Monday, April 7, 2014

Theoretical physicists are coming up with some very startling mathematical suggestions this century. Their math might be pointing to the existence of multiple universes running concurrently with ours, in which the principles we hold dear, the law of gravity, for instance, may not apply. So science seems to be teetering on the brink of suggesting science can't prove anything--ever. To quote Alan Lightman, "We are living in a universe uncalculable by science." Is that a startling idea?

I brought this up with my son and he had already heard about some of these new theories. A friend of his explained some scientists think there may be as many as 21 dimensions in parts of the multiverse. For a quick recap, we are living in a 3 dimensional universe, as far as we know.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, right, exactly....no, not the Science, I had no idea about that, and, well, I kind of think Science is overrated....the process: "I brought this up to my son and he already knew..." That is the amazing part! When, when, when will I trust the children? (I suppose it starts with me.)

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  2. Well, the funny thing is, I started this post as a long wordy thing about what it is unschooling parents do. In the end, I deleted all but the science anecdote. One of the things we U.Ps. do is walk around feeling constantly surprised at what our kids learn. Another thing we do is cope with the non-quantifiable nature of unschooling. Which I was going to correlate with our apparently non-quantifiable universe. But the essay was really about was making yourself ready to meet your unschooling kids at the point of their interests with something worthwhile to say---basically blind luck but wrapped in lots of effort.

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