This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated "building blocks," but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object's interaction with the observer.
A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole.
Experiment | Meaning | Nature | Observation | Oneness | World |
A network of love crisscrosses the globe. The delicate shining lines form a tenuous web from one end of the world to the other. There are so many threads of love in the world, so much love going on, for and from so many people. To have partaken of and to have given love is the greatest of life's rewards. There seems never an end to the loving that goes on forever and ever. Loving and leaving are a part of living.
Henry Beston, born Henry Beston Sheahan
Wolves are not our brothers; they are not our subordinates, either. They are another nation, caught up just like us in the complex web of time and life
Time |
This web of time — the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries — embrace every possibility.
Time |
The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us. Religion has traditionally been the domain of such fundamental inquiries within a spiritual framework, but mindfulness has little to do with religion, except in the most fundamental meaning of the word, as an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists.
Awareness | Habit | Life | Life | Little | Meaning | Means | Mind | Mindfulness | Mystery | Present | Religion | Understanding | World | Awareness |
We need to bridge our sense of loneliness and disconnection with a sense of community and continuity even if we must manufacture it from our time on the Web and our use of calling cards to connect long distance. We must “log on” somewhere, and if it is only in cyberspace, that is still far better than nowhere at all.
Better | Loneliness | Need | Sense | Time |
Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
Beneath the current of our existence and within it, there is another current flowing in the opposite direction. In this life we go from yesterday to tomorrow, but there we go from tomorrow to yesterday. The web of life is being woven and unraveled at the same time. And from time to time we get breaths and vapors and even mysterious murmurs from that other world, from that interior of our own world. The inner heart of history is a counter-history; it is a process which inverts the course of history. The subterranean river flows from the sea and back to its source.
Existence | Heart | History | Life | Life | Time | Tomorrow |
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wondered if this was why we tried so hard to make our mark in America. To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to get famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It’s as if we are screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten.
Important | Murder | People | Public | Time | Murder | Think |
Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
The paradigms were shifting. He could feel it. The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future, was being confronted by something else—a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs. People believe, thought Shadow. It’s what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.
People | Responsibility | Thought | Trust | Will | World | Old | Thought |
Today's electronic village has certainly complicated the challenge of parenting. When It Takes a Village was published, the Internet was largely the province of scientists; no one owned an iPod; and cell phones weighed as much as bricks. Innovations are now coming at an exponentially faster pace, and media saturates our kids' lives as never before. Many of these changes are for the good: when I was in college, a phone call home was rare and a flight home, a once-a-year luxury. Now I know parents who see and speak to their kids every day by computer and video hookups, and I think how much Bill would have loved that when he was campaigning. But knowing that one third of kids under six have TVs in their rooms, that the fashion industry is marketing its latest styles to preteen girls, and that predators stalk our children through the World Wide Web makes me thankful to have raised Chelsea in a less media-saturated time.
Challenge | Children | Computer | Day | Industry | Internet | Knowing | Parents | World | Think |
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
They want to see you in front of them, shake hands or bow. Whereas domestically, you can get by using the Web or the phone for sales.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
LOVE'S SERVILE LOT - LOVE, mistress is of many minds, Yet few know whom they serve ; They reckon least how little Love Their service doth deserve. The will she robbeth from the wit, The sense from reason's lore ; She is delightful in the rind, Corrupted in the core. She shroudeth vice in virtue's veil, Pretending good in ill ; She offereth joy, affordeth grief, A kiss where she doth kill. A honey-shower rains from her lips, Sweet lights shine in her face ; She hath the blush of virgin mind, The mind of viper's race. She makes thee seek, yet fear to find To find, but not enjoy : In many frowns some gliding smiles She yields to more annoy. She woos thee to come near her fire, Yet doth she draw it from thee ; Far off she makes thy heart to fry, And yet to freeze within thee. She letteth fall some luring baits For fools to gather up ; Too sweet, too sour, to every taste She tempereth her cup. Soft souls she binds in tender twist, Small flies in spinner's web ; She sets afloat some luring streams, But makes them soon to ebb. Her watery eyes have burning force ; Her floods and flames conspire : Tears kindle sparks, sobs fuel are, And sighs do blow her fire. May never was the month of love, For May is full of flowers ; But rather April, wet by kind, For love is full of showers. Like tyrant, cruel wounds she gives, Like surgeon, salve she lends ; But salve and sore have equal force, For death is both their ends. With soothing words enthralled souls She chains in servile bands ; Her eye in silence hath a speech Which eye best understands. Her little sweet hath many sours, Short hap immortal harms ; Her loving looks are murd'ring darts, Her song bewitching charms. Like winter rose and summer ice, Her joys are still untimely ; Before her Hope, behind Remorse : Fair first, in fine unseemly. Moods, passions, fancy's jealous fits Attend upon her train : She yieldeth rest without repose, And heaven in hellish pain. Her house is Sloth, her door Deceit, And slippery Hope her stairs ; Unbashful Boldness bids her guests, And every vice repairs. Her diet is of such delights As please till they be past ; But then the poison kills the heart That did entice the taste. Her sleep in sin doth end in wrath, Remorse rings her awake ; Death calls her up, Shame drives her out, Despairs her upshot make. Plough not the seas, sow not the sands, Leave off your idle pain ; Seek other mistress for your minds, Love's service is in vain.
