Inner and Outer Space

I'll be around another 40 years if my lifespan is as long as my father’s and eleven years if I match my mother's time on this earth.  It gets me thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life. My frustration is that time is too short to pursue all of my ideas for research projects and that I will never understand all the paradoxes that have been gnawing at me over the years.

Contrary to the common misconception that physics is cold and impersonal, I have found it to be the ideal tool for answering the deepest questions.  Some may yearn for the meaning of life, but an understanding of reality as physics delivers makes it clear that this is a nonsensical question.  It’s like asking if a table feels cold, and seeking an answer through surveys of opinions on the topic or engaging in philosophical debates about the possibility of a soul entering the table from its woodlands progenitor.  An understanding of what constitutes life makes irrational the notion that a hunk of wood has the capacity for feeling.  The fact that the complexities of life are not fully understood is irrelevant.  We know enough to eliminate the absurd.

I would like to spend my remaining days, months, years or decades gaining a deeper understanding of my trade, which gives me the tools to answer the grandest questions.  For starters, there are many things that I’ve learned that don’t sit well.  For example, physicists use sleight of hand to sweep away ignorance of details.  Statistical Mechanics is a field that is based on such broad strokes of chicanery.  However, it makes exquisitely accurate predictions that are consistent with reality, so must be an excellent approximation, but it can’t be totally correct.  My objection is that it glosses over the most interesting phenomena, such as quantum entanglement.

Why is entanglement so interesting? If the universe operates by the rules of quantum mechanics, and all indications are that it does, then we are all interconnected and always will be.  There is no escape from this bondage, even if trying to escape by hopping on a ship and taking it through a wormhole to the far reaches of the universe.  It is likely that the universe as a whole is in a state of entanglement and Statistical Mechanics governs how our conscious minds perceive it from within.  I so much would like to understand that fuzzy transition from the quantum realm to human perception.

I’ve been hampered by a dampening of enthusiasm, which drains the precious energy that is needed to single-mindedly attack difficult problems. Since my father’s passing just before Christmas in 2014, I’ve been in a general state of malaise that makes it difficult to concentrate and make progress.  In part, this melancholy is due to his absence, but much of it stems from the realization that the currents of time have caught up with me and I am now the patriarch – the last one of my line, as he was for so many years.  I hope that taking the torch from him does not oblige me to inherit the pessimism that took hold of him later in life.

These realizations have motivated me to take stock of my life, and to anticipate every possible regret in the making; should I have written that book, more intensely pursued an idea for a research project, spent less time writing proposals and more time actually thinking; or, concentrating more on family?  There is still time to correct shortcomings before hindsight’s souring influence.  Sadly, every time I say to myself “screw it,” intending to drop unproductive activities such as administrative burdens, a pang of guilt pushes me to write the next proposal – bringing me to an eternal seesawing between regret and guilt.


An antidote for my malaise has been a book-writing project with my wife that brings unbridled joy and fulfillment.  Like a course of antibiotics, writing must be regular to be a long-term cure.  A published book is not the goal; we rather enjoy the process.  We have outlined several milestones in our lives, some from our childhood, and others after we came together. Then we write about each from our own perspectives, going back in time to observe the threads of our intertwining lives from a fresh perspective.

After a nightly session, we return from our parallel universes to share our stories.  Pat reads each of our pieces in her dramatic story-telling style, arousing our memories of the past and kindling an appreciation of its connection to the present.  The earliest memories of family gives us a glimpse of the important figures in our lives and what they mean to us long after significant events have passed and loved ones are gone.  The holes that their absences have created are filled with their love and priorities, which we honor by carrying them forward in our own ways – then passing the baton to the next generation by example and through our writings.

One story line chronicles a serious illness that hospitalized each of us in early grade school, setting chronological markers that give insights about our character and the deep connection with family they forged when confronted with the frailty of our lives.  As we saunter to the more recent past, our timelines move together haphazardly. Our writings eventually merge, touching the same events from vastly differing perspectives that brings a poignancy to our memories that would otherwise have been forgotten.

