vol VII: Notes

1982

Notes

Sunday 17 October 1982 - Saturday 23 October 1982

[notebook DREAMING DB1]

[page 84]

Sunday 17 october 1982

Monday 18 October 1982

Tuesday 19 October 1982

notebook: DREAMING DB1

[page 84]

Wednesday 20 October 1982

The escape remains, the cure eludes. W once said she though I would do something great, then she changed her mind. She was right. I have the talent but no motivation, no genius, no enthusiasm for the species, to see a social/political possibility and realise it. I am confined to the narrow world of the artisan, pottering, bricklaying reading, no doing, leading, discovering. No desire to work with others to bring forth new being, nor urge to realise my creative powers, no energy. Where has it gone? What is the block? Timidity, self deprecation, poor self image, lack of self confidence, a sense of failure and alienation, a need to curl up and hide like a wounded thing, a feeling that this life is leading nowhere, that I am lost, derailed and pushing through an ever resisting quagmire. I have never flown, always struggled, never tuned into the rhythm of life, but swum against it, and why? Pigheaded, maladaptive, unbelieving, cynical.

But as I sit here and look at the river, welling with perennial sadness and loss I feel that I must move on, because the light will come one day. Keep cranking until something fires.

[page 85]

This brought on by looking at Margaret Mead's Blackberry Winter. What is lacking in me is a felt place in the world, the knowledge that I am contributing something constructive that is, in a sense, following a productive career. I seem to have no shortage of ideas or visions, but no facility at putting them together into finished works of art or science. Mead

Childhood: At Garth's flat. Bolts and nuts and an adjustable wrench, to build tree house in what looked like an elderberry tree. Playing in bed with mothers breasts while she fed my brother. First remembered sexual fantasies date from Ferrers St, where they all centred around breasts. Garth building steps from limestone ashlars. So much of this at F St, all along the lawns and rosebeds. Demolishjed two story barn and replaced with low sheds. Remember making boats, guns etc. in workshp at bottom. Fantasy to build a large wooden fire engine to kids. Casting lead, etc, no shortage of enthusiasm there. Many ideas, some brought to fruition, despite shortage of resources. Room in the sleepout with 12 V batteries. Water engines and generators. steam generators, hydrogen balloons. Rowe's electroplaters. Tunnels, holes and caves.

[page 86]

At Garth's built a small stone house for fairies. Fell and cut my cheek on slatted garden seat. Looked through old glass windows at the lawns, which appeared like hills. Disappointed to go out and see them not there in reality (This at Mosely St, Mins place, full of Chinoiserie and quiet beauty, a lovely house, destroyed long since by developers at her death).

Gran Gardner, living alone semi-poverty at Henley Beach, an indicator of my mother's origins. The Henley Beach Steam Train.

Piano lessons at Mater Christi College. Marist Bros and chemistry. Boring drudgery of school. That's when it started. Life is a vale of tears. Hail Holy Queen. Suffering, to be endured until death brings release in heaven. Hail, Holy Queen

[page 87]

Thursday 21 October 1982

A moping around time. Why? I have lost the sense of wonder appropriate to a dawning mind in a Universe of unlimited complexity and potential. Have chosen the role of bricklayer rather than poet.

Going to monastery from Victor Harbour. There is a sort of Indian summer - recovery from operation, playing tennis, tutoring [young mathematics student] - a recurring theme in my relationship with women - swimming - speared my first and only fish, swim to island with brother. Night walks to the top of the headland; construction of telescope - 5 pounds pw allowance. Life stood still that year while I wanted to start my vocation. Second half of year work for Geosurveys very embarrassing - my stupidness and incompetence as a draughtsman made things difficult - also very low wages. Boarding [in Adelaide]. Took train from Adelaide Station to Walkerville or some such. Walked from station to work. Soft thin grey pullover. No women. No fun. Read a lot. . . . Utah a little better. Typing invoices, receptionist, answering phone. Paid overtime. Worked in Port Adelaide which was a little more interesting. . . .

[page 88]

Studied still at night. No adventure, no inspiration that I remember, just waiting. Got a lift to Melbourne . . . . Arrived 3am, knowing nobody and stayed at YMCA. Bought a lot of books.

In Victor Harbour was a girl is used to see in church. Dark and good looking. We never spoke. I never knew her name, just wished I knew her. My alienation from females was complete. The vocation, you know.

Blackfriars - boarding school. The OPtimist. Typewriter, gestetner, library. Emasculating religion, boring teachers Joseph Hooper, Anselm Curran, Lawrence Fitzgerald. . . . Francis Xavier Brown. Teachers priests, poor, chaste, obsedient, deviant personalities but intellectual quality, even though severely distorted by catholic beliefs and ethincs.

