Blind watchers, ch10

Count for references to blindness continues to increase.

But the accelerator is an important instrument for anyone interested in understanding the earliest moments of the universe, because in the fireball of energy produced in the collision of high-energy particles, it is possible to taste the primordial soup of the big-bang.

There is a moment, while reading this chapter, where I was laying down with my forehead resting on the book thinking that maybe, just maybe, this book will be a much better read for people who are not familiar with the sciences.

"English majors," I thought, except then I realized that English majors would probably have torn this book apart before we've even reached chapter three. Ah well, maybe art majors then. They might appreciate the drama that the author's trying to instill into cosmology.

There are some intentionally funny parts in this chapters though:

This era [a point in the history of the universe where the average temperature is equal to or higher than the melting point of brimstone] might have theological implications, but nothing of interest to cosmologists occurred at this time; the universe seemed to pass uneventfully through the temperatures of hell.

Boredom, I suppose, can be a special type of hell?

On a completely unrelated note: It's Pan-Gu (pronounced: pan-goo), not P'an Ku (have no idea where he got that spelling from), which is a folklore (think Native American). The Taoists and the Buddhists and all the other followers (China had a melange of different belief systems, most of which I don't understand or even remember) each had their own ideas. [Random FYI.]

There are many astronomical facts that cry out for a deeper and more consistent explanation.

The screaming! Make it stop! lol

Oh and in the page afterward, just as I was thinking how all this talk about primordial soup was making me think of edible kind of soup, I turned the page and saw the photo of the Campbell-styled can with "Fermilabs: Primordial Soup" written large upon it. I lol'ed. Lucy probably will appreciate this, too.

And the part where he says "Because the equation is so beautiful, I can't resist writing it..." made me think of those cartoon scenarios with a deranged-looking scientist in coke-bottle glasses twitching over a sheet a paper with tears running down his face, muttering to himself, "It's so beautiful...it's so beautiful...."

That's from comics, mind you. I'm a little concerned about people like that in real life.

Aside from that, I have discovered that Kolb is right on the bandwagon with everyone else who is trying to find the grand theory that'd unify Life, the Universe and Everything (and good luck to him). The sudden increase in "blindness" at the end of the chapter made me go "gah".