It was a dark, miserable, gut wrenching night, waves beating on the back door of the camper, the pickup sunk to its frame in the soft Ecuadorian beach. I lay curled up on the bed inside, exhausted, crying, and cursing the day that the cosmological quest had entered my life.
Eventually I pulled myself back together and climbed out to see what might be done. To my surprise, the worst of the problem had already been solved by a small girl, one of the many assembled onlookers from the nearby village of Manabi. Having seen what was needed, she had run home for the necessary tool, her family's statue of the local patron saint. She brought it to the edge of the surf, stood it on the sand, and stopped the advance of the tide. Come morning and two large trucks with tow cables, the camper was successfully extracted from the muck and the sun rose to shine once more.
I met someone else on the beach that night, someone who played a major role in my later life; but it was nearly twenty years before I finally realized that our meeting that day had almost certainly been arranged, the whole day's events orchestrated to bring it about. Dave Fox probably figured that if I met Connie under sufficiently memorable circumstances, it would lock into me an eternal affection for her. And once again, to my perpetual amazement, he seems to have been right.
I don't feel up to telling you about Connie just yet; you'll meet her soon enough yourself. Let's go on to a subject I think I can face, namely, who are you?
You probably figure yourself as a casual, uncommitted reader, perhaps having picked up this book just to have a peek, to see whether it might be good to keep on the nightstand for those times when you have trouble dropping off to sleep. You can go right on believing that if you like; but then, in twenty years or so, you may come around to the realization that this is no accident. Or you could think about it now, about the odd series of circumstances leading up to your finding this book in your hands at this particularly fortuitous moment.
I have gone to a great deal of trouble and anxiety in assembling this, having started the first draft more than twelve years ago by now. I have also worked hard to secure a competent editor and a dedicated publisher, with the hope that it will be well written and widely available. But my reason for doing all that was only to get it into your hands. As difficult as it may be for you to believe, this is one book written for you alone.
My own history of interaction with cosmology has included many extreme situations. Some of them could be called fun, but most could not. A more appropriate set of adjectives would include strange, challenging, terrifying, mysterious, tedious, almost anything but easy. But, in the end, I have to say that it was worth it. Feeling that way, I'm not about to apologize for calling you to a similar fate.
When you've gotten a little further along in your reading, you may find it difficult to believe that this is something tailored especially for you. Chances are, you will find the book too easy to put down, too easy to set aside for less challenging amusements. But every time you do set it aside, a period of relief and even occasional joy will be followed by a nagging sense of matters not yet attended to. With the book completely written and in your hands, I am no longer in any hurry. In due time we will meet again in the land of El Plano Estacado, beyond Hurricane Wash and Coyote Gulch, to ponder the secrets of The Way Things Are.
A written document is not the usual way this transferal is done, and it may not work well. But having been a rather slow student myself, I am now a little too close to the end of my rope. I haven't the stamina to go traipsing about the deserts, teasing and cajoling you into each new insight, sleeping on the hard sand, and going without tap beer. But because I am required to pass on the torch, I have sought and received special permission to do it in this manner.
It may strike you as particularly odd that a document concerned with cosmology does not commence with "In the beginning, . . ." But that approach would presume that I was going to tell you all the answers. I don't have all the answers and the ones I do have are mine. Even if I were willing to share them, I'm not going to assume that my answers could also be yours. There are aspects we must share; we must agree on what events actually occur when we have both taken the necessary trouble to observe and record them. But we needn't agree on why those things happened nor on their future significance. My task is not to tell you answers; it is instead to give you experiences and then to prod you into thinking about what those experiences mean to you.
You may soon judge that I have just lied. I will be telling you many things, or so it will seem. But the things I will tell you outright are in a category that I regard as tools, rather than the subject matter of our adventure. Think of me for a moment as a mountaineering instructor. I will show you what equipment is needed, and school you in its proper use. I will point out the mountain and invite you to climb. But I will not tell you how to feel about either edelweiss or the prospect of hanging from your fingertips on the sheer face of a cliff. Having been there already, thanks, I'll just sit here on the veranda with my cappuccino and watch through binoculars while you take the joys and knocks, growing in wisdom.