First contact came on a muggy August day when my family shows up on Scott Lane in 1968 across the street from my future wife.  She is greatly disappointed that the new resident is a ten year old boy.  The cooties-infested neighborhood swarmed like locusts on our front lawn, the girls taking perches on our new mimosa tree to re-affirm their claim bestowed upon them by the previous owners.  Coming from Sun Hill, Chester’s tough working-class neighborhood, I thought Wallingford to be a wonderfully strange place where girls grow on trees.  The stories continue beyond that fateful day almost a decade later when we were re-introduced to each other on a commuter train; Pat, to study for a final exam at the Temple University library, and me to take data at my University of Pennsylvania lab.

My life will not be complete unless I use the tools of physics to pursue the universe’s mysteries while nurturing my inner self with shared writing.  The two are inexorably entwined; one will have no meaning without the other. Sadly, neither Pat nor I have written a single word together for many months because of time demands of work and Pat’s barrier to write.  It is especially sad to be deprived of Pat’s writing, which is concise yet rich; embeds subtle irony in the mundane, drops unexpected twists, and expresses her emotions indirectly though prose about her actions.  More important to me, I feel a sadness that memories that are struggling to be released will slip away before she will reveal them to me, a precious loss.

I am committed to strike a better balance in my life, placing our cherished passions first, then prioritizing the rest.  With a growing pile of obligations on my desk, I have taken the first step by writing this therapeutic piece to convince myself to get back on track and to reaffirm my support to Pat so that she will once again fight to overcome her writer’s block, which deprives us all.  Write on!

April 10, 2013

"You better come right away," said the voice over the phone.

My statistical mechanics class was meeting in an hour, so I was reviewing my notes. It took a moment for those words to come into focus as my mind crept out of those deep recesses where physics lives and thrives.

I knew that my father had been hospitalized for a couple days for a severe headache and nausea, but this was nothing new.  He occasionally would visit the ER for one thing or another, but it always ended up being benign; such as falling from a dizzy spell caused by dehydration (he never liked to drink water).  He seemed invincible.  Though he was just a couple months shy of his 97th birthday, he was still serving lunch to seniors at the Ukrainian Center, driving his own car, and being aware of the price of gas at every nearby station.

I never pictured it ending this way.

The rest of the morning is a blur.  Somehow, I called my wife and my two grown children to give them the news and booked plane tickets for the next morning.  We flew from three different airports, converged in Salt Lake City and were on the plane together to Philadelphia.

I decided to teach that morning. Physics always has a calming influence. It is difficult to explain to others who do not share in this passion how physics brings deep satisfaction and even comfort. The beauty of the narrative of nature as expressed by equations.  We are surrounded by order that can be quantified and explained, encompassing all in a grand embrace.  Puzzles today are like the excitement in the novelty of a new relationship. As one puzzle is solved another one takes its place, like a spouse that never ceases to amaze and delight. Always there; rock solid, and reliable with predictable unpredictability.

That one-hour class went by quickly.  Thoughts of my father persisted, but was calm and secure as a child shielded by her parents.

The previous weekend I had devoted a few hours to calculating the wave functions of a many-particle quantum system in terms of the single particle wave functions.  This calculation is not novel and appears in many textbooks; but, I never understand anything well unless I calculate it for myself.  I transcribed my notes into a LaTeX file (a scientific typesetting program) for my records.  Below is a screen capture of part of the document's first page.

I printed a handout for my group and preapred a Power Point version for a group meeting that was to be held at 3:00 pm that surreal day.

Lively discussions prolonged the one-hour talk to two hours -- my physics-induced euphoria amplified many-fold by their participation.  I still remember this group meeting fondly though a darkness hovered in the periphery.

I had lots to prepare.  Packing was the least of my worries.  The doctor had asked about my father's living will; a concept never taken seriously by my father. The responsibility of my power of attorney over his well-being weighed heavily on me.  I wanted to make the right decision.  I needed to get into his head.

Though my father has a grumpy demeanor, I know that he enjoys life -- complaining, one of his pleasures. Just a week before his stroke, a retired social worker at the Ukrainian Center witnessed one of his dizzy spells and confiscated his car keys.  He called me every day to complain and asked over and over how he would get around without his car.  Having mobility is still very important to him.  So, having the hope of returning to at least a semi-independent lifestyle was important.  During that trip back east, I played over and over again the conversation I would have with his doctors.

