Untriseptium is a hypothetical chemical element with the atomic number 137. It is nicknamed Feynmanium in honor of Richard Feynman who noted that, in elements beyond 137, electrons would have to move faster than the speed of light, thus creating, within the atoms, the electromagnetic equivalent of black holes. Because of this, it was speculated… Continue reading Feynmanium: It’s Element-ary
Author: hyattcarter
A Holographic Universe
For Whitehead the universe is not a competitive arena for rugged individualists but a close-knit web of intimate social relationships, so close-knit, in fact, that every item in the universe is involved in the concrescence of each actual entity. In the initial phase of concrescence, an actual entity takes account of, or prehends, all other… Continue reading A Holographic Universe
Light’s Chiasmic Complementarity
Light is an electromagnetic wave formed by the dance of two complementary pairs: an electric field and a magnetic field. Because the fields oscillate at right angles to each other, and back and forth across the direction of wave propagation, light is a transverse wave. Transverse derives from the Latin word transversare, meaning “to turn… Continue reading Light’s Chiasmic Complementarity
A Dipolar Universe
Another feature that Whitehead found in his analysis of experience was its essential dipolarity. Imagine pausing for a moment to look at yourself in a mirror, and become aware of the double perspective—you see your body as others see you, but you are also aware of your own inner experience. Your body, from without, is… Continue reading A Dipolar Universe
No Thinker Thinks Twice
What is this invisible entity we call the human self, or soul? How does it endure over time? Is it always there, day and night, underlying all our activities? The process answer is No. As one of the emergent natural unities in the universe, the human self is no exception, but is quantum in nature.… Continue reading No Thinker Thinks Twice
A Panexperiential Universe
During the 300-year reign of science over which the analytical spirit of Sir Isaac Newton presided, the universe was viewed as a gigantic clockwork machine, ticking away in timeless perfection, a perfection created once and for all by God, who then stepped back, according to that view, to dispassionately contemplate his handiwork for all eternity.… Continue reading A Panexperiential Universe
Water: Speaking from the Depths
It’s intriguing to learn that Buckminster Fuller, one of the most inventive minds ever, had two of his major intuitions while gazing at water. One example: “In 1917 . . . Buckminster Fuller was watching the bubbles boiled up in the wake of a Navy ship, and concluding from those millions of changing spheres that… Continue reading Water: Speaking from the Depths
“Intuition” in One, Just for Fun
Whereas one concept of intuition is drawn along religious or metaphysical lines, positing that “Intuition is God in man, revealing to him the Realities of Being,” I would make my case by discussing intuition in a more rigorously philosophical manner, revealing—with syllogistic clarity admitting only an occasional lapse (aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus)—its theoretical underpinnings, eschewing… Continue reading “Intuition” in One, Just for Fun
The Body Electric
“I sing the body electric.” — Walt Whitman Whitehead derived his metaphysics, in part, from a keen observation and analysis of his own everyday experiences as a human subject. Much of the time we tend to ignore the body, or to take it for granted. But for Whitehead the human body is “the starting point… Continue reading The Body Electric
Countdown to Silence
Did you ever “go ballistic,” or “blow your top” with such steam that someone had to “scrape you off the ceiling”? Have you ever “festered” with resentment, “nursed” a grudge, or “come unglued” in LA gridlock? Do some people so rub you the wrong way that they make you “fly off the handle”? Did you… Continue reading Countdown to Silence