Oh, by the way, my experience is that a pair of crampons should be kept handy.
Are you tired already of my saying "you" this and "I "that? Perhaps it would help to think of this as a rather long letter. The style is unavoidable. We are setting out on a closely coupled adventure between my past experiences and the ones you are about to have. If you and I are not in the wording as well as the story, you will never experience the depth needed to leap into a cosmological perspective. And, if I cannot coax you into that leap, there are Those who will be a good deal less than pleased.
I think it might be worth showing you a preview of our journey, so you don't soon get the impression that we are wandering whimsically though a garden of brambles. Perhaps it will give you a bit more faith than I once had that the whole thing goes somewhere.
Aside: Does it seem that I have both told you that this story goes somewhere, and told you that it does not, that it is merely a vehicle for giving you experience? If not, I meant to, as both are true. I am taking you on a nature walk, to show you the flora of my desert, arrayed as they are along the path; but I consider it more likely that you will come along if I reveal that this is also the way to one of the world's finest ice cream shops.
So, I want to give you an idea of what lies ahead, a road map. Then, in the midst of our journey, you will not have to wonder about irrelevancies, such as why we pass though Peru to reach Utah.
I have obtained permission to use a technical skeleton for the main highway of the trip we are taking (mixing metaphors here with glee [itself conjuring a strange mental image]). On that skeleton I will hang the flesh of less precise experience, the side journeys into the small byways that will encourage your growth in personal, political, and spiritual realms.
And this skeleton will indeed take you to a very fine ice cream stand. Not only does the place offer exquisite ice cream, but each cone is wrapped in a napkin on which this message is printed:
Decoded letter for letter by those who are prone to such behavior, the message turns out to be in French. Translated to English for my benefit, it reveals a nested pair of facts:
The gods have been so amused by this situation that it forms an undercurrent of many of Their favorite jokes. With great reluctance, They have allowed me to show you how the inner fact can be demonstrated, but only with the understanding that you will not share the results with a broad public. In other words, I can tell you this only if you agree not to spread it around. This is consistent with the arrangement made with the Bertillon family, they can advertise it on their napkins, but only in code. If our efforts were to make the outer fact no longer true, it would spoil too many jokes, ones that gods badly need to help avoid depression.
In following the main road, tracing along the bones of the skeleton, you will advance to a rare understanding of cosmic geometry. But in so doing, you will need several technical skills. I will not go to great lengths to teach you these skills; all are widely available to those with a modest technical literacy. I will, however, identify them-- with just enough detail that you can see how they connect up to what you can find in coursework or introductory physics texts. Here is a quick list of what we will need.
******************************************************************
Technical Skills
Newtonian Mechanics:
Kinetic Energy: The kinetic energy of an object of mass m and
speed v is
Potential Energy: The gravitational potential energy of an
object of mass m at a distance r from another object, this one of mass M,
is
Energy Conservation: As the first object (m) moves in the neighborhood of the second (M), the sum [KE + PE] is constant.
Special Relativity:
Times: A moving clock, as seen by stationary observers, runs slow by a factor gamma = 1/{1-(v/c)^2}^(1/2), though for those traveling along with it, the clock runs at its normal rate. This effect is known as time dilation. The quantities v and c are the speeds of the clock and of light.
Speeds: When three points in a row A, B, and C are all moving
apart, with B separating from A at speed v1, and C separating from B at
speed v2, the speed of C relative to A is not the simple sum of v1 and
v2, as would have been expected from common sense and Galileo. (It is a
good approximation when the speeds are small). The correct way to add
the two speeds is with the velocity addition formula:
Lengths: Although moving objects have their dimensions shortened along the direction of motion (length contraction), crossways dimensions are unaffected.
Sequential Addition:
Delta notation: The Greek capital delta, D, is used to refer to changes in a quantity. If the quantity x changes by a small amount, the change is referred to as Dx. (Note that saving this as a text file ruins my Greek font, you'll just have to imagine it.)
