Physics of the Impossible, by Michio Kaku

(click to enlarge the image)
Today's "Shoe" cartoon shows the wizard owl in a bookstore. In the first two panels he's thinking, "Because I'm a wizard, people think I have the answers to all the riddles of the cosmos" and "But, no matter how hard I look, there's one thing that still has me stumped." So in the last panel, he asks the bird behind the counter, "Is there parallel parking in a parallel universe?"

What made you want to read this book?
If you understood the joke, this may be a book you'd enjoy. The subtitle caught my attention back in November when I was drafting my novel about time travel. And the subtitle is...?

Title, author, date of book, and genre?
Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel, by Michio Kaku, 2008, physics

Share a quote from the book.
I got the book specifically to find out what a major physicist thinks about time travel, but I really enjoyed most of the rest of the book as well, especially all the "impossible" things that now seem possible, at least eventually.

In our ordinary world we sometimes joke that it's impossible to be "a little bit pregnant." But in the quantum world, it's even worse. We exist simultaneously as the sum of all possible bodily states: unpregnant, pregnant, a child, an elderly woman, a teenager, a career woman, etc. (p. 242)

I have told people that, now that I'm elderly, I have come to see that I am still all those other ages in my life -- which in my case would include pregnant and unpregnant, career woman and retiree. Some days I am twelve and hanging upside down from the swinging bar on the swing set -- and I can feel it, that rush of blood to my head hanging down and my weight on the backs of my knees as the bar swings back and forth. Not that I would ever try to do such a thing at my age. I couldn't, and not because of its lack of dignity, either. I just plain can't do what used to seem so simple and easy. (And sometimes I think I'm 112, but that's another story!)

One minority point of view is that there must be a "cosmic consciousness" pervading the universe. Objects spring into being when measurements are made, and measurements are made by conscious beings. Hence there must be cosmic consciousness that pervades the universe determining which state we are in. Some, like Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, have argued that this proves the existence of God or some cosmic consciousness. (Wigner wrote, "It is not possible to formulate the laws [of the quantum theory] in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." In fact, he even expressed an interest in the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism, in which the universe is pervaded by an all-embracing consciousness.) (pp. 243-244)

I took note of this quote because of the reference to Hinduism -- some of you know I taught Religions of the World as an adjunct at Chattanooga State for about a decade -- and I noticed an error in the book where Shiva, one of Hinduism's trinity of gods, was a "goddess" (p. 44). Nope, the dancing god may seem feminine, but he's a he.

What did you like most about the book?
I discovered something I didn't know (or at least don't remember hearing or reading before) -- that the moon stabilizes Earth's spin (p. 134). That fascinates me, though I can't really explain why. What if we didn't have the moon?

How would you rate this book?
Because it was slightly more difficult than I expected (Hey, it was written by a quantum physicist!), I give it a 9 out of 10.

What I've been reading

I woke up this morning thinking, "January 10th. It's the Day to Read." Oh, no! The Day to Read was on January 10th of 2008. Last year I was psyched up on January 9th and wrote a report of my reading on January 11th.

I took note when SMID (Soccer Mom in Denial) challenged us to do it again in 2009. I even posted about it on my blog.

But then something came along and got in the way of my thinking ~
I moved.

Yep, I haven't been thinking. Correction: I haven't been thinking in my normal channels. I've been moving, but I've been reading. Here's a list of the books I completed in the last half of December, during the time from signing the lease to getting moved into my new place:

Dec. 15 ~ Catherine Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman, young adult historical fiction, 1994
Dec. 16 ~ One True Thing, by Anna Quindlen, fiction, 1994
Dec. 17 ~ The Secret School, by Avi, young adult fiction, 2001
Dec. 19 ~ Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel, by Michio Kaku, physics, 2008
Dec. 21 ~ Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really DO Make a Difference, by Lynne Truss, punctuation, 2006
Dec. 24 ~ The Alpine Christmas, by Mary Daheim, mystery, 1993
Dec. 25 ~ Maxine: Yelling It Like It Is, by John M. Wagner, humor, 2001
Dec. 26 ~ Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, by Richard Bach, fiction, 1977
Dec. 27 ~ We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy, by Maurice Sendak, children's (sort of), 1993
Dec. 28 ~ Too Bad, Ahab, by Marilyn Lashbrook, children's Bible story, 1990
Dec. 29 ~ The Reincarnationist, by M. J. Rose, fiction, 2007

I was reading a lot, as you can see. Eleven books in fourteen days. It was a good way to relax when I was tired from packing and lifting and transporting and lifting and unpacking at the new place. But it made me forget the correct 2009 Day to Read. Dang!

