The Force and Cookies
"In the old time” is how the story starts. The indigenous people of North America of the Algonquin tribe have a tale of three brothers who went hunting in early winter. They set out, found the trail of a bear and made chase. When you look to the north, there are circumpolar constellations visible at all times of the year. The simplest and most familiar to most of us is the Big Dipper. The three stars of the handle are the brother hunters, and the polygon of the dipper is the bear. The constant in the night sky since childhood for so many of us is this grouping of tiny lights, always there, every night. The two stars on the right side of the bear point to the North Star, Polaris. This star never moves. To quote Bill Shakespeare’s sonnet #116, "It is an ever fixed mark.” All things revolve around this one thing. By the way, the sonnet is about love, love as a constant.
Speaking of constants, what is the strongest thing in the universe? Electromagnetism? Stellar winds? Gravity? Nope. It’s a force known to physicists as the Strong Force. (Got to love the poetry in science---it’s strong and it’s a force. Boom.) It’s what binds two quarks together. (Quark is a word stolen from James Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake, in case you were wondering.) The Strong Force is a fundamental law of nature that binds subatomic particles together to make things like protons and neutrons, which combine to make atoms and, therefore, EVERTHING. This force can inextricably bind together a whole family of disparate particles such as gluons, mesons, baryons, hadrons, uncles and cousins. If these particles are pulled apart, and the "distance” (about 10 to the negative 15 meters, which is a fentometer or about the width of a proton) increases, the force also increases, like a tiny but all-powerful rubber band. The Strong Force is 137 times stronger than magnetism and 10 with 38 zeros after it stronger than gravity. In fact, the Strong Force between two quarks is so powerful that they cannot exist alone; if two are forced apart, the massive energy required to separate them spontaneously creates new particles, new quarks, which are bound together. No "free” quarks exist, nor ever can. Law of the universe.
Here in Vermont in early winter, people want to be home together. "Home is where the heart is” is a proverb so old and ubiquitous that no one seems to agree where it came from. Home is a sort of geography, but it is really where your people are: your partner, your kids, your true friends, your clan, your family. You can’t see The Strong Force, but you can see that smile from those who love you, your mom’s embrace, your sister’s knowing looks, your son’s strong arms. And you can’t beat the expression of bliss that your dog brings when you arrive home. The internet is jammed with the gyrations of a dog overjoyed to be with its humans, the dances, the zoomies, the happy cries of love made visible without the inhibitions of our complicated brains. Home is where that dance happens. Where cookies are baked. Where fires warm and lights are lit. Hugs nonstop, yes please.
With the holidays here and our hearts turning toward home, I think the science guys are only partly right. The true Strong Force is the magic string that binds us over time and distance to our families, to the ones we love. As the fundamental law states, distance can make it pull stronger. Love is the force. It is a constant of the universe. Take your time, my friends, to pull the strings snug.
If you look in the sky tonight and find the three brothers, look to the middle star, the middle one of the handle three. Look very closely and you will see two there. The larger we call Mizar; the smaller is Alcor. In the native story the little one is the dog along on the hunt, and his name is Hold Tight.
Warmth and peace to all my friends and all of yours, and may they overlap more as the days go by. Big hugs through the solstice.