A sequence of changes: If x experiences a sequence of several changes: Dx1, Dx2, Dx3, . . ., Dxn, then the value of x at the end is just
This is just like finding the balance in a checkbook; starting with the initial balance, one tallies all the changes, both checks (negative) and deposits (positive). Techniques for keeping track of the balance when the changes are occurring continuously are called integral calculus.
My hope is that if you do not presently have facility with these skills, you will still be able to think of them as given bits of truth, and follow the story line from there. You can go see where they come from some other time.
******************************************************************
Hmm. The field of armchair cosmology is littered with people with their own ideas of The Way Things Are. Most of them once experienced the calling that led me to the subject, that is now leading you to it. But they had bad teachers, and went astray. They tried too hard to find their way without adequate guidance, and after a while were doomed to scurrying around in the kook zone, trying to get others to listen to their miscreant notions.
I expect that you may wonder whether I am such a creature. (You should always feel obliged, as St. Paul suggested, to test the spirits who come your way.) To allay your concerns, I will have to depend on my editor to get the right kind of reviewers, reviewers whose comments will lead to trustworthy praise that can be printed on the book jacket. Look there now. Does it say that I am a kook and that you would be well advised to avoid this book? I thought not. So there. Trust me. I am your friend. Look into my eyes, and let us begin.
So perhaps I have teased you long enough. What else is to be expected from what lies ahead? What personal, political, and spiritual tools will be required? Perhaps lists would also provide the easiest way to tell you about those:
******************************************************************
Personal Skills
Commitment: I must introduce you to the induction process in such a way that you feel the importance of a sustained effort.
Subjunctive: I must make you more comfortable with the state of having incomplete information about a subject and less likely to adopt a firm position when one should still be in the subjunctive mood.
Tenacity: The road is fairly long and in places hot, dry and tedious. I must exercise you in advance so you are better equipped with stamina for the long haul.
Resiliency: Unless you are far better than I, there will be times when you have tried your best, and failed. I need to give you mechanisms for coping with the ensuing depression.
Perspicacity: Not everything is as it seems. There are layers of truth and understanding. Having realized that, it is easy to be trapped in cynicism, more difficult to get beyond, to find joy in that complexity. I must try to get you there.
Premonition: This one I need not teach; the ability to sense what lies ahead is a natural consequence of the cosmological life.
Parallelism: My skills are largely technical ones, and it is with those skills that I accost you. But there are other paths to the mountaintop. I must arrange for you to experience some aspects of those, to become aware of alternative avenues of thought and exploration.
******************************************************************
Political Skills
Parochialism: You must be strengthened in understanding the importance of your own personal reality and your obligation to maintain an honest basis for it.
Catholicism: You must be willing and able, on suitable occasion, to rise out of your local reality, to employ a universal reference frame, one embracing the collection of all local perspectives. I will strive to bend your will to that end.
Wisdom: I must pass on to you knowledge of the skills of being thought wise, of playing the expert game. I don't want to encourage you to use these skills on a regular basis, but it's better that you not be ignorant of them.
Flexibility: It will certainly be to your advantage to be able to interact effectively with a good, stout, level headed burro. I will need to give you a few pointers.
Perspicacity again: Not everything is as it seems. Oversimplification in interpersonal, transspecies, and larger political arenas simply won't cut it.
******************************************************************
I was also going to make a list of the relevant spiritual skills, but in the end I suppose those consist mainly of the political skills listed above, applied to interaction with older and more internally tangled creatures. The only additional skill that may be difficult for you is the ability to take Them seriously.
Ahah! I see that I have fallen into a classic error, confusing spirituality with one's relationships to immortals. But even having realized my mistake, I don't feel prepared to lay out a clear program of requisite spiritual skills. They are, however, the tools needed to explore your innermost resonances with truth and beauty.
On the other hand, I can't get too worked up over my failing to clarify matters in this area. Considering your background, it would be pretty silly of me to suppose that you will have much trouble forming your own perspective from the collection of experiences I shall bring to your armchair. '