Blush | Boldness | Death | Diet | Fear | Force | Good | Heart | Heaven | Hope | Little | Looks | Love | Mind | Pain | Past | Remorse | Rest | Sense | Service | Shame | Silence | Sin | Will | Words | Vice |
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
It's good the great green earth to roam, Where sights of awe the soul inspire; But oh, it's best, the coming home, The crackle of one's own hearth-fire! You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past; You've seen the pageantry of kings; Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last The peace and rest of Little Things! Perhaps you're counted with the Great; You strain and strive with mighty men; Your hand is on the helm of State; Colossus-like you stride . . . and then There comes a pause, a shining hour, A dog that leaps, a hand that clings: O Titan, turn from pomp and power; Give all your heart to Little Things. Go couch you childwise in the grass, Believing it's some jungle strange, Where mighty monsters peer and pass, Where beetles roam and spiders range. 'Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade, What dragons rasp their painted wings! O magic world of shine and shade! O beauty land of Little Things! I sometimes wonder, after all, Amid this tangled web of fate, If what is great may not be small, And what is small may not be great. So wondering I go my way, Yet in my heart contentment sings . . . O may I ever see, I pray, God's grace and love in Little Things. So give to me, I only beg, A little roof to call my own, A little cider in the keg, A little meat upon the bone; A little garden by the sea, A little boat that dips and swings . . . Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me, O Lord of Life, just Little Things.
Awe | Beauty | Contentment | Earth | Gloom | Good | Grace | Heart | Land | Little | Lord | Love | Magic | Peace | Rest | Soul | World | Beauty |
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
He lifted the lantern with trembling hand so that the light danced around us. Miss Morstan my wrist, my heart pounding. He would go out into the night from the big dark house of the most painful and melancholy sounds: the sob of a woman frightened
Now, I realize that thinking in four dimensions is not easy, and that wormholes are a tricky concept to wrap your head around, but hang in there. I've thought up a simple experiment that could reveal if human time travel through a wormhole is possible now, or even in the future. I like simple experiments, and champagne. So I've combined two of my favourite things to see if time travel from the future to the past is possible. Let's imagine I'm throwing a party, a welcome reception for future time travellers. But there's a twist. I'm not letting anyone know about it until after the party has happened. I've drawn up an invitation giving the exact coordinates in time and space. I am hoping copies of it, in one form or another, will be around for many thousands of years. Maybe one day someone living in the future will find the information on the invitation and use a wormhole time machine to come back to my party, proving that time travel will, one day, be possible. In the meantime, my time traveller guests should be arriving any moment now. Five, four, three, two, one. But as I say this, no one has arrived. What a shame. I was hoping at least a future Miss Universe was going to step through the door. So why didn't the experiment work? One of the reasons might be because of a well-known problem with time travel to the past, the problem of what we call paradoxes. Paradoxes are fun to think about. The most famous one is usually called the Grandfather paradox. I have a new, simpler version I call the Mad Scientist paradox. I don't like the way scientists in movies are often described as mad, but in this case, it's true. This chap is determined to create a paradox, even if it costs him his life. Imagine, somehow, he's built a wormhole, a time tunnel that stretches just one minute into the past. Through the wormhole, the scientist can see himself as he was one minute ago. But what if our scientist uses the wormhole to shoot his earlier self? He's now dead. So who fired the shot? It's a paradox. It just doesn't make sense. It's the sort of situation that gives cosmologists nightmares. This kind of time machine would violate a fundamental rule that governs the entire universe - that causes happen before effects, and never the other way around. I believe things can't make themselves impossible. If they could then there'd be nothing to stop the whole universe from descending into chaos. So I think something will always happen that prevents the paradox. Somehow there must be a reason why our scientist will never find himself in a situation where he could shoot himself. And in this case, I'm sorry to say, the wormhole itself is the problem. In the end, I think a wormhole like this one can't exist. And the reason for that is feedback. If you've ever been to a rock gig, you'll probably recognise this screeching noise. It's feedback. What causes it is simple. Sound enters the microphone. It's transmitted along the wires, made louder by the amplifier, and comes out at the speakers. But if too much of the sound from the speakers goes back into the mic it goes around and around in a loop getting louder each time. If no one stops it, feedback can destroy the sound system.
Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce, And dost not know the garment from the man; Every harlot was a virgin once, Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan. Tho’ thou art worship’d by the names divine Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still The Son of Morn in weary Night’s decline, The lost traveller’s dream under the hill.
Darkness | Death | Doubt | Dreams | Eternal | Evil | Father | Good | Haste | Ignorance | Man | Shame | Virtue | Virtue |