The nice thing about jet lag after a long trip westward (say, from Austria to the U.S.) is that you wake up early enough to enjoy the morning, something I tend not normally to do. Which is why it’s too bad I am not still in my beloved Chicago enjoying a cup of coffee while watching the sun rise over Lake Michigan, but instead sitting in a hotel room in Riverside, California, site (Riverside, not my hotel room) of the annual meeting of the Division of Particles and Fields<\/a> of the American Physical Society. Tuesday afternoon I’ll be giving a review talk on “Theoretical Cosmology,” which sounds a bit too comprehensive to be coherent, but we’ll give it a go. Since it’s the last talk of the conference, likely nobody will be in the audience; if I remember I’ll post a link to the slides (once, you know, they’ve been written).<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I’ll share this. Poet Richard O’Connell was kind enough to email me a copy of this poem he wrote in 1976:<\/p>\n
To Beta, Cosmically Considered<\/p>\n
If relic radiation bathes the spheres
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Isotropically, as water is to fish,
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To an observer here or on Andromeda,
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Time has an arrow sharp as Cupid’s kiss.<\/p>\nIf all is that primeval fireball
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Exploding yet beyond the verge of sight,
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We’re genesis and apocalypse ourselves
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Galactic cousins, catastrophic flesh.<\/p>\nLet us junk tyrannical cyclopean clocks
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Geared to the wormwork of industrious forebears
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Who added pittance by the pendulum
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Only to leave their wealth to wastrel heirs.<\/p>\nLet us accept that arrow in our hearts
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Transfixing us, targets of joy and tears;
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The stars may see how in our spendthrift love
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We keep a better time by keeping theirs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nMaybe I can figure out some way to work it into the talk.<\/p>\n