3C
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2015
BOOKS
WHAT ARE THEY READING?
T
he Daily Astorian invites people to sub-
mit titles of books they are reading and
share a few thoughts about the work.
This week, Don Haskell, a retired attorney and
former Clatsop County commissioner, shares
some of his favorites about physics. To submit,
send to news@dailyastorian.com
O
ne of my favorite books discusses the
most famous mathematical equation
in all of physics. Although not an easy
read like a Tom Clancy spy novel, Brian Cox
and Jeff Forshaw’s “Why Does e = mc²?” ex-
plains Albert Einstein’s discovery why there’s
enough pent-up energy in the period at the end
of this sentence to blow up Astoria.
And, of course, Einstein’s discovery led to
the atomic bomb.
My interest in physics began when I was
laid up with a broken ankle
15 years ago. My library now has most lay-
mans’ physics books published since then. And
the more I read about physics, the more won-
drous becomes the universe and the human in-
tellect trying to ¿ gure it all out.
In “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” Brian
Greene introduces a universe so vast it’s almost
impossible to picture how large it is. Greene
describes it as one so vast that if the earth were
the size of the entire cosmos, the observable
universe we can see with our largest telescopes
would be smaller than a grain of sand!
One faraway star is so large that if you were
À ying in an airplane at miles per hour, it
would take you , years to À y around its
equator!
At the other end of the scale, Timothy
Smith describes in “Hidden Worlds” the small-
est things physicists know anything about —
quarks, which can’t be divided further and are
part of every atom. And a quark is so small
that if it were the size of the average person,
the tiny atom would be much larger than the
earth!
What is human consciousness?
Surprisingly however, no physicist has yet
been able to ¿ gure out Must what human con-
sciousness really is; although a chemist, Fran-
cois Tibika, makes an interesting attempt at it
in “Molecular Consciousness.”
1or has anyone ¿ gured out what biologi-
cal life itself actually is, although in “Biocen-
trism” Dr. Robert Lanza tries to
¿ gure it out from the medical
viewpoint.
Nor has any physicist been
able yet to ¿ gure out the invis-
ible stuff that makes up over
95% of the observable universe.
Physicists everywhere call this
mysterious stuff dark energy
and dark matter. Richard Panek
describes this strange state of
affairs in a fascinating way in
“The 4% Universe.”
In “Time Reborn” Lee
Smolin explains the amazing
conclusion of physicists ev-
erywhere that light is at the
same time both a particle and
a wave that travels 1,
miles per second — about
million mph). Smolin discusses
Einstein’s universally accepted
conclusion that “time” doesn’t
exist for anything going that
fast.
Past, present, future are
one
The mind-boggling conclu-
sion of physicists around the
world is that the past, present
and future are actually one —
i.e., everything that happens,
that has already happened, or
will ever happen, is all part of
one continuum — a concept extremely dif¿ -
cult for most human minds to understand, let
alone accept. As physicist Michael Lockwood
argues in “The Labyrinth of Time,” what we
all perceive as the “passage of time” is an il-
lusion. It’s simply part of the human condition
— what our minds have been conditioned to
think is reality in order to survive.
To me the most fascinating physics books
describe the smallest things in the universe.
Physicists call the ¿ eld quantum physics,
which has different natural laws than classical
physics, which describes the largest.
Classical physics was proposed by Isaac
Newton centuries ago and is what my genera-
tion learned in high school physics classes in
the 194s. The new quantum physics has giv-
en us television, the Internet, the computer,
the iPhone, the iPad, the laser,
medical imaging, and many
other marvelous things that
didn’t exist when I was grow-
ing up.
Yet no physicist in the world
today really understands what’s
happening at the smallest level.
Robert Feynman, the famous
Princeton University physicist
is known for his statement that,
“if you think you understand
what happens at the quantum
level, you obviously don’t un-
derstand it.”
‘Entangled’
As one example, many thou-
sands of experiments around the
world prove that at the quantum
(smallest) level, two particles
can become “entangled” such
that information about them
is passed instantaneously be-
tween them no matter how far
apart they are, even thousands
of miles apart — or even at
opposite ends of the universe.
Yet the result that information
somehow goes faster
than the speed of light is im-
possible according to Einstein’s
universally accepted theories
of relativity. This conÀ ict is
described in technical detail in
a dif¿ cult read by theoretical physicists Tony
Hey and Patrick Walters in “The New Quan-
tum Universe.”
And another mystery of the quantum world
is even weirder.
In “Quantum Enigma,” physicists Bruce
Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain that at
nature’s smallest level nothing happens unless
there is some form of interaction by conscious
beings to decide what will happen. As unbe-
lievable and nonsensical as that sounds, that
apparent rule of nature has been con¿ rmed
by thousands of experiments by physicists ev-
erywhere. To most physicists that means the
human condition creates its own reality — an-
other
concept very dif¿ cult to understand, let
alone to accept as a natural law.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Don Haskell is fascinated by the mysteries
of physics.
Mysterious state of affairs
The mysterious state of affairs with quantum
physics has led many physicists to theorize, as
Paul Davies explains in “Other Worlds,” that
there must be an in¿ nite number of universes
with an in¿ nite number of copies of every-
thing, including us. But so far nobody’s been
able to detect other universes, so at least for
now the concept of parallel worlds is a creature
only of theoretical physicists.
