Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Physics for Poets

Narration: When Michael Salamon was young, a close friend of the family moved in to his home in Brooklyn Heights. This family friend had a unique combination of qualities: he was a poet who translated Federico Garc?a Lorca ? and he?d spent time in the USSR studying their early space program.

Michael: and he would sit by my bed and tell me stories about space ? and I think in some way he was the primal influence in this regard ? I always had space in my mind?

Narration: Michael was a scientifically inclined kid growing up in a literary household. His mother worked on the editorial staff at a New York publishing house - so he grew up to be very well-read - comfortable with all kinds of literature. To this day Michael thinks he?s more interested in the arts and poetry than other physicists.

He can?t remember when exactly he first read Walt Whitman?s passage ?I Heard the Learned Astronomer? from ?Leaves of Grass.?

Michael: and it says? When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars?

I?ve always been bothered by this poem ? I mean it?s a beautiful poem ? I love it, but he just didn?t get it ? at all - he had it all wrong. It?s beautiful ? it?s not dry and ugly.

Narration: Michael couldn?t understand why Whitman - who was otherwise pretty effusive about damn near everything - would make such a sweeping criticism of astronomy and astronomers.

Michael: I was a budding scientist ? and here?s someone who?s basically saying ? science is dry ? and how much more beautiful to just go out and observe mystically ? in perfect silence looking at the stars. We all respond to beauty ? it?s a beautiful night, you breathe in the night air ? you look at the full moon - you see Mars, a little pink dot in the sky ? you see Beteljuice the big red giant in the arm of Orion, yeah, of course, it?s beautiful

Narration: But for Michael it?s even more beautiful when you understand the physics that make it all possible.

The first time he really ?got? how beautiful science could be, Michael was a freshman at MIT.

Michael: I was struggling to understand Maxwell?s equations - which are the classical equations of electro-dynamics. It explains the existence of light ? it also explains magnetism ? or static electricity ? why electrons circle the nuclei of atoms. He took all of these observed phenomena and just in four equations ? expressed it all

Michael: I remember I was listening to Janis Joplin at the time, I was not stoned. I was trying to penetrate and really visualize what these things were saying.

(Bring in Janis ?Try?)

Michael: I spent several hours - just hard - thinking ? I kept saying, ?I don?t get it, I don?t get it.?

In order to do it ? I actually have to let my mind sink ? for hours ? and as I go deeper and deeper and deeper - other things are pushed out ? it?s almost like meditating, except - deeply thinking ? hard.

Finally after hours of concentrated thought, you sort of come out of this trance ? and suddenly it all fits and it just exploded ? it was there and it was rock solid ? it was beautiful - it was so beautiful.

(Bring up Janis ?Try? climax)

Michael: It was ? like your first sexual experience ? oh, my God, it?s amazing ? I want more please. (laugh) So, the dry figures and the calculations ? the stuff that Walt Whitman was talking about here ? they?re all pathways to experience beauty in a manner not everyone is blessed to have, as we are, as physicist are, I think.

(Janis out)

Narration: Of course when Whitman wrote his poem in 1871, it was still early in the study of physics. Yet William Blake, writing even earlier, managed to capture an appreciation of fundamentals.

Michael: here?s a little ditty by William Blake? To see a world in a grain of sand; And heaven in a wild flower; Hold infinity in the palm of your hand; And eternity in an hour. I just love that. You know ? if you take a look at a grain of sand. What is sand? Sand is silicone dioxide - and there are atoms involved and electrons - and why do you have grain structure? ? if you really want to understand this grain of sand, you have to get into atomic physics and nuclear physics ? it?s all there ? all of physics is in this grain of sand ? or almost all of physics is in this grain of sand ? so, to see a universe in a grain of sand ? it?s very beautiful

Narration: Michael knows Blake never intended to celebrate physics, but for the most part, the passage still works for him.

Michael: Holding infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour ? frankly ? I don?t believe in infinity. It?s a beautiful concept though.

Narration: A Whitman scholar would tell you that Walt Whitman actually loved new technology and feats of engineering ? so, it wouldn?t be too difficult to imagine Walt hanging-out with Michael; listening to Janis Joplin; and trying to match Michael?s mind-blowing experience with Maxwell?s equations.

Michael: If I had Walt Whitman here, I would turn him around - no question about it ? he would rewrite his poem at the end of the day.

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