There’s No Going Back To Kansas Anymore

Scientists Are Playing Catch-Up With The Universe

June 5, `80

Don , a young idealist college student from a preppy East coast school had a quick wit. We disagreed a lot, but that made conversation even better. Sandwiched between Don, Lisa and Jade, I found myself in conversation heaven. Yesterday evening, in fact, was particularly good because we ended up talking on a subject that I found extremely interesting. Lisa turned in early, leaving us boys with the twelve pack of beer that Jade had brought back to camp after Lisa and Jade had returned from hiking some of the park trails. When Jade said he had just finished reading the book The Tao Of Physics by Fritjof Capra, my attention peaked since I had read the book too, but a long time ago. According to Jade, Capra was inspired to write the book while watching waves roll in after sitting on an ocean beach one sunny afternoon. Being a physicist, he already knew
about the `cosmic dance of energy,' and skilled in meditation and a seeker after mystical truth, he also knew that there was more to the story than just `dancing energy.' That's when he decided to write his book.

Discussion: The Tao Of Physics

"That's neat," I said, adding that I had also read the book. "In
fact, wouldn't it be nice if that stuff could be taught in the
classroom right along side of physics?"

"Not going to happen," came the reply, "not in our lifetime, anyway."

"I read somewhere, I said, "that it takes fifty years or more for
society to catch up to revolutionary concepts in science."

"That's probably right," said Jade, “but in this case it might even
take scientists that long to catch up."

"What are you guys talking about," said Don, "Catch up to what? How
can a scientist catch up to science?"

"Catch up to the universe," I said. "Science--the scientist-- has to
catch up to what's happening in the universe. There's no going back to
Kansas anymore. That's what Capra was telling us in his book. We just
don't live in a world divided up into the squeaky clean categories of
mass and energy anymore, not to mention cause and effect."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Don. "It sounds like you guys, Capra
included, have been smoking to much of that ropy stuff for too long."


"Not really," Jade replied, "Capra is a well respected physicist who
just happens to be on the cutting edge of new age thinking. He really
knows what he's talking about."

Jade's right," I said, "The new physics has turned waves into
particles and particles into waves. Hell, we don't even know for sure
if the world exists separate from the way we look at it anymore.
According to Capra, at the quantum level, the universe looks and
behaves differently from the way we typically perceive it. At that
level, we loose track of independently existing things. Physical
phenomena appears, on the quantum level, to show signs of being
interconnected, which means that we are interconnected with everything
else, which means that the sages of the East were right all along.
Ultimately, we are all part of some mystical `oneness,' but we just
don't know it. In reality, we're just one big happy family."

"Quantum physics says all that," replied Don, "I don't mean to be a
party pooper fellows, but didn't anybody ever tell you that splitting
up the "small stuff" resulted in the `now you see `em, now you don't'
cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I mean the family that bombs
together doesn't necessarily stay together, let alone live in bliss!"

"Well, yeah," Jade replied, "I guess it doesn't hurt to keep a
perspective on things. I think what is being said here is that the
world that gave us a better bomb, on a fundamental level, just doesn't
exist anymore. It exists locally, yeah, but even so, we still can't go
back to Kansas. Everything has changed."