Space without objects is like one hand clapping.

Direct, everyday experience teaches us that objects can move from place to place without changing their properties. This leads us to the idea of “space” as a kind of receptacle, wherein nature deposits objects. 

Practical applications in surveying, architecture, and navigation led people to measure distances and angles among nearby objects. Through such work, they discovered the regularities on display in Euclidean geometry.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. 16). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Hans said to Gretel: "What is space?"

Gretel said, “Space is the receptacle that holds objects.

Hans said, “What if there were no objects?”

Gretel said, “Then there would be no space.”

Hans said, “It’s kind of like one hand clapping.”

Gretel laughed and then Hans laughed too.

What does Wilczek mean by the term “radical conservatism?”

The method of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton combines the humble discipline of respecting the facts and learning from Nature with the systematic chutzpah of using what you think you’ve learned aggressively, applying it everywhere you can, even in situations that go beyond your original evidence. If it works, then you’ve discovered something useful; if it doesn’t, then you’ve learned something important. I’ve called that attitude Radical Conservatism, and to me it’s the essential innovation of the Scientific Revolution. 

Radical Conservatism is conservative because it asks us to learn from Nature and to respect facts—key aspects of what is called the scientific method. But it is radical, too, because it pushes what you’ve learned for all it’s worth. This is no less essential to how science actually works. It provides science with its cutting edge.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (pp. 4-5). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

As a psychotherapist I often ask my clients “How is that working for you?” Learning how to live life and be happy is often trial and error and often people have to learn the hard way. Few would call this approach to living “scientific.” 

Socrates taught that an “unexamined life is not worth living.” Living an examined life entails the willingness to learn from one’s experience. Some people would rather be right, that is hold tightly to their beliefs no matter what, while others are curious, humble, and willing to learn. This is the attitude that Frank Wilczek calls “radical conservatism” which means keep and continue what works and yet be open to new applications and possibilities.

Reality doesn’t care anything about your beliefs.

The second theme is that to appreciate the physical universe properly one must be “born again.”

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xv). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Quantum mechanics reveals that you cannot observe something without changing it, after all. Each person receives unique messages from the external world.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xvii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Psychophysics reveals that consciousness does not direct most actions, but instead processes reports of them, from unconscious units that do the work.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xvii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Since we were babies we perceive and manipulate our immediate world. The results of this manipulation comes to be what we think we know. But as we get older we begin to realize that sometimes what we think we know isn’t so. The bumper sticker says, “Reality doesn’t care anything about your beliefs.”

We are made up of the same stuff as the stars.

Each of our human bodies contains far more atoms than there are stars in the visible universe, and our brains contain about as many neurons as there are stars in our galaxy. The universe within is a worthy complement to the universe beyond.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xiv). Penguin Publishing Group. 

The idea that we are composed of the same stuff as stars is physically true. The poets, was it Walt Whitman, had it right.

There is a lot of space out there.

The first of those themes is abundance. The world is large. Of course, a good look at the sky on a clear night is enough to show you that there’s lots of space “out there.” When, after more careful study, we put numbers to that size, our minds are properly boggled.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xiv). Penguin Publishing Group. P. xiv

When you read, and watch the daily headlines we forget about the world out there. We lose a sense of reverence and awe at the majesty of creation. In relation to the awesomeness of the universe what we as humans have wrought seems infinitesimally stupid.

Book of the month, Fundamentals by Frank Wilczek, " Where’s your curiosity?

The spirit of their enterprise, and mine here, transcends specific dogmas, whether religious or antireligious. I like to state it this way: In studying how the world works, we are studying how God works, and thereby learning what God is. In that spirit, we can interpret the search for knowledge as a form of worship, and our discoveries as revelations.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xiii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Awesome. We seldom use that word anymore unless you are a teenager describing something teenagers used to call kewl.

Awesome it is, the universe, and when we dig in and deconstruct it it just gets awesomer and awesomer. How can you say you don’t believe in The Creator, Mother Nature, a Transcendent Source?

And so I hand it to Frank, the physicist, for sharing with us his world of awesomeness.

When people tell me they are bored I get the feeling something has gone terribly wrong. How could that possibly be? Look around you! Where’s your curiosity?

October 2022 MSN book of the month, Fundamentals: Ten Keys To Reality by Frank Wilczek

There will be a book of the month on Markham's Slow News. The book will usually be non fiction which provides a frame of reference or point of view about the world we are living in. This frame of reference or point of view provides the context for understanding and interpreting the various perceptions and events occuring in our media world around us.

The book for October, 2022 is Fundamentals: Ten Keys To Reality by Frank Wilczek. Frank is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and is a gifted writer.