This afternoon, I attended a most marvelous event. Amazingly enough, the astrophysicist and renowned author, Alan Lightman, was in here in Anchorage and did sort of an extended question and answer/conversation at West High Auditorium - a mere 10 minute walk from the Partnow Manse.
The format was really quite good. For the past several weeks, Mr. Lightman's book Einstein's Dreams was studied in high school physics and english classes throughout the Anchorage School District. Then during today's afternoon session, Mr. Lightman responded to questions from various students. The questions were great and his responses were just so complete, so perfect.
Lightman was so gracious, polite, extremely thoughtful, and well spoken. As my friend Chris stated, very often genius is very humble. And that was definitely the case this afternoon. I want to take physics from Alan Lightman. As with many true geniuses, he has a way of boling down complicated concepts to their essence. Even someone like me has a shot at understanding relativity.
Over the past several months, I've been wrestling with concepts of time. It's the result of zen meditation/reading and an odd case of sort of momentarily losing my grip on space and time. I get disoriented as to what's now, the past, and the future. And Mr. Lightman's responses today just fit right in with that swirling picture.
My favorite question/response from today was:
Question: Why is light a constant?
Answer: There is no absolute rest. There is no landmark. Objects must be measured relative to one another.
9:54:10 PM 
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