One of the main characters in Tangled Roots is a man with the nondescript name of John. John is forty years old, single, and a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology in a leading American university. He relates to numbers the way we writers relate to words. They express his thoughts and emotions and explain his world. When he talks about his life, his narrative is peppered with metaphors that come out of a world view formed by years of experimentation and theorizing. In other words, he lives in his head. Trying to sleep after a drunken night out he says
The room’s spin slowed down to a gentle flow. Flow — now there was something I understood. I pictured the diagram about p-branes on page 137 of my latest book. Like ruffled sheets of copper, branes of p-dimensions were flowing in waves through the flatness of spacetime. Watching them, I eventually fell asleep, as they drifted everywhere, nowhere, endlessly and back again.
John’s trajectory in the novel leads him from the realization that it takes more than just a brain to make a man, and to the discovery and integration of those other parts of him that he had been avoiding for years.
So, the obvious questions, which I have already been asked, are — am I a scientist? Do I have a background in physics? And the answer of course is no, absolutely not. I chose physics because it seemed to me the closest that scientific enquiry gets to spirituality (although most physicists would hate to have me say that) and spirituality is another important theme of the book. But I, personally, knew nothing about it, and understood even less. So I started to read every “popularized” book on cosmology that I could find. Then I read it again. Then I wrote things down (thankfully, John was enough of a teacher to insist that a glossary be included in the back of the book). And every time I thought I understood something, I found that 5 minutes later it was gone. It was like living in the midst of that old Abbott and Costello routine : “I got it. I got it. I don’t got it.” But what fun! And through my research I became aware of the work of some remarkable scientists. Stephen Hawking, of course. But also Brian Greene, Lee Smolin, and especially, Joao Maguejo, a Professor at Imperial College who was kind enough to let me take him out to dinner and ask him a million questions.
Physicists, I found, are a different sort of people. They can see things that people like me can not see. They can understand things they don’t have words for. They amaze me, and one of the greatest pleasures for me of writing Tangled Roots was to dive into a brain like that and create a character whose vision is so much different from my own.
Of all such scientists, one of the wildest who ever lived was Professor Richard Feynman, a cowboy in his work and his life. If you don’t know about him, I urge you to discover him. Here’s a glimpse into his mind:
And here, a glimpse into his heart:
So, I can never know that I’m right just know that I’ve not been proven wrong yet…..OMG that makes my head hurt….and having listened to the second clip I now have a desire for an Orange Juice (Ahhh the power of suggestion!!)
Very interesting post Sue – My cousin (the brother of the one who studied in Russia) is a Physicist….I’m going to tell him to come look at your post!!
C x
Carol – thanks! I hope your cousin likes the post and the clips. Aren’t they wonderful? You know, writing this post reminded me of how much I loved reading all that stuff. I know — I’m weird.
Sue, I am so jealous that you met Joao Maguejo. I read his book and it really blew me away. I studied physics at university but could never actually do it, so I leave that to the real scientists. But physics is so fascinating, it is really at the heart of everything, can’t wait to read more about John. Richard Feynman, along with Einstein, is one of those people I wish I had met when he was alive. His books are so inspiring, funny, world-expanding. Glad you like reading all this stuff too – there are a few of us wierdos around. 🙂
That sounds fascinating. I recently read a book that had very complex mathematics as one of its themes, and I found it really added an interesting extra layer to the narrative.
I want some drums like that now…and some orange juice. Science was always a tricky subject for my simple mind! 🙂
Tania – Joao is actually too cool and beautiful to be believed. i’m afraid he now thinks I’m a stalker, but hopefully he’ll come to the launch so I can give him his copy of the book!
Helen – one of the great things about writing for me is that I can pretend to be people I’m not, and pretend to be GOOD at things I haven’t a clue about!
Jon – Glad you liked the bongos! I love them and loved that clip so much that I spent an hour figuring out how to get it to show on the blog. But it was worth it!