Nevertheless, I can write a report on what I read. Even if I failed to notify the world I'd be reading more than blogs. And even though I didn't take notes during the actual Day of Reading.

Report on my Day of Reading
While moving, I've been loading and unloading boxes. That means I found stacks of old newspapers and magazines. I seem to have the idea that I can't throw things away unread. Think about it -- "unread" is one of the worst words in the English language for readers. So I skimmed the old newspapers and read parts of old magazines. And at my new place (a gated community for seniors) we have a "library" of sorts -- people contribute books and magazines and others are welcome to borrow whatever they want to read. It's small, but I looked it over and found Avi's The Secret School (see above) that I completed it overnight on December 17th. So on Thursday, January 8th, I happen to know I was reading two copies of AARP: The Magazine that I borrowed from "the library" here.

I picked up the January/February issues of 2008 and 2009. Last year's issue had Caroline Kennedy on it, and this year's has Glenn Close -- because AARP begins the year by presenting ten people who make a difference. I read about those twenty people (ten twice) and all the other articles in each magazine.

What else did I read? The menu when I went out to eat with my two daughters and my youngest granddaughter that evening, and the signs all over the Creative Discovery Museum when I took my granddaughter there after we ate. (You remember Cady, don't you? Now you know we do more than swim together and review books.)

I'm moving

No, not my blog. My cat and I are moving into a gated community for seniors, and it may take me some time to get settled in. Tomorrow I'll sign the lease and start moving boxes over there each time I go. Too much is happening, so don't expect to hear from me anytime soon. I really am looking forward to this, so be glad for me, but moving (as most of you probably know) takes time and effort. I'll read whatever you say in the comments, but don't expect me to say much, if anything, until I finally get things in some sort of order. Kiki, my cat, won't be happy to have to go in the car, but maybe she'll be happy when she realizes the other cat (Sammy is my roommate's cat) won't be living in the same apartment with us. They both grew up as only-cats and resent each other. Sammy and Donna will be moving into a different apartment next week. Here's Kiki among the boxes:

My ship crossed the finish line a day early

When I got within about 127 words of reaching the goal of having a 50,000-word draft of my novel (which doesn't mean it's finished, of course), I furled the sails and waited. Then last evening I went off to our region's Big Push Write-In wearing a new t-shirt, given to me by my friend in honor of this momentous occasion. On the front of it are these words:
Careful, or you'll
end up in my novel
And there, among friends, I typed the last words needed to cross the line for NaNoWriMo's word-count goal. No, I didn't stand up and cheer and shout, but it was fun to share that time with them. Then I entered the word count in the meter at the top of my profile page, confusing the wrimo sitting next to me. Yes, it was deliberate -- because I wanted to see my word-count meter turn solid green. Then (and only then) did I put the **whole** kit and caboodle through the validator to see the meter turn gloriously purple with WINNER! across the face of it. Wanna see?


Or visit my Bookbuddybonnie profile page to read all about it.

Wanna see what I've been doing?

Absolute Vanilla wrote this comment on my previous post:

"Bonnie, are you okay? There seems to have been no blogging activity for a long while - or are you just very busy with NaNo? Do so hope all is well."

Then she signed off with this: "xxx"

Isn't she sweet? Here's what I say to her (and everyone else who has wondered what's happening in my life):


On September 23rd, I got an email that said, "Bookbuddybonnie, you are now an administrator for the group
United States :: Tennessee :: Chattanooga." Here's how I felt about taking on a volunteer job that takes lots of time and energy and pays nothing ... except joy, of course:


Never fear, dear Vanilla, all is well. Actually, I have been blogging like mad over on my NaNo blog for this year ... Bonnie's NaNoWriMo* 2008.

...and monitoring and writing on the forum for the Chattanooga Region of Nano, which already has 17 threads. I monitor this board because I'm the municipal liaison for my town, what you could think of as the link between the powers that be and the 78 people here. Herding writers is kind of like herding cats. Tonight we are having a 3-hour party at the home of an enthusiastic member of our group. (We've been meeting once or twice a week and two hours at a time was not enough for these folks.) According to the statistics that accompany my user name wherever it goes on the NaNoWriMo site, I have written 71 posts, so far, on our forum.

Though these two writing projects amount to many, many words, the real BIGGIE is, of course, the NaNoWriMo project itself. Today is the exact middle of the month of November (NaNo month) and before the end of the day I expect to have completed 25,000 words of the 50,000-word, rough-draft-novel goal for all Wrimos. Yay, me! You can keep up with my progress on that link to my other blog ... I have my daily goals set out there, plus how much I actually achieved each day (see it on that blog's sidebar).