When we arrived in his hospital room, he was a gray bag of jelly; not just tiny psychically but drained of life.  He had always been energetic, detesting inertia, wielding strength.  Here was a meek and helpless being, attached to beeping machines and tubes.  In that first minute, tears flowed like huge rivers from the eyes of my wife, daughter, and even my son, who rarely shows emotion.  I don't recall my son ever shedding a tear, even as a child.  I held it in.  I had to be strong and keep a clear head for my discussions with the doctors.

My daughter stared up at me through her tears, disapprovingly, "why aren't you shedding even one tear?" She is so much like my mother, who passed away 23 years ago, seeing me through those same eyes.  My mother would have said the same thing.

The nurses kept on shaking my father, trying to bring back consciousness, but unsuccessfully.  The prognoses for someone his age with a stroke is not great, they told me, but we should still try to stimulate him.

He always loved music, so we played a medley on our phones.

He perked up.  His eyes were closed but you could tell from the tension in his brow that he was listening.  Someone was in there.

I sang my rendition of the Ukrainian National Anthem.  I could see him paying attention.  His head tilted slightly and he opened his eyes, which stared blankly without focus.  He was clearly listening. I continued to sing with greater vigor.

When I reached the end of the Anthem, his head fell gently back to the pillow, turning his head to me, his eyes still de-focused and glazed over.  He inhaled heavily, crumpled his face as if smelling a putrid odor, and said firmly, "You STILL don't know the lyrics,"  making clear his disdain for my imperfection.  I was giggling.

He was always angry with me for not embracing his love for everything Ukrainian, and this was always a sore topic that I tried to avoid.  Now, his wrath was welcome.  He was back.  Over the next three days, he continued to improve and was almost his old self, but with the need for physical therapy to build his muscles after two weeks of being in bed.

I visited him again when he was moved from the hospital to a nursing home for rehab.  He hated the place, with the loud synthesizer music alarm blaring each time he tried to stand up.  It is understandable that the precaution is necessary for his own protection when one-on-one attention is not possible.  Nevertheless, he felt like a prisoner and resented being restricted to his room most of the day and forbidden to walk.

The first day I visited him in rehab, he seemed much better than at the hospital.  At times he was tired and slept, at other times, he talked about all sorts of things, fully aware of the fact that he had had a stroke.  Below is a photo of my father in the back garden of the nursing home.

I found the nursing home depressing -- lucid individuals with fragile bodies waiting to expire, surrounded by others with a variety of aliments including not-so-old residents with advanced dementia, staring blankly into space, others screaming in terror for no apparent reason.  The nurses, doctors, and medical professionals are very good.  The head nurse spent lots of time with me reviewing the details about my father's condition and what to expect.  It was the atmosphere that made me desperately want to extract my father from that horrible place, but he needed therapy to regain some weight and physical strength. A few weeks ago, he was finally out.  I even saw him walking with a cane on Skype!

I'm heading back to Philadelphia to bring my father to Pullman for my daughter's wedding.  She was deeply traumatized by his illness and the frailty that had conquered his invincibility.  She knew that her marriage was very meaningful to him as it is to her, so she and her fiance accelerated their wedding plans so that he could be included while still lucid and gaining enough vigor to travel.

To our delight, my father is looking forward to the wedding and talks about it every time I call him.  Now we are agonizing about whether we should keep him in Pullman or return him to Philly after the wedding.

It's difficult to decide what is best for him.  He still has a life with his friends.  He goes to the Ukrainian center twice a week for the senior lunch, where he chats with his friends.  On Sundays, he goes to a Ukrainian church.  In Pullman he has us, but we are pessimistic about being able to keep him at our home.  We have lots of stairs and have to be at work during the day to teach.  There are no Ukrainian speaking people we could hire to sit with him when we are away, and he is so stubborn, refusing to speak English, which he spoke his whole working life. 

In Pullman, he has us, and we could have him over for dinner every day and take him out on weekends.  And, we are his family.  In Philadelphia, he has a Ukrainian couple watch him while his caretaker is at work and is somewhat of a celebrity with his friends.  He can talk about the good old days and be assured of a choir of amens.  We, on the other hand, need to work evenings so don't have the luxury of lounging around in idle chatter.

My immediate concern is my ability to care for him during his stay in Pullman.  He has several medical conditions that a non-medical person such as I view with great trepidation.  Then there are the logistics.  What if he gets fatigued at the time of the wedding and we can't wake him to the ceremony?  What if he gets sick on the plane?

