Like most children, I started early on asking my parents “why?”. And, like many others, I never outgrew the habit.
My dad likes to tell a story about how I came to him one day, having discovered the idea of determinism, and asked him what was the point of life, if there was no free will. I must have been in elementary school, and my dad was naturally concerned about his son, who seemed so desperately serious at a young age. But, being a physicist, he explained to me about quantum mechanics.
I remember some of the events myself — the dilemma and the feeling — but not my dad’s answer. But something must have stuck, because a couple of decades later, I followed in his footsteps and got my own Ph.D. in physics, expecting to be a college astronomy professor. When I finished, my mom, who as a new wife and mother had typed my dad’s doctoral thesis, joked that she had lived vicariously through two more doctorates in physics than anyone should have to survive.
As a father myself, I’m now reliving my early wonder at the world through my children’s eyes. But sometimes I like to go on at greater length or detail than my 8-year old son, my 4-year old daughter, or my science teacher wife have the patience for, so I’m going to try sharing those thoughts with the wider world.
Let me know what you think.
David
To be continued…
Nugget 