Fragments

One can only be astounded by humanity’s ever-accelerating advances in technology … although I’m sure most of them have always taken place out of sight of the general populace. But every once in a while something hits the airwaves, and this latest leaves me feeling there are no limits whatever. Quoting one report (with my emphases) on the achievement: On September 14, 2015, the two LIGO sites, in Louisiana and Washington State, independently  detected a gravitational wave by measuring a discrepancy in the time the light rays took to reach a sensor at the ends of the tunnels. The precision of the measurement is simply astonishing. The  difference in length that  each light wave traveled  corresponds to 1/1000th of the radius of a proton , a subatomic particle that is itself minuscule, with a size of about 10 -12     meters.              But I am also astounded … and very pleased … that the real payoff of this technological feat must have come about by means of good ol’ rationa

The Baby Boomers -- my generation – have always fancied themselves something special. This was due not only to our economic privileges as the wealthiest (young) generation in history (albeit not uniformly distributed, of course!) but also our numbers. My own intimation of mortality came a decade or two ago when I suddenly realized that, say, the Beatles would fade into history, and probably rather rapidly, like everybody else. Except … that didn’t happen! So our collective ego has been reinforced by at least one succeeding generation … and no doubt abetted by the eternal presence of the recent past on the Internet.             Of course ours was also the generation that grew up with the fear of nuclear world war, which certainly would have ended things right quickly, with no other generations to succeed our massive failure. But side by side with that were inspiring spectacles of a high order, surely the “highest” (for me anyway) being walking on the Moon. (Of course this was not