It seems that my vitality died during adolescence. An apparent mechanism: the suppression of love, sensuality, sexuality leads to a strongling linked suppression of all the joys of life. In the last two yeat at school my life became positiveluy oriented toward

[page 89]

pain and failure. While on the one hand I knew myself to be intelligent and capable, I had a strong desire to escape, to be not of this world. This seems to have its roots in a fear of passion and involvement; things that associate with women. The flight from women was central to my choice of monasticism, I think. This is pathological (as monasticism is to a fair degree) and lies at the root of my subsequent ability to get anywhere, or even establish a direction in life.

The image of human beings as cells in a planetary superorganism seems appropriate here. As contact between cells becomes closer, the need to differentiate becomes stronger, creating a larger variety of cells, as in embryogenesis, all of which may look deviant and pathological to each other, unless seen in the wider context of the superorganism. So there might be, must be, a role for me, even though the search has been, and is painful.

Margaret Mead feels her life to have been characterised by lucky accidents. At this time I feel mine to have been a series of dead ends. Given that

[page 90]

each of us is born as the outcome of a long series of partly random events, one can expect both genetic and environmental influences to vary from luck to unluck. Individual personal effort may bias things one way or another but cannot overcome the effects of chance. How does one set out scientifically and deterministically to find an ideal mate, for instance. So I sit and wait for luck. Or rather, this year I have resolved to get nowhere in order to reduce the pain of getting nowhere despite a grim determination to get somewhere. A payoff may be that some things will come very clear

Mead: Women unproductive, not because the baby cries,. but because she smiles so much.

Friday 22 October 1982

Saturday 23 October 1982

Copyright:

You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.

Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Cantor, Georg, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers (Translated, with Introduction and Notes by Philip E B Jourdain), Dover 1955 Jacket: 'One of the greatest mathematical classics of all time, this work established a new field of mathematics which was to be of incalculable importance in topology, number theory, analysis, theory of functions, etc, as well as the entire field of modern logic.'  Amazon   back

Casti, John L, Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics - and Why They Matter, John Wiley and Sons 1996 Preface: '[this book] is intended to tell the general reader about mathematics by showcasing five of the finest achievements of the mathematician's art in this [20th] century.' p ix. Treats the Minimax theorem (game theory), the Brouwer Fixed-Point theorem (topology), Morse's theorem (singularity theory), the Halting theorem (theory of computation) and the Simplex method (optimisation theory).  Amazon   back

Darwin, Charles, and Greg Suriano (editor), The Origin of Species, Gramercy 1998 Introduction: 'In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species has not been independently created, but has descended, like varieties, from other species.'  Amazon   back

Dirac, P A M, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed), Oxford UP/Clarendon 1983 Jacket: '[this] is the standard work in the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, indispensible both to the advanced student and the mature research worker, who will always find it a fresh source of knowledge and stimulation.' (Nature)   Amazon   back

Feynman, Richard, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter, Princeton UP 1988 Jacket: 'Quantum electrodynamics - or QED for short - is the 'strange theory' that explains how light and electrons interact. Thanks to Richard Feynmann and his colleagues, it is also one of the rare parts of physics that is known for sure, a theory that has stood the test of time. . . . In this beautifully lucid set of lectures he provides a definitive introduction to QED.'  Amazon   back

Haight, Roger, Jesus Symbol of God, Orbis Books 1999 Jacket: 'This book is the flagship of the fleet of late twentieth century works that show American Catholic theology has indeed come of age. Deeply thoughtful in its exposition, lucid in its method, and by turns challenging and inspiring in its conclusions, this christology gives a new articulation of the saving "point" of it all. . . . Highly recommended for all who think about and study theology.' Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, Fordham University.  Amazon   back

Mead, Margaret, Blackberry Winter, Peter Smith Publishers 1989 Amazon: Editorial Review 'During her lifetime, Margaret Mead (1901-78) was the world's most famous anthropologist. In this insightful memoir, she recalls her childhood, her place in her family, and how the lessons learned and ideals instilled then shaped her life. ... In Blackberry Winter, she reflects on her life and work, through three marriages and ground-breaking fieldwork in eight cultures. But perhaps her most fascinating revelations are the "gathered threads" of her own experience of childhood, motherhood, and grandparenthood. From her observations of sex roles, childhood, and parenting styles in other cultures, her appreciation of her own upbringing, and her shift to single, working motherhood after the break-up of her third marriage, she anticipated and pioneered a new model for family life. ... ' Lynne Auld  Amazon   back