For many years physicists have tried to re-
solve the mystery why the
smallest things in quantum physics and the
largest things in Newtonian physics appear
to follow entirely different natural laws. As
Rosenblum and Kuttner put it, “classical phys-
ics explains the world quite well; it’s Must the
details it can’t handle. Quantum physics han-
dles the details perfectly, it’s Must the world it
can’t explain.”
Personally, I think it’s no surprise scientists
all over the world are nowhere near close to
answering the mystery. Books about physics
describe a universe simply too wondrous for
the human intellect to ever know everything.
Lights: It takes about 2 to hours to sequence the lights to each song
Continued from Page 1C
It takes Mike about
to hours to sequence the
lights to each song. He began
that process months ago. The
week before Thanksgiving, the
Adelmanns began putting up
the decorations, ¿ nishing by
the start of December. Because
they were designing for a new
and slightly less familiar loca-
tion, they used only a portion
of the decorations they have
stockpiled.
“There wasn’t enough time
to get a full display,” Mike said.
A decorated Victorian
The Adelmanns said they
enMoyed decorating the 9ic-
torian home, a stark Muxtapo-
sition to their former stucco,
À at-roofed home in New Mex-
ico. Already they have plans
to expand on the proMect next
year and create an even greater,
more complex display.
When searching for a house,
the ability to be decorated was
one of the couple’s criteria,
along with a nearby hospital for
Teale, who works as a nurse .
The couple also wanted a view
of water and that the house be
somewhat different — not “the
cookie-cutter home” they were
used to, Teale said.
The historic house, perched
by the Skipanon River and only
about 12 miles from Provi-
dence Seaside Hospital, ¿ t the
bill.
“This checked all those box-
es,” she said.
When they moved in, they
FREE
PUBLISHED THE FIRST FRIDAY
OF EACH MONTH
January 2015
Katherine Lacaze/EO Media Group
Lights brighten the holiday season.
constructed a garage in the
back with a new power line
speci¿ cally to run the lights and
also to store all the decorations,
lights and thousands of feet of
homemade extension cords.
A few months ago , the
house was decked in a differ-
ent display — rife with hues
of orange and black, singing
pumpkins and skeletal ¿ gures
— to celebrate Halloween.
ess
Chronicling the Joy of Busin
in the Columbia-Pacific
Region
The Adelmanns got permission
from the Skipanon Marina for
people to park there and walk
to the house to trick-or-treat and
watch the show.
For Christmas, however,
spectators are encouraged to
relax in their cars. A sign posted
in front of the house tells spec-
tators which frequency to tune
into. The music and speaking
portions play on a loop.
striverbusinessjournal
crbizjournal.com • facebook.com/coa
Volume 10 • Issue 1
stry spo
allenges
Inside: Indu
copes with ch
Shellfish farm
an conditions
oce
nging
s optimistic despite cha
tlight:
Taylor remain
NEWS
County makes a splash
‘A continuous
ÀRZRIFDUV¶
There have been few traf¿ c
back ups so far — sometimes
three or four motorists are wait-
ing their turn to get the prime
viewing location. Usually,
“there is a continuous À ow of
cars,” Mike said.
As of now, the couple only
decorate for Halloween and
Christmas and there are no
plans to put up light displays
for other holidays, although
Teale has envisioned some fun
things that could be done for
9alentine’s Day.
For the Adelmanns, the
most ful¿ lling part of the proM-
ect is seeing the Moy and smiles
from observers. Through an
informational website on the
house, the couple has received
emails expressing apprecia-
Now inserted into
The Daily Astorian and
Chinook Observer
For more information call 503-325-3211
PacifIc
in the pot biz page 10
NEWS
Seaside Muffler and Off-Road
21
revs up its reputation page
BOAT OF THE MONTH
The Sadie out of South Bend,
Wash. page 24
tion for the light show. Some-
times spectators will wave or
honk their horns, or kids will
get out and dance to the mu-
sic. The couple likes “to see
how happy the people are,
that they came by and enMoyed
it,” Teale said.
“We make someone’s day.
W e make them smile,” she add-
ed.
They also take personal
pleasure going outside to watch
the show themselves every few
nights.
“It’s pretty emotional to
see the lights, especially when
‘Amazing Grace’ comes on,”
Teale said. “It’s Must beautiful
to see the whole house and how
it’s lit up.”
Their neighbors, here and
at past residences, have not
complained. The couple tries
to be respectful by turning
off the display by a decent
hour, Teale said. Additionally,
the traf¿ c has not been over-
whelming.
“We’ve never heard any-
thing but positive feedback
from neighbors,” Mike said.
In fact, their current neigh-
bors, George and Doris War-
ren, have Moined in the fun. In
lieu of decorating the exterior
of their house, the Warrens put
up a sign, lined with lights, that
reads “Ditto” and has an arrow
pointing to the Adelmanns’
house.
“At ¿ rst, we didn’t know
how they would respond, be-
cause it might be too much for
some people, but they Must love
it,” Mike said.
crbizjou rn a l.com