TIME

The SI unit of pressure is the Pascal.......it has dimensions of kgxm-1xs-2 and that is counterintuitive.........Bridgman realized this and invented his own pressure unit of kgxm-2..........but it was never generally adopted..........the 3 basic units in SI system are length (m) and mass (kg) and time (s)...........it would seem that time is unavoidably entangled within the mathematics of physical theory.....Electromagnetic waves are characterized by photon length (the wavelength) and photon time (the frequency) and photon energy (the combination of photon length or photon time with Planck's constant). The standard of time is defined by a characteristic photon length or photon time.......It would thus appear that time and length have a reciprocal relationship to each other in physics..........i.e. photon length is reciprocal to photon time and the proportionality constant is the speed of light c...........It can be no other way and without time as a standard dimension in physics one would also have to do away with length as well because of their reciprocity in electromagnetic theory.....In quantum theory there are the uncertainty relations where time is a conjugate variable to energy and linear momentum is the conjugate variable to position, The commutator of time and energy and, conversely, position and linear momentum, is of course i(x)h(bar)........and then of course the product of the uncertainty in time and the uncertainty in energy, within a quantum system, is constrained to be greater than or equal to h(bar).......and analogously with position and linear momentum within a quantum system the product of the uncertainties is greater than or equal to h(bar). The dimensions of multiplying together time (s) and energy (kg(x)m^2(x)s^-1) is of course the "action" and this is the dimensions of the reduced Planck constant h(bar). And similarly for position multiplied by linear momentum. Time in quantum theory is thus a conjugate variable to energy.........but is it not construed as the inverse of energy..........in the same sense that photon length and photon time are opposite aspects of the same thing.......connected together by the speed of light c...........Time and length are intimately connected together thus and physical theory cannot dispense with time any more than it can dispense with the measure of length (m) within a physical system..........MJB

HANS BETHE

In 1990 in the summer I arrived at Cornell. At that time I knew about RH and Linus Pauling and Feynman and Gell-Mann and Carl Sagan etc.........but I did not yet know about Hans Bethe. Walking outside between Baker Laboratory and Clark Hall I crossed paths with Bethe several times, and someone then once told me about him. He wore a fine suit and tie......or just the suit and shirt.........he looked European to me. I went to his lecture about Heisenberg in which he claimed Heisenberg was never a Nazi........RH was in his office during this lecture. I went to his lecture on neutrinos and the Solar Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada. Then I went to a very authentically physical talk about high pressure research by Professor Ruoff.........at one point Bethe was there (it was in the Bethe room) and spoke up from the audience and asked Professor Ruoff, "what is B?"........and then Professor Ruoff responded that there is the isothermal bulk modulus and the adiabatic bulk modulus etc..........and Bethe responded, "Yes but what is B?".....He was very intense in his tone of voice.........And from then on I got to thinking about his question........I have never forgotten that exchange. In the Summer, 1994 about the time I completed the first paper with you on glitter.........I was walking on campus from CHESS to S.T, Olin Laboratory.........in the back by the loading dock. As I walked towards the back entrance a silver sedan pulls up next to me and I turn to look and out of the car stands Hans Bethe........holding the car door open and staring (glaring) at me with the most intense expression I have ever seen. Our eyes made contact for a couple seconds and I was too scared to say "Hi, how are you?" I could tell then by his look that something big was up and he already knew all about it. His look was one of saying, "Brother you will have a very troubled life ahead of you........and I'm sizing you up to see if you are up to the task." After all hell broke loose in 1999 I luckily left Ithaca without being a total disgrace and moved on to a really great job in Illinois. In Illinois I sent a dozen red roses to Hans Bethe and to RH for helping me...........and I sent HB my favorite book then "Winesburg, OH" by Sherwood Anderson..........and the video of my favorite movie, "The Man Who Would be King" by Kipling. Bethe answered, even in his 90's, with a card that was the famous painting by Edward Hopper, "Sunlight on Brownsstone" and he wished me the best.........."whoever I may be"...........he thanked me for the gifts too. His wife Rose Bethe wrote the card in his words. I sent some other things to HB but I did not request a response. I was in Kentucky when HB died in Ithaca in 2005 at 98 years of age. Later in 2009 I was very ill and I sent a objectionable holiday card to Rose Bethe.........It was unfortunate. Bethe was a deep influence on me and I will never forget knowing him.

BRIGHT WILSON

In your article "Homo citans and carbon allotropes: For an ethics of citation" I mention that you cite Bright Wilson with a direct quotation from a book he wrote on writing in science. And it is absolutely true that his son Ken Wilson attended the George School in Newtown, PA in the 50's, it is a Quaker school.........when I lived in Newtown I knew some old Quaker families that lived there (I lived in Holland, PA about 4 miles from Newtown, PA) and it is true that I attended Council Rock High School in Newtown, PA in the 70's........Council Rock was a very good school then.......I had a friend I worked with that graduated from the George School and I took my SAT's at the George School. Tom Strong was a friend I had in high school who was from an old Quaker family in Newtown and he went to Council Rock.......there are still Quaker Friends' Meeting Houses in Newtown and Churchville and Langhorne that I still believe are operated.......the buildings are over 100 years old.............This is a part of Bucks County that was overun by a tidal wave of "progress" of the expansion of the Northeastern mega-opolis......it is nowadays overdeveloped and overbuilt............for years I watched my childhood home of Holland and the Churchville Reservoir where I used to cut school and hang out in and ice skate on in the winter.........disappear into suburbia......