Might Still Flicker Or Shine

The central contention of physics has it that the building blocks of the universe will endure even if, or even when, the humans who tally them, and the planet we live on, all die.  To see into the deathless universe is to try to see nothing so flamboyant as [William] Wordsworth’s favorite daffodils and walnut groves, but to peer into the coldest spaces, the black holes and the fractional electric charge of theoretical subatomic particles.  These entities have no blood flow, of course, but also no DNA;  they’re not susceptible to pandemics, however virulent, or the dividends and ravages of carbon.  They don’t live, so they don’t die.  To model the universe as precisely as possible is to try to see the one thing that even the strictest atheist agrees is everlasting — to try to achieve, in a lab, an intimation of immortality.
Back to the living world that’s under our feet.  [Carlo] Rovelli is right to caution against the potential delusions of those who are greedy for eurekas.  But, as a fellow physicist with a radical streak, he is also sympathetic to their ambitions, a drive to “learn something unexpected about the fundamental laws of nature.”  To Rovelli, whose latest book describes quantum mechanics as an almost psychedelic experience, a truly radical discovery entails the observation of phenomena that fall outside three existing frameworks in physics:  quantum theory, the Standard Model of particle physics, and general relativity.  Only by blowing up one of those frameworks can one achieve the kind of immortality that scientists get, the glory of someone like Einstein or Heisenberg.
But to keep looking, as Rovelli has, as Fermilab has with this study on the muon’s magnetism, is also to apprehend hints.  To follow hints.  In that way, the physicist’s work and the poet’s are the same.  And if Wordsworth is right, immortality can be found, of all places, in the hint — the staggering proposition by nature itself that, in spite of all the dying around us, something of all we love might be imperishable, might still flicker or shine or wobble when the rest of our world is gone.
—     Virginia Heffernan
From her article:  “Muonstruck“
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine;  dtd:  June 2021
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On This Day In:
2021	Keep Growing
	I Keep Looking
2020	I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plans
	One Earth
2019	Beautiful Rules
2018	Skepticism
2017	WWGD?
2016	Growing Greatness
2015	When It Is Darkest
2014	Knowledge And Doubt
2013	Three Thoughts
2012	Gentle Reader
2011	Leave The Light On For Me Anyway

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Backyard Narcissus

And here is a photo of the Spring blossom of our backyard daffodils (Narcissus)…  These are the miniature variety.
Backyard Daffodils
Our Hil is not sure why, but our front yard daffodils didn’t really come in this year.  We got the green shoots, but none of the blooms / flowers.  Oh, well.  Maybe next year.
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On This Day In:
2020	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2020!!
2019	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2019!!
2018	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2018!!
2017	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2017!!
2016	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2016!!
2015	To My Special Lady
2014	Awakening
2013	Drowsy In Comfort
2012	Happy Valentine’s Day
2011	Own Your Bible

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The Sun Came Out

We have been having a few days of overcast weather lately.  Yesterday, I was putting the bins out for the weekly pickup and the sun broke out.  Next to me was a flash of color.
I paused to see what had caught my attention…  Snapdragons, some garden frogs and two pots of mini-roses (budding, but not yet blooming).  Our daffodils are gone, but it looks like spring is sprung.  The three frogs are “Hear no evil”, “Speak no evil” and “Falling asleep” – which I guess is supposed to be “See no evil”.
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On This Day In:
2019	The Importance Of A Deadline
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2018	History Will Judge Harshly
	Father Time, Perhaps?
2017	Odds Are
2016	Prayer, Too
2015	History, n.
2014	See It Sometime
2013	Precious Friend
2012	It Couldn’t Be Done
	Feeling Surrounded?
2011	Surprise!

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And In The Back

My wife loves to putter in the front and back yards.  She claims it’s because she’s English, but I think she just likes to add little touches of her personal beauty to the world – or at least to our small part of it…
In addition to the “normal” daffodils we have in our front yard (as shown in prior posts), we have a couple of plantings of “minis” and, most recently, a little purple “something” (she’s forgotten the name of) which are located in our back yard.  We are expecting the neighbors’ cherry (and other fruit trees) blossoms any day now…
Mini-daffodils
Two daffodils with their respective turtle guards
Small purple flowers…
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On This Day In:
2019	Sunlight Stream
2018	Wars Without Taxes
2017	Multiplication And Division
2016	I Went To The Woods…
2015	I’ve Got To Run
2014	Which Is It?
2013	Making You Stronger
2012	Sick Of Being Sick
	Greater Than Power
2011	Clear, Specific And Measurable
2010	The Runner’s High
	Into The Dark…

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Happy Valentine’s Day – 2020!!

A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.
―    Leo Buscaglia
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
―    Sir Isaac Newton
[Happy Valentine’s Day, Hil!!  You are the daffodil in my garden and the diamond sparkling on my sandy sea-shore.
All my love, Always, Your Kev XXX 00 X]
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On This Day In:
2019	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2019!!
2018	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2018!!
2017	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2017!!
2016	Happy Valentine’s Day – 2016!!
2015	To My Special Lady
2014	Awakening
2013	Drowsy In Comfort
2012	Happy Valentine’s Day
2011	Own Your Bible

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And Then There Was Yellow

Each year (for the last 34 or so) I celebrate the “tentative” end of winter with the blossoming of the daffodils.  (Hint:  my wife’s favorite flower.)  Here’s a picture of this year’s batch from the front of our house…
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On This Day In:
2019	Sin Less Every Day
2018	Probably Only A Little Easier
2017	Stars Above
2016	Where Do You Stand?
	Health Update
2015	Leaving On A Mid-Night Train
2014	Questioned Faith
2013	At Home In Fire
2012	A Tale Of Two Books
	More Meaning
2011	Back At The Millstone
	To Learn, Teach

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Yellow Signs Of Spring

My wife’s favorite flower is the daffodil.  Before I met her, I never thought much about flowers.  I knew what a rose was (is) and I knew they came in different colors.  I didn’t know the variations had different names or much of anything else.  I used to buy my wife roses several times a year.  Not for any particular reason.  Just to make her smile.  This stopped after a few years because she said she didn’t really like flowers – except daffodils.  When we moved back to Liverpool in the early 1990’s, I found out why.  They (Liverpool city) have fields and fields of daffodils and they all bloom at roughly the same time each year – in February / March.  Here are some of the photos from my Hil’s trip home last year (2018).
2018 Liverpool Daffodils (1)
2018 Liverpool Daffodils (2)
2018 Liverpool Daffodils (3)
2018 Hil w/ Daffodils
2018 Liverpool Daffodils
2018 Hil’s sister Lynn w/ Daffodils
Several years ago, Hil began planting bulbs in front of our house.  They never seemed to take.  They would pop up (bud), but never bloom.  Then about 2016, the “miracle of Spring” began.  (Unfortunately, we had to remove the tree shown in the first picture.)  For whatever reason, we seem to get a few more each year…
2016 Feb Daffodils
2018 Feb Daffodils
2019 Feb Daffodils (Thur)
2019 Feb Daffodils (Sat)
On Monday of this week, they were just buds.  On Thursday, the first five blossomed.  The final photo is from this morning…
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On This Day In:
2018	But Take Heart
	Poetic Marker
2017	The Few, The Many, The Most
2016	To My Brother
2015	For Junior
	A Roman Rome
2014	Hmmm
2013	What’s A Motto With You?
2012	Worthy Companions
2011	Bourne Again
	Which Ten Are You In?

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