The Man Who Found Quarks and Made Sense of the Universe

It was at Caltech that Gell-Mann helped to lay the foundations for our understanding of the components that make up matter. He drafted a blueprint of subatomic physics that he called the Eightfold Way. At the time, physicists understood that atoms are constructed from protons and neutrons, but they had also found many other mysterious particles. The Eightfold Way made sense of this baffling menagerie, finding within it places for particles never even imagined. The work was so important that it netted Gell-Mann a Nobel Prize in 1969. In 1984 Gell-Mann pursued his dream of working in other fields by cofounding the Santa Fe Institute, a think tank where scientists are encouraged to cross disciplines.

There is probably no limit as to how far down ‘particle physics’ could be chased. The current crop of sub-atomic particles is only the beginning of that study.

Truth is, in the end there are no particles, only particle physics theory.

My theory is that ultimately the only reality is he who has no name, god, the creator. All else is but his dream projected onto the screen of eternity and we are players in the dream.

I dont know if this will work for you or anyone else, but the best analogy I can make is an experience I had as a teenager on a beach of the northern great lakes.

As I was laying there with my head on the sand looking out into the lake and the sky I started counting the grains of sand in front of my eye and imagined them as a star. The exercise quickly became mind boggling as I accounted for the density of the sand and its depth. But it did not stop there as I tried to imagine that there were more stars than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.

And then the concept expanded even more. Each ‘star’ became a galaxy, and then each galaxy became a universe, with each universe having its own infinity in physical space and a beginning/end in time.

The concepts are inconceivable. He who has no name is beyond existence and yet upholds all creation in his consciousness and is present in all aspects of it.

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