That matter and energy are interchangeable and dependent upon one another has been obvious and common knowledge for many thousand years. That they are the same thing — that they are built of the same things — is also an ancient idea; but, over the past several centuries, this concept has fallen from popular acceptance. It has degenerated into what has come to be called superstition — into what has come to be called religion. And then, within this century, we have seen it borning again; we have attempted to prove it mathematically; we have called the effort physics.

The ancient man — primitive man, so called, as he even now still exists — separated no things. The trees, the wind, the rabbit, the stars, lightning, fire, himself — and most importantly, his intuition, emotion and very act of thinking — are all part of the same system.

Each year, the Hopi expect rain. Their economy is largely based on crop agriculture in a place which is basically desert. The Hopi have lived there for centuries.

In its simpler forms, mathematics merely objectifies the obvious. But on the edge to which it has now been taken, it attempts to prove that which would otherwise be unprovable. By mathematical equation, the distant heavens as well as the subvisual minute would be explained.

Since the turn of the century, men with blackboards have assumed to provide universal rules for that which man cannot, by his ordinary senses, approach. With blackboard and intuition (which sometimes appears to border on mystical) physicists have attempted an understanding of the basic construction of the complete.

Mathematical contradictions, however, have abounded. Einstein, the great artist of mathematics and intuition, is said to have spent 30 years trying to understand why celestial and sub-atomic physics did not appear to follow the same rules. By equation, they should; by observation, they do not. An obvious answer lay in the existence of particles still smaller, still more basic, than the neutrons and protons of atomic structure. These particles might behave in some rational way — some way the blackboard might prove — but by vast difference in sizes of their ultimate constructions, might appear to behave differently.

So quarks and neutrinos came to exist. Neutrinos are particles of energy (for want of a better description) which may or may not have been seen — their passage seems to have been noted. Quarks have probably never been seen, though a few have claimed actual sub-atomic sightings. Neutrinos are said to be particles released by atomic action; quarks are said to be building blocks of atomic particles. In truth, both are really proven only on mathematical blackboards. It hardly matters. “Every thing possible to be believ’d,” William Blake wrote, “is an image of the truth.”

Man has always assumed to understand. He has always formulated answers; he has always conceived an orderly cosmos. Probably the cosmos is orderly.

But Copernicus’ order was over-ruled by Newton; Newton was ultimately over-ruled by Einstein. William Blake understood best of all. Newton, he said, slept the sleep of reason.

Reason is, of course, relative. Newton in his time and place was quite reasonable. The Hopis are quite reasonable to expect rain. If spirits of animals and even of inanimate objects are reasonable to those whose lives are bound by such — if Yahweh and Jesus are reasonable to an ancient desert culture whose lives seemed bound by desperate conditions beyond their control — then in an age defined by science and technology, are not quarks and neutrinos reasonable?

A scientist now at the Los Alamos scientific laboratory has suggested quarks might explain certain phenomenon. Quarks cannot be seen, it seems, because they are bound together too closely by some sort of attraction that neither gravity nor magnetism might explain. Quarks have a mysterious and extremely powerful attraction for one another. They are connected. If they are so radically connected with one another inside sub-atomic structure, then why could they not be connected across universal distance. If your quarks are bound by cosmic glue to the quarks of stars, then control your quarks and

MOVE
THE
STARS.

Pray for rain and head for shelter.

Bend a key with your mind. Part the Red Sea. Raise the dead.

But have you ever seen a quark? Are you ready to surrender your sensory understanding to the educated guesses of men with blackboards? Maybe the earth rests on the back of a turtle. You haven’t seen that turtle, but you haven’t seen a quark either.

We have no way to approach anything — including the absolute — except through our senses. Our senses are demonstrably imperfect. We cannot see the distant universe; we cannot see atomic or sub-atomic structure. We depend on the men with blackboards to show us quarks; we depend on men with backward collars to show us some equivalent of quarks. But suppose that neither show us anything. Suppose, instead, that understanding is the ultimate democracy — that when a majority voted for the existence of God and God’s order, then God and God’s order existed. Man’s ultimate sense has never been sight or hearing or any of those five — it has been belief.

“When you are headed for the border, Lord,” a poet who much admired William Blake said, “you are bound across the line.”

Most modern men have a more serious belief that their car will start than that a petitioned God will send rain. Most modern men know, at least in principle, how their car starts. The mechanical is obvious and workable. God is a non-rational, ancient mystery.

Suppose . . . that understanding is the ultimate democracy — that when a majority voted for the existence of God and God’s order, then God and God’s order existed.

If quarks can be accepted as basic units in a mechanistic physical system, then are not quarks something like the bits of moving metal that make up a car engine?

It is reasonable now to assume a new sort of quasi-religion will be built of physics. God used to move stars; now quarks might.

But the man who would truly move stars petitions neither quarks nor God. Because, there is

a
dark, windy place . . .
always windy, always full of movement . . .
that exists
within and without
the
human interior.
There is . . .
within and without
the interior of
any person
who would
move
the
stars . . .
such a place
and
in that place
are
quarks and gods
born

and
in that place
are
the stars
moved.

© 1980 Roxy Gordon

 

This piece originally appeared in Artmagic, written and published by Roxy Gordon, who has kindly given us permission to reprint it. For subscription information write Roxy Gordon, 6200 Palo Pinto, Dallas, Texas 75214.

— Ed.