Light Boy

Before understanding, one must first see the light. The door opens or the veil lifts and we rejoice in the blinding, white unfocused glow that washes over us. Truly seeing what lies in the light comes after our eyes and mind adjust. Later comes understanding. So what is the miracle? What do we crave? Is it knowledge? Is it leaving the darkness? Or could it be the light itself?

Some retain their wonder in the world. Many ceaselessly seek to understand. Most, it seems, find solace and comfort in the dark. But it is a precious few that truly value the light itself. Few of us ask what light really is. We use it, we rely on it, we look beyond it.

It is a fact that no one can actually see light itself; we only see things that are lit. A "beam of light" is an illuminated...something. Water droplets as in a fog or dust particles in a haze. Light is energy. Light can also have mass, it can be stopped and it can trapped and restarted, but never itself can it be seen.

Most of us don't think of light as the non-entity it is. Most do not delve into its' behavior, its' properties, its' secrets. There are experiments with light, of course, using optics and lasers, but the true depth of light's beauty can only be revealed through the language of mathematics. Every experiment can eventually be described by math, and those simple relations can be extended and generalized, allowing one to gain new insights into light's nature. But many do no more than as required by their majors or degrees. They go no further than the most fundamental concepts or elementary relations. Even those fortunate enough to be introduced to Maxwell's powerful theory of light fail to appreciate even the symmetry and beauty of the equations, and so are lost to appreciating the deep secrets of light. So close to the truth of light, but no inspiration or drive to seize it.

I sometimes wish it had been that simple for me; that I could let go of the questions and wonder. Once I began to think about light, its power, its complexity, its beauty, I could not let go of it. Every pursuit, every thought, every plan was constructed and executed with the certainty that I could solve all its mysteries, reveal all its secrets, understand all that it is. I have seen light so many different ways, yet I cannot witness it in the way that would help me understand it most.

I reflect on this as I stand outside Jadwin Hall, ready to begin my third year of graduate school, a doctoral student in mathematics and quantum electrodynamics. It's warm today, hazy warm. The sun is blazing - I feel it's heat on my face as I close my eyes and point my face skyward. I think back to one particularly warm spring day when I was young. I was outside my home with my parents, both researchers of some renown in their fields. I asked, 'Why am I warm? What is touching me to make me warm?' 'Light' was my mother's answer. 'Heat is light, son. The heat you feel is light from the sky. Energy from that great star we call the sun.'

So, light is energy. Energy creates light. I knew that light could be felt as heat and understood that it could be seen as colors. I began to think, soon after, that anything warm gave off light and energy. Did my childhood dog, Charlie, a hyperactive little cocker spaniel push energy through his matted coat to my hand when I touched him? Was I also passing back light to Charlie?

"Lebe."

That's Vecky. I feel her hand on my arm from behind. A warm hand. Her light from within. I knew it was her before she spoke. Estee Lauder. I open my eyes. "Hey, Veck. What a surprise. You're early."

Vecky moves in front of me. I reach for her shoulder. Her hair is shorter. "It's too nice a day to sleep in. Besides, I wanted to see you before the big meeting."

I block the sun from my face with my folder. It is too hot today. "I'm not worried about Trezan. Bad news is, Cliff's gone."

Vecky stamps her thick-soled shoe. It's click reverberates in the concrete and against the nearby brick walls of the dorms. "Cliff? No way! When did..."

"Late last night."

"Where..."

"M.I.T."

"Wha..."

"Email. Check it. The grant came through, so he didn't have to stay."

I wish I could read that expression on Vecky's face.

"Oh, shit, Lebe. I thought it wasn't supposed to..."

I throw out my arms to the side, trying to rid myself of attachment to the whole issue. There's that damn bright sun again.

"It did. He's not even coming back to catch us up. Says he's emailing everything to us. All his notes are online here."

Vecky is now waving her arms about in the air, their shadows cutting cool, quick tracks across me. It is the wrong day to be wearing all black.

"Lebe, last night you were so certain."

"Veck, I...I'll be fine. My theory is sound. My approach is solid. Trezan and I have been in contact all summer. If he had any doubts..."

"It's not him I'm worried about. That board is..."

I reach out my arm towards her and she places her hand in mine. Damn, that's a big rock on that finger. Vecky is so bright, so dedicated. I hope, a year from now when she's married, she's still in a lab or in front of a class, and not pushing around a vacuum.

"You know I had doubts about what Cliff could actually do. This way is better. Unencumbered. Unconstrained. Unbounded. Limitless"

"OK, Lebe, OK. Enough with the math-speak. I get it. It's good to see you, Lebe."

Veck squeezes my hand a little tighter.

