Friday, December 30, 2011

Stephen Hawking just post an employment want ad

Stephen Hawking

As I read this article about how Stephen Hawking was posting an ad for a new assistant to maintain his complex electronic system to allow him to "talk", I thought back to the time when I was in the midst of reading "A Brief History of Time" for the sixth or seventh time.  I sadly but readily admit to my intellectual limitations.  And I am reminded of how low my mind is on the human scale every time I read that Hawking book.  But it really sunk through to me the time I read it (again) when my son was about three or maybe four years old.  He was old enough to grasp complex thoughts and to sort of articulate the obvious questions (why is the sky blue?), but it was very challenging to articulate a meaningful, but pedagogical answer.  I would have to go through several iterations in my mind where I abstracted complex thoughts to very, very simple ones so my young son would get the most basic abstract of the complex answer.  As I read, and then repeatedly re-read, each paragraph of Hawkings' book until the core concepts seeped bit into my muddled mind, it dawned on me: he had regressively iterated the very complex concepts in a similar manner as I did with my young son so the far lesser intellect could, with great thought and mental effort, grasp the simplest essences of the vast and incredibly complex universe that he saw intuitively.

2 comments:

Rev. Paul said...

The biggest problem I have with that book is that I understand it just fine, while reading it. Once I put it down, I can't really tell anyone what I've read; I'm guessing I didn't give it enough thought. Good on you for doing so.

2cents said...

Yeah. OK. We'll go with that cuz the other alternative is that you're smarter than me...