Newton bothered to wonder what gravity was and how it worked.  He never did find out what it was, but studying gravity and other forces led to his three laws of motion, without which, our world could barely function today.  Sure, it’s always been the same gravity, but by quantifying it, and by quantifying ALL forces (and mass), it is now possible to build tall buildings, roads, vehicles, pretty much all of modern building and fabricating.  Before Newton, engineering consisted of building things and seeing if they stayed up….

Lord Kelvin did as much for the quantification of energy.  The Greeks reasoned that there must be atoms and elements.  They had no way to determine this for a fact, but millennia later, they have been proved right…. 

Yes, we know so much more from people like this.  We have so many mathematical formulas and equations that are essential to modern technology. And what does that average person do with any of this on an average day?  Nothing.  We live in the real world.  We experience it without numbers

Robert continued to be a bit conflicted about all these numbers, and to what extent they mattered.

Still, he continued to look for a proof to his hypothesis about the universe adding up to zero.  He initially considered such a proof to be beyond his layman’s grasp.  But as he learned of those great minds who had determined so much, he found that they, too, were merely human.  Their essential trait was relentless curiosity.  Robert had that.  So he worked on his hypothesis, sometimes gaining ground, sometimes losing it.  But in all of this, he gained greater perspective and comprehension.    He was in his home office, after the others were in bed, catching up on some work, but distracted by a nagging thought. He sensed that there was an essential point to his hypothesis that he didn’t grasp well enough.  He crunched some numbers.  He contemplated them.  He crunched some more.  And there is was!  He had mathematically proved that the entire universe, matter, antimatter, energy, all added up to…zero.  Part of him wanted to disbelieve what he’d done, here in his home office, in such a casual way.  Procrastinating, actually.  He was supposed to be doing something else. And he didn’t immediately believe he’d accomplished it, proved that the universe added up to zero.  Perhaps he’d made an error.  But there was that inner compass, that thing knows the way even in darkness and confusion.  Yes, he knew he’d done it. He checked and double checked.  He came at it from every direction, and there it was, his mathematical proof, unshakable even in his deliberate assault against it.

He sat and pondered the significance for another ten or fifteen minutes.  And then he went to bed. He had no trouble sleeping.  His mind was more at rest than it had been in a long time.  Next morning, he told no one.  He went on with his morning, and with his family and with his job.  After all, nothing had changed in that regard. At home, in his office, for the next few days, he would sit and look at his elegantly simple equation explaining the Big Bang.  Still, he thought to himself, the Big Bang happened all by itself, without him, and without his equation.  Nuclear reactions had been going on since the dawn of the Big Bang.  Einstein’s equation changed nothing except for our ability to manipulate nuclear reactions. Gravity didn’t need Newton.  But Newton made it possible to find ways to counteract gravity with skillful engineering rather than guesswork. Kelvin made us the lords of energy.  There’s good and bad in that.  So, Robert thought, what about his equation?  In the end, what changes might it bring about?  Good?  Bad? Irrelevant?  Nobody ever knows such things.  You just find out over time.

Days became weeks and weeks became months, and Robert couldn’t decide what to do.  He wanted to tell the world, but he liked his anonymity. As he contemplated it, he was satisfied to realize that there was nothing in his life that he would change. He wanted to save the planet, presuming it needed saving, but would his mathematical formula bring positive results?  Negative?  Some of both?

It was fully six months before Robert decided what to do.  It was a strange, somewhat unsatisfying decision, but he felt it was for the best.  He would tell his story. But he would leave out the equation, and submit it as fiction.

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