Do you suppose I've done enough writing in two weeks to exempt me from posting here as well? Ah, but my friends need to know I'm doing well ... it's just that I'm not doing it here.

Sorry. I still love you all. Oh, one more thing ... two of my grandchildren got married in October and the one whose wedding was out of town had a reception here in Chattanooga a week ago. I went. (Until I wrote this for Vanilla, I hadn't realized how busy I've been!)

Love,
~~~ Bonnie

Look at what some students wrote

I snitched this from Dewey, who got it from Elaina:

To the Woman (We Think You’re a Teacher) with the Books on the 2 Train
By some anonymous students

On the platform for the 2 train
you stand with a book in your hand
the pages open
Which is how you enter the train
Reading

Sometimes you smile, or frown
Once you even cried
on the train
when you were reading Night
and a man sitting across the aisle
said he cried too, when he read that book
and we thought,
we want to read that book
so we did

And then you were reading all those
basketball books
by Walter Dean Myers
so we read those too
speeding along on the 2 train
one time you saw us reading Slam
and you said
I love that book
and do you think Slam is going to make it in high
school?
We do, we think he’s going to make it

Then you were reading some really hard stuff
Epistemology of the Closet, Postmodern Narrative
Theory
and we tried those, but we think you have to have read
the books those authors have read, if you want to read
their books

Our favorite is when you are reading poetry
Picnic, Lightning
and you lean back against the seat
and smile
and keep reading the same page
again and again
we do that now and it’s really nice

Last week you were reading The Life of Pi
and we rushed out to buy it
So we could be in the lifeboat
adrift in the blue, blue sea
with the boy, the Bengal Tiger, and you

If we don’t see you next year
on the train
Maybe sometime we’ll bump into each other on the
platform
You’ll know us because
we’ll have books in our hands

I like it, I like it! Thanks, Dewey!

Meme and you

Absolute Vanilla has tagged me to do a meme.

*Tagged bloggers post answers on their blogs & replace questions as they wish.
*Tagged bloggers state who they were tagged by & cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by.

1. What do you do before bedtime?
Blog and/or read, usually both.

2. What is your favorite sound?
Water rippling gently over rocks, the way it did in the yard of the house where we raised our children. I call that sound mellifluous. Otherwise, I enjoy the sound of silence. I guess that basically means I like not having constant human sounds (chatter or what passes for music to some) when I'm trying to think or write.

3. What were your childhood fears?
Because of our blackout shades, I worried about planes flying low over our house during World War Two. As far inland as Chattanooga is, it seems unlikely that bombers would have gotten this far, but I can only wonder why the whole country would have had to install black shades as we did.

4. What place have you [visited, changed to:] lived that you can't forget and want to go back?
As per the instructions, I bracketed and changed one word to make the question one I like. I like staying put and getting to know the same place in depth, in various lights, at different seasons of the year. So the place I can't forget is the house with the mountain stream running through the back yard, with its treehouse for the children beside a tree (the twins were five and their brother two).

5. What has made you unhappy these days?
Noise pollution (see above), greedy excessiveness that has tumbled the markets, and assumption of entitlement ... no, not those on welfare, but those who feel entitled to park in front of doors to run in "for a minute," making old ladies on walkers have to navigate around their SUVs. These are the same people who park in spots reserved for the truly handicapped, when their only handicap seems to be mental, as in, unable to empathize with the plight of another.

6. What websites do you visit daily?
Bonnie's NaNoWriMo* 2008, Words from a Wordsmith, Weekend Wordsmith, Bonnie's Books, Banned Books ... wait, these are MY blogs. Well, it's true, I do visit them every day, plus blogs of online friends.

7. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Vanilla is absolutely my kind of person! She has great imagination, possibly bestowed by a hen with attitude. She a great photographer who likes to play in the virtual darkroom.

8. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, after Dewey mentioned Mary Poppins on her blog.

9. What’s your favorite item of clothing?
Comfortable sweats in the winter, but in general anything with pockets. I think it's unfair that guys get pockets, but women don't usually. And that's why most women carry bags. I wear jeans year round, mostly so I have pockets for keys and money and such.

10. What is your dream for the future?
To time travel into the past ... or at least, finish a novel where my protagonist gets to do that.

Now, who shall I tag? Any of you who are interested in this one, which was actually kind of fun.