DearDiary.2002-12-27
I visited John A Wheeler, father of InformationPhysics today. Since I met him in April I've been dying to see him again and see if he really understood me at breakfast as it seemed.
He didn't remember breakfast in April, we took a 35 minute walk his doctor demands because he had triple bypass surgery, he was happy for the snow making everything pretty and his great grand kids to play in yesterday, in this, the best world he has lived in.
He had little to say about neutrinium, the atom of two neutrinos, Feynman diagram populated LightCones, BinaryDifferentials, BinaryHarmonicCosmology, and other things i expressed. He did say he loved the idea of independent clocks manifesting relativity. "That's a wonderful way of looking at it" He proclaimed.
I tried to answer his one remaining question in physics, "WhyTheQuantum?" so far as there is an answer. He was not satisfied with my answers and remarked that there is still much more to be understood.
When I first mentioned Steven Wolfram, he didn't know who I was talking about. I asked if he used a computer and he said he got one but didn't know how to use it. I said I'd show him how. I asked is he was still reading physics and he said he had to, when we got back to his apartment he showed me Smolin's "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" and "Man, Mind, and Quantum Mechanics" (?sholer?) which he was about half through. As though awakened from a sleep, he said, yes, Steven Wolfram, "he did not say anything new".
He had me sign his notebook and poured sherry for his wife and ourselves and started moving the books and papers that obscured the computer in the corner.
It took me a while to find the power button on his new iMac which was stuck to the table as sherry had previously been spilled all over it including in the keyboard. Amazingly it worked fine once I got it turned on properly.
I could not get the modem hooked up where it was and asked what he wanted to do with the computer. He made it clear that he only wanted to type and print letters. So i struggled a bit to get the printer working and showed him how to make a document and print it, and turn the computer off.
I then asked him to sit at the keyboard and turn the computer on. He staunchly refused. I could see I overloaded him and he lost all desire to use the computer. I should have left the computer on as he might have tried it, silly me.
I spoke of my desire to teach information physics, he spoke of the responsibility to teach that learning brings with it.
I took the train back to the office and had a great dinner Jessica's uncle made and real Taiwanese hot red pepper sauce.
Life is wonderful :)
