November 8, 2004

• MONDAY BOOK

  Time and Again
  Jack Finney

  Most of us have seen that wonderful old film, Somewhere in Time, that Christopher Reeve made back in 1980. It was based on a book called Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson that came out in 1975. But five years before that Time and Again was published, telling the original version of the story of a young man who manages to go back in time. In this case, he begins his journey in the Dakota, that infamous hotel in New York City where John Lennon was shot, where Rosemary’s Baby was filmed, and where many celebrities have lived over the years. It is a three-dimensional chamber of rooms that has not changed in over a century and looks out on a part of Central Park that is also remarkably the same though now there is a memorial called Strawberry Fields there. Anyone who is fascinated by the sounds and smells and look of old New York City will love this book that even includes wonderful photos and sketches of that spot in time. So I’ve begun to follow the hero back to see how his mystery will turn out and in the fourth chapter I happened on a little section that describes Einstein’s discoveries in a delightful way. Since I’ve recently posted on Einstein and Hawking, I thought I’d quote it here:

  “Did you know that years ago Einstein theorized that light had weight? Now, that’s about as silly a notion as a man could have formed. Not another human being in the world thought that or ever had; contradicts every feeling we have about light…But there was a way to test that theory. During eclipses of the sun, astronmers began observing that light passing it bent in toward it. Pulled by the sun’s gravity, you see. Inescapably, that meant that light has weight: Albert Einstein was right , and he was off and running….Time passed. That astonishing mind continued to work. And Einstein announced that E equals MC squared. And, God forgive us, two Japanese cities disappeared in the blink of an eye and proved that he was right again. I could go on; the list of Einstein’s discoveries is a considerable one. But I’ll skip to this: Presently he said that our ideas about time are largely mistaken. And I don’t doubt for an instant that he was right once more. Because one of his final contributions not too long before he died was to prove that all his theories are unified. They’re not separate but interconnected, each depending upon and confirming the others; they largely explain how the universe works, and it doesn’t work as we’d thought… He meant that we’re mistaken in our conception of what the past, present and future really are. We think the past is gone, the future hasn’t yet happened, and that only the present exists. Because the present is all we can see…As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But it’s there…When he said light has weight, he meant that the sunlight lying on a field of wheat actually weighs several tons. And now we know–it’s been measured–that it really does. He meant that the tremendous energy theoretically binding atoms together could really be released in one unimaginable burst. As it really can, a fact that has changed the course of the human race. He also meant precisely what he said about time: that the past, back there around the curves and bends, really exists. It is actually there.”

  In the story Time and Again, the hero steps out of the boat and onto the shore to walk back to the bend. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
  

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  Deep Thought: “It’s funny how two simple words, “I promise,” will stall people for a while.”
  Today I am grateful for: My spine
  Guess the Movie: “What’s the matter with you?” “I can’t swim.” “Why you crazy, the fall will probably kill you.” Answer: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969. Winner: thenarrator.
  I’ve watched today as my countrymen lay waste to more of Iraq and the people of Fallujah huddle in terror. More from Common Dreams.org: “US and Iraqi forces unleashed an all-out offensive to seize Fallujah from the hands of rebels, with marines advancing on the city’s heart following massive strikes by artillery and warplanes.” Rest of article here.
  End of Day: Forgot last night. Now it’s 5:03 am on Tuesday.
  + = Got through day without crown falling off.
  - = More watching of murder in Fallujah.
  

  • 7:21 pm
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