Infinitely Small
August 16, 2004
The Greek visionary Pythagorous led a devote society fixated on numbers and triangles. Rather tragically this faith was shattered by their own puzzling mathematical discoveries. Their shaken foundation of knowledge and beliefs caused many Pythagoreans to drown and hang themselves. Today we look up at the sky and we see lines drawn between stars and planets. We formulate these lines into recognizable patterns and even share stories about how they came to be. We are really trying to place a familiar mask on the face of a scary unknown: the universe.
Our sky ends when we can see nothing more and what we do see we break up into a comfortable Orion, the big dipper, and the north star --It's the brightest one! Don't you see it? Right here! The brightest one! If we drive far enough from city lights we might be able to view the milky way- a stripe densely populated with millions of stars seeming so tiny but in reality are twice if not a hundred times larger than earth. The large-ness and small-ness of our being or even our heliocentric solar system as compared to the universe can be so overwhelming it can capsize our senses. It is no wonder that the lives of so many geniuses who learn too much end so tragically.
My position here on earth, relative to our galaxy, is not even a pinprick in space. I am standing among bouncing bodies at a modest mouse concert. I watch as gravity, without fail, brings each pair of feet safely back to the earth's surface. Jamine has his attention focused toward the sky. He is counting two-three-four shooting stars. He tells us there is a meteor shower and he gently tilts my head back so I too can enjoy this natural light show. Ian is still in disbelief that someone can know about the meteor shower but not the Olympics. He spots a shooting star in the first minute of viewing and pulls his gaze back to human eye level. The light polluted sky of Chicago offers me nothing- I can barely make out more than seven constant stars let alone any intermittent cosmic activity.
The next day we are sailing on Lake Michigan. There are six bodies on a boat that functions best with four. Our weight pulls the boat so low into the water that we are sitting in our own little lakes. Each ripple of water on the lake splashes us like a tidal wave. We make this even more exiting with theatrical shouts, screams, and Ooooohhhhs! Looking eastward, Lake Michigan looks infinite. Like it could stretch forever and ever. I am suddenly infinitely small again. Or am I?
Do we have to think of everything in finite lengths with plotted points in between? I feel pressure to plot as many exciting adventurous points as I can between my finite beginning and eventual end. Although the thought of infinite literally spins my senses into dizziness, the reality of finite produces anxiety. I want to take comfort in the constancy of gravity and the knowledge that Lake Michigan only stretches a few miles with finite edges of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. If I don'tlook up at the sky and instead mask it with my own safe constellations maybe I won't worry about what I do and do not know. This is impossible, however. My bin of books is becoming more scientifically based and I want to know Einstein (although I respect Mileva more) and I want to understand what is beyond us. Perhaps to somewhat ease my anxiety of the finite but to perhaps see a bigger picture.