[lit-ideas] Re: What Wittgenstein Could See
- From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:20:45 -0700
Le 11 ao=FBt 04, =E0 07:15, Andy Amago a =E9crit :
> <snip>
>
>
> A.A. I heard a discussion with Michio Kaku, the physicist. Lewis=20
> Carroll, as everyone knows, was a mathematician. What I didn't know=20=
> is that he wrote Alice in Wonderland as a demonstration of black holes=20=
> as passages between universes.
M.C. I'm afraid I find this pretty hard to swallow. Carroll published=20
Alice in 1872, and died in 1898. But nobody could have thought of the=20
idea of the existence of black holes before Einstein's theories were=20
annouced (special relativity, 1905, general 1915). The first person=20
actually to have thought of black holes was the German artillery=20
officer Karl Schwarzschild, whose results Einstein presented to the=20
Russian Academy in 1916.
Chronologically, therefore, Kaku's suggestion is a=20
non-starter....unless you want to adopt the theory of Leonard Shlain=20
(Arts and Physics. Parallel visions in space, time, and light, New York=20=
1991) according to whom artists often intuitively anticipate new=20
scientific theories, especially revolutionary ones. But then, as one=20
learns in the last chapter's of his work, Shlain's contentions are=20
based on his belief in a World Soul =E0 la Ouspensky and spiritual=20
evolution =E0 la Teilhard de Chardin. In other words, Shlain is a good=20=
example of the work that drives P. Stone up the wall; but the=20
difference is that unlike Brian Greene, Shlain doesn't have the=20
credentials (he's a surgeon rather than a physicist), and he clearly=20
gets all his information second-hand (often from people like Marshall=20
McLuhan and Will Durant). In other words, Shlain is a phoney, from whom=20=
one can nevertheless learn a thing or two. Greene is the real McCoy=A0: =
a=20
practicing physicist who can actually write well and explain complex=20
matters clearly.
>
Michael Chase
(goya@xxxxxxxxxxx)
CNRS UPR 76
7, rue Guy Moquet
Villejuif 94801
France
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