By writing now, I am procrastinating.  The wedding is in a week and I am at Salt Lake City waiting for my flight to Philly. My final report is due on a grant and 3 dissertations await my reading, all due in a week! But, with all the stress, writing about it seems to release some pressure.

As usual, the occasional calculation with pen and pencil takes me to my own cozy corner, like chatting with an old friend at a fireplace sipping on a hot beverage.  And reading theses, while time consuming, can also be rewarding, especially when I can see how far the students have come and all the fine work that was generated by our collective minds.  The excitement of the work, the upcoming wedding, and my father's visit all are events to celebrate.  The happiness is peppered with concerns about how my decisions will affect my father's long-term well-being.  And more immediately, will I be able to handle the challenges before me over the next week.

I am about to board, and plan to spend the 4+ hours on the plane working.

 Gotta catch my plane...

Another semester and another new class - general relativity and thermodynamics

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, I took a class in general relativity (GR). It was taught by the eccentric Professor Jeffrey Cohen, not to be confused with the equally eccentric Professor Michael Cohen.

Michael Cohen had instilled in me a deep appreciation for truly understanding physics. Just as Michael Cohen felt that he would never attain the depth of understanding commanded by his adviser, THE Richard Feynman , I too feel that I will never approach the physical intuition of Michael Cohen. It is fortunate that the singularities that we call great physicists are born with abilities far superior to their contemporaries.

After more than three decades have passed, I recall little from my undergraduate flirtation with GR. However, some of the mathematical formalism of differential forms has taunted me for much of my career. I recall Jeffrey Cohen mentioning a paper on the topic of the properties of a black hole in some complex geometry that took forty pages of derivations in an article that appeared in The Physical Review. Using the trickery of differential forms, he was able to solve the problem in just a few steps.

The trick was to formulate the problem in a coordinate independent way, then to project the results into the coordinate system that reflected the symmetry of the problem. In contrast, the Physical Review paper used the inelegant brute-force approach of picking the coordinate system up front, and then by necessity painstakingly plodding through all the messy mathematics.

Given the complexity of the problems that we work on as a matter of daily routine in our research, I am always looking for simplifying tools. In teaching various classes, my intention is to sneak in a little bit of differential forms to wet the appetites of my acolytes and to teach my old brain some new tricks. Furthermore, the geometric interpretation of the mathematics adds a deeper layer of understanding.

In the upcoming spring semester, I am teaching graduate statistical mechanics for my first time. As usual, preparing for a new course if filled with grand excitement. You can imagine my elation when I realized that a homework assignment in the textbook could be done with ease using differential geometry. Since then, it has been difficult for me to think about anything else.

The problem is a simple one that normally requires a bit of math. The student is to show that the 6N-dimensional volume element in phase space for an N-particle system is invariant under a canonical transformation. To put this into simple English, the problem seeks to show that a transformation of coordinates does not change the nature of the results. Be reformulating the problem so that the volume element is represented as a wedge product of what are called one-forms, the volume element is shown to be the same when the so-called Poisson bracket yields unity -- the requirement of a canonical transformation. Thus, the problem is solved without the need for messy mathematics.

This realization makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. Ironically, tonight is Christmas Eve, the focal point of my family's celebration. My father has made what may be his last trip to Pullman from Philadelphia. He is 94 and still lives on his own, drives a car, and prepares meals for senior citizens at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Fox Chase, Pennsylvania. Though still vigorous, his body betrays the telltale signs of wear and tear due to old age. Both of my children are home for the holidays, and all the fragrance from the traditional Ukrainian foods simmering on the stove and in the oven permeate the house. As I write this post, my wife is busily making last-minute preparations.

It is fortunate for me that my family values my passion for physics, and allows me to occasionally be a recluse. Just a few minutes ago, my wife called out a query about my whereabouts. I simply answered, "I am excited about something." Though she undoubtedly had some mundane duty for me to perform, she immediately signaled her understanding of my state of mind, and left me alone. I am truly fortunate to be living with someone who shares in my passions.

The intensity and meaningfulness of spirituality that I derive from physics far exceeds all others, including the times in my distant past when I had embraced religion. As my family turns in for the night, I continue to sit at my desk, full of excitement in my new-found understanding, and looking forward to sharing this understanding with my family and my students. It is a truly privileged life that allows me to rekindles the child-like wonder of Christmas on a daily basis.