Pétrement, Simone, and Raymond Rosenthal (translator), Simone Weil: A Life, Schocken 1988 Jacket: 'A French Jew who broke with Judaism and wavered on the edge of Roman Catholicism, the daughter of a respected physician, the sister of one of the century's greatest mathematicians, Simone Weil devoted her life to the search for truth and God amid the poverty and misery of the poor. Since her death in 1943 at the age of thirty-four, Simone Weil has become a person of legend. T S Eliot, Dwight Macdonald, Leslie Fiedler and Robert Coles spoke of her as the saint of the twentieth century who lived the contradictions of our era more intensely and continuously than anyone else.'  Amazon   back

Reid, Constance, Hilbert-Courant, Springer Verlag 1986 Jacket: '[Hilbert] is woven out of three distinct themes. It presents a sensitive portrait of a great human being. It describes accurately and intelligibly on a non-technical level the world of mathematical ideas in which Hilbert created his masterpieces. And it illuminates the background of German social history against which the drama of Hilbert's life was played. ... Beyond this, it is a poem in praise of mathematics.' Science  Amazon   back

Tymoczko, Thomas, New Directions in the Philosophy of Mathematics: An Anthology, Princeton University Press 1998 Jacket: 'The traditional debate among philosophers of mathematics is whether there is an external mathematical reality, something out there to be discovered, or whether mathematics is the product of the human mind. ... By bringing together essays of leading philosophers, mathematicians, logicians and computer scientists, TT reveals an evolving effort to account for the nature of mathematics in relation to other human activities.'  Amazon   back

Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...'  Amazon   back

von Neumann, John, and Robert T Beyer (translator), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 1983 Jacket: '. . . a revolutionary book that caused a sea change in theoretical physics. . . . JvN begins by presenting the theory of Hermitean operators and Hilbert spaces. These provide the framework for transformation theory, which JvN regards as the definitive form of quantum mechanics. . . . Regarded as a tour de force at the time of its publication, this book is still indispensable for those interested in the fundamental issues of quantum mechanics.'  Amazon   back

Papers

Babaev, Egor, Asle Sudbo, N W Ashcroft, "A superconductor superfluid phase transition in liquid metallic hydrogen", Nature, 431, 7009, 7 October 2004, page 666-668. Abstract: 'Although hydrogen is the lightest of atoms, it does not form the simplest of solids or liquids. Quantum effects in these phases are considerable (a consequence of the light proton mass) and they have a demonstrable and often puzzling influence on many physical proerties, including spatial order. ...'. back

Links

Einstein coefficients - Wikipedia, Einstein coefficients - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In 1916, Albert Einstein proposed that there are three processes occurring in the formation of an atomic spectral line. The three processes are referred to as spontaneous emission, stimulated emission, and absorption. With each is associated an Einstein coefficient which is a measure of the probability of that particular process occurring. Einstein considered the case of isotropic radiation of frequency ν, and spectral energy density ρ (ν).' back

Hail, Holy Queen, Catholic Online, 'Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve: to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus, O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Amen.' back

Heinrich Zille - Wikipedia, Heinrich Zille - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Rudolf Heinrich Zille (January 10, 1858 - August 9, 1929), German illustrator and photographer, was born in Radeburg near Dresden, as the son of watchmaker Johann Traugott Zill (Zille since 1854) and Ernestine Louise (born Heinitz). In 1867, his family moved to Berlin, where he finished school in 1872 and started an apprenticeship as a lithographer.' back

Käthe Kollwitz - Wikipedia, Käthe Kollwitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz (July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945) was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition in the first half of the 20th century. Her empathy for the less fortunate, expressed most famously through the graphic means of drawing, etching, lithography, and woodcut, embraced the victims of poverty, hunger, and war. Initially her work was grounded in Naturalism, and later took on Expressionistic qualities back

Moses Mendelssohn - Wikipedia, Moses Mendelssohn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. He has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism. Born to a poor Jewish family in Dessau and originally destined for a rabbinical career, Mendelssohn educated himself in German thought and literature and from his writings on philosophy and religion came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Germans and Jews. He also established himself as an important figure in the Berlin textile industry, which was the foundation of his family's wealth. Moses Mendelssohn's descendants include the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn and the founders of the Mendelssohn & Co. banking house.' back

Nicholas Bourbaki - Wikipedia, Nicholas Bourbaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. With the goal of founding all of mathematics on set theory, the group strove for rigour and generality. Their work led to the discovery of several concepts and terminologies still discussed.' back

Nucleosynthesis - Wikipedia, Nucleosynthesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Nucleosynthesis is the process that creates new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons, primarily protons and neutrons. The first nuclei were formed about three minutes after the Big Bang, through the process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis. It was then that hydrogen and helium formed to become the content of the first stars, and is responsible for the present hydrogen/helium ratio of the cosmos.' back

Order of Preachers, Dominican Province of the Assumption, 'Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Australia, Aotearoa_New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea' back

Second Vatican Council: Decree on Ecumenism, Unitas redintegratio, '1. The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ Himself were divided. Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature.' back