The History Lesson

[Julia A Knaake]

 Photo All rights reserved by tamesguida1965 ( Skechbook

 The History  Lesson

Grandpa and Jerry were walking in the thick tangled Herrontown  Woods near Princeton New Jersey  one afternoon. 

It was a warm summer day but no pestering bugs were around to speak of except for a few gnats. Alpha Alexander the border collie was looking around for water and came upon a small creek.

it was flowing clean over some small fist sized rocks and he lapped it up right away.

A couple of squirrels came down a tree and Alpha started off to herd them with a little yip. Jerry looked up and say a house in the woods.

 

"  Grandpa who's house is that way back in the woods?" asked Jerry. 

 

" It used to belong to the American mathematician Oswald Veblen."

 

" I heard about him in Geometry class this year."

 

The two of them gingerly walked through the woods and approached the two story cedar shingled house with a forest green door. The same green was painted  on the window sills. There were out building sheds in the back and also an old four leg wood burning stove and an actual ice box under a porch in the back part of the house.

 

The house was abandoned but Jerry listened attentively as  Grandpa told him the story of how Oswald's father had come from Norway and had built this house in the woods. Later on after Oswald had grown up and became a mathematician he was in Germany in 1932 during all the turbulence over the Jews in Germany.

 He had many of these refugees stay here at the house. Upstairs there were four large bedrooms and a full basement under the house so many men were able to stay at this house as a safe place before becoming Americans.  

 

Grandpa told Jerry that Oswald was a man of great modesty with a lot of personal charm and often strolled through these woods with his mathematician friend Albert Einstein.

Jerry was glad he got to take this walk today and learn more history from his Grandpa.

 © 2011 Julia A Knaake

[Larry Scott Draper]

Reminds me strongly of Paul Harvey and.....The REST of the Story.  I really miss his commentaries.

[Julia A Knaake]

Scott

I miss  Paul Harvey's  commentaries also 

I thought his son had taken over for him for a while

[LoveLife&Laughter]

I hate to be the party pooper but String Theory may have crashed and burned last month when the LHC in Berne disproved supersymetry; what a bummer.  lots of articles at the "Google". Read More Here

[Julia A Knaake]

 LoveLife&Laughter 

I tried that link 3 times but all  I got was:Our apologies – this page was not found..I wanted to read too

[Larry Scott Draper]

Just go to Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and listen to this brilliant physicist explain quantum mechanics.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Most of us could have guessed since ~1980, it sure was expensive to put it to rest.

"Recent findings have dealt a significant blow to the theory of physics known as supersymmetry. At the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, researchers have detected one of the rarest particle decays ever seen in nature. Many have hoped that the LHC would confirm the presence of supersymmetry using these particle decays. Unfortunately, it seems the opposite effect has happened.

Supersymmetry(or SUSY for short) is the theory that connects the two basic types of particles seen in nature - fermions and bosons. In a nutshell, fermions are the constituents of matter and bosons are the carriers of fundamental forces(like a photon in the case of electromagnetism). SUSY paints a picture of every known boson having a heavy 'superpartner' that is a fermion and every fermion would have a heavy partner that is a boson. This beautiful composure would stitch the Standard Model into more a complete picture of our reality. This would go on to solve mysteries of particle physics, like what the heck dark matter is.

In order to attempt to prove this theory, researchers measured the decay between a particle(known as a Bs meson) into two particles(known as muons). The team has calculated that for every billion times the Bs meson particle goes through decay, it only decays in this special way a measily three times. If the superparticles were to exist, it would require the special decay to occur much more frequently. This experiment would have been a huge win for this theory, but has resulted in a failure.

The LHC has been the home of very exciting news for some theories; it can result in failures with other theories. But with every door that closes, a new one opens. If supersymmetry is not the answer for dark matter, then physicists will continue to hunt for alternative ideas to fill in the gaps of the Standard Model. But let's not give up complete hope on SUSY just yet - that door still remains slightly ajar."

[LoveLife&Laughter]

The theory of supersymmetry has been widely supported because, in addition to being an essential element of superstring theory (it's the "super" part), it neatly explains how electromagnetism and nuclear forces are united, and it provides an answer to dark matter. True, the LHC evidence suggests it just might be fiction.

 

However, the LHC  hasn't debunked superstring theory directly. The theory maintains that everything in the universe is actually made up of extremely small vibrating strings. The strings, if they exist, would need to be much smaller than even the smallest particles that are known, and it's impossible for current science to probe such tiny scales.  That's where I am and have been for what its worth :)

 

Which means a couple of things. It could mean that the simplest version of supersymmetry is wrong, but there are more complicated versions of the theory that still allow for the existence of sparticles, but don't necessarily require the B-mesons' decay to show the influence of them.

I'll hold my breath ...

[Julia A Knaake]

I was unable to find the link but that does not matter as I would rather read what you all have posted

I am not too quick on this fascinating subject so thanks for putting it in laymans terms

[LoveLife&Laughter]

If you believed my Mom, I wanted to be a garbageman just like...well, the garbageman.

As I grew I wanted to be a rocket scientist but then I fell in love with the sea, so I became a sailor.  It was wonderful but when my boat sank, I then turned to being the rocket scientist I always wanted to be.

Now I am retired and can fulfill my Mother's vision, the only thing I do anymore is ... take out the garbage.

[njdevilsfan(Bob)]

This really has nothing to do with your story other than its about Princeton NJ. I live about a halfhours drive from there and when I was still active in the Carpenters Union I worked out there a few times. The last job I worked on was an addition to Palmer Hall. One day there was an elementary class trip that was at the building next to the construction site where we were working. The teacher pointed at the building they just came out of and said something we could not hear over our tools and generators etc. She then pointed straight in our direction saying something else. A friend of mine whom was working with me said "What do you think she just said?". I really had no clue but told him "When she pointed to the other building she said if your parents have alot of money you can come to the University, then when she pointed at us she said, If your parents dont have alot of money that is what you will be doing". My friend actually believed me. :-) 

[Julia A Knaake]

Bob you are a real joker if you made him believe you

actually

Teachers have a lot of influence on their students 

most are very good teachers but some do not stop 

and think what they tell their students

In the fourth  grade I was told I could not take out the science books

I wanted to read because they were for the sixth graders...I protested  

that I could too read these books but I was not allowed to take them from the library

little did they know that I learned to read from my father's crossword puzzle

he and I worked on every night and my sisters old McGuffey readers before I was six years old

[Larry Scott Draper]

Remember, it is the victors who write history.  Quite often the truth is lost to posturing.