A break from writing in our rooms and wandering through the vineyards to visit CERN, where they are slamming protons together deep under the earth to find the answers to such questions as
What gives particles mass? (It is all the work of the Higgs-Boson, apparently.)
Why can't quarks be pried apart? (The quark-gluon plasma that existed just after the Big Bang was a soup so hot the quarks wouldn't stick together. It cooled. They stuck. So far they haven't been unstuck.)
Why is there something rather than nothing? (If matter and anti-matter immediately annihilate each other, why is the universe made mostly of matter? Where has all the anti-matter gone?)
The equipment -- tunnels, magnets, pipes, coils -- is ugly. The graphs are incomprehensible. But the names are often poetry.
Quark is from Finnegan's Wake: "Three quarks for Muster Mark."
Quarks have flavours. The names of their flavours are up, down, strange, charm, truth and beauty.
Truth and beauty quarks are now more commonly known as top and bottom quarks. This was a bad marketing decision.
"Strong interactions conserve all flavours."
Gluon: not beautiful, but at least its function is clear.
Cold Dark Matter: perhaps the most beautiful name of all.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Writers' Residence, Last Week, Day Two
Three of the other writers here at Lavigny are poets. I almost never write poetry, but listening to them read their work I often feel a longing for the economy of their genre, the perfection of their lines.
Novels are full of clutter: closets, curtains, cupboards. Calendars. Clocks. Novelists are always worried about the clock: what day is it? how much time has passed? is it winter yet? Poems don't need clocks.
Novelists are hoarders. They never want to throw anything out in case they need it later. Poets throw most everything out. If the plastic iced tea jug with sunflowers from 1974 requires matching glasses and a backstory, they expect you to bring your own.
Novelists are liars. They want to tell you things but they don't want to tell you why they are telling you because that would spoil the trick, the scene, the light, so they create elaborate deceptions and then hide behind the curtain. Poets just point.
Novelists mostly add. Poets mostly subtract.
Novelists can afford to be reckless. Poets can afford to be brief.
Novels are full of clutter: closets, curtains, cupboards. Calendars. Clocks. Novelists are always worried about the clock: what day is it? how much time has passed? is it winter yet? Poems don't need clocks.
Novelists are hoarders. They never want to throw anything out in case they need it later. Poets throw most everything out. If the plastic iced tea jug with sunflowers from 1974 requires matching glasses and a backstory, they expect you to bring your own.
Novelists are liars. They want to tell you things but they don't want to tell you why they are telling you because that would spoil the trick, the scene, the light, so they create elaborate deceptions and then hide behind the curtain. Poets just point.
Novelists mostly add. Poets mostly subtract.
Novelists can afford to be reckless. Poets can afford to be brief.
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