CP

Most old members of this list know that I do quantum chemistry.  Yes, I must
admit, that, I regularly and insensitively commit mathematics.  I even read
journals which use mathematics to describe natural processes.  Perhaps
another reading of "The Cantos" will propitiate my sins.  Better still, how
about reading Charles Olson who, I believe, claimed to marry cosmology and
poetry. (BTW, the only thing I have read by Olson is his collection
"Archeologist of Morning" so don't hold me to Olson)

Just as the color red makes no claim to blue, science and mathematics make
no inherent claim to aesthetic sensitivity.  I may look at a picture of
earth from orbit or look through a microscope at a paramecium and think of
how wonderful it looks, but this is a judgment of my capacity to appreciate
beauty.  I may look at a certain equation, the Schrödinger's comes to mind,
and think of its elegance, but the reality is that it is simply a linear
partial second order differential equation which describes all that we can
know about an electron or other particle in a quantum state.  Planck's
constant is an wondrous thing but actually it is simply the physical
constant (a number) that I multiply the frequency of a particle's wave
function by to get the energy of that particle.  It has no more inherent
call to beauty than pi, the number I multiply the diameter of a circle by in
order to get its circumference.  The idea that squaring half that same
diameter and also multiplying it times pi somehow gives me the area of that
very circle may seem marvelous but it is simply my mind being boggled and
does not alter the fact that pi is simply a number (a physical constant).

 
Rick Seddon
Portales, NM