"I'm glad you're back, Vecky. Now, let's get inside the damn building before I fry."

To the ancients, light represented knowledge, the good, the path to a higher ideal. Light is truth, a shining beacon to inspire and reaffirm.

But taking on the light also has a price and a responsibility. To align oneself with light is to assume all the higher ideals that light itself represents, or to be brought into it's glory. But those who do not understand or unable to assume the magic of light not only shun it and revile it, they even drive others from it. They mock and discredit and even kill those who see what they cannot or will not allow themselves to see.

The myth of Prometheus taught us that to take the light from it's Divine place and give it to people is wrong. But is the crime the theft of light or it's dissemination? Is the crime possession of knowledge itself, or holding the seed of something more? And how does the equating of good and right with light figure into all this? Of course, all that is dark and in the shadows is evil. It is said God is light, and He is against the powers of Darkness.

But darkness is not wrong or evil. I think people are uncomfortable with the absence of light. But those in darkness do not always need help to find their way. We learn to navigate the obstacles and understand where we are by embracing the darkness. We make our own light. What we see cannot be revealed by illumination. It comes from boldly moving about in the dark. Nikos Kazantzakis understood this when he said, "What is meant by light? To gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.'

Doctor Trezan's office. Fourth door on the right, down the right from the main entrance. Plays with lasers; quantum interference, light-traps and the like.

"Hello, Doctor Trezan."

"Hello, Lebe Come in, come in. Welcome back. How are you? How was your summer?"

To many questions all at once. Trezan is a little bit of a player. I do not think he really cares about me or my research. I do have a good grant and a few papers to my name so I am an asset to him. He does not believe, though...

"I am fine, Doctor Trezan. And yourself?"

"Fine, Lebe. How's Beth?"

"We were together most of the summer, so...that was good. And Jenny?"

His wife. Her picture is near my hand on the edge of the desk. Met in college, married soon after. Two children, both of them now in college. Jenny does not work. Has not worked in years. Calls Trezan all the time. Haven't met her yet.

"She's fine. Sends her best."

Trezan starts tapping his pen on the desk. Doc is up to something. Something is on his mind.

"So, Lebe. Catch anything in Florida?"

"What do you..."

"Your right hand, that a...What, you put a hook in there?""

My hand is near Jenny's picture in the stout little frame. Oh yes, I took the bandage off this morning. Nasty little cut.

"What? No. That's from making dinner the other night."

"You make it out on a charter?"

"Yes, one long weekend."

"Point Pleasant?"

"Florida Keys. Gift from Beth."

"Anything big?"

"Just some sea-trout and redfish. Nothing over four pounds."

More pen tapping, but faster. Would we sit done to talk like this if we did not have to? I do not think so. He tries, though, maybe out of hospitality or guilt or pity.

I know the chair is directly behind me so I move back until my right calf bumps it.

"Oh, have a seat, Lebe. Please."

"So what is the big news?"

"Big news, Lebe? Nothing new. You still have the diff-e-q's and I'd like you to take the calc."

Figures. Diff-e-q's is bad enough but at least those have some math. Calc was Cliff's. He handled the freshman. What a waste. Most aren't even math or physics majors. My research time goes to non-majors.

"I suppose. Tuesday-Thursday?"

"Yeah, Lebe. Ten to eleven. Thanks. It's some extra money. Look at it that way. Too bad about Cliff. He's a good guy, but you go where the opportunities are. We'll manage..."

"I knew he'd bail."

"Hmm?"

"Cliff. I am not surprised he left."

"That's what you said in your message. You also don't seem sorry to see him go."

"No love. No need to know."

"What, him? Well, Lebe, he has to look out for his education. I agree that he..."

"Though his work would have shown the validity..."

"Lebe."

"...of the approach..."

"Lebe...just..."

Here we go, the point. Not my summer or how Jenny is or the calc. It is all about my work.

"We don't need him. I never did."

"Lebe, Lebe. This isn't the time. I just want to..."

"It never is, Doctor Trezan. My work is secondary to other in the lab. Cliff was validating my work..."

"Enough!"

I cannot look at him. I cannot look at his face and see if he is angry or confused. So I sit there and wait, counting to ten like Beth suggested. Wait for him to speak.

"You don't miss him?"

"Who, Cliff?"

"Yes, Cliff."

"No, I don't. I don't need him, anyways."

"I think you do. I think you still do."

"Miss him or need him."

"You might not need him but your research does."

"Not for what I am trying to do.

"A new theory of light gluinos and supersymmetry. Your work is good..."

Ten came and went a long time ago. I stand up suddenly sending the chair sliding backwards with ad awful squeak. I turn away from the desk and trip o the edge of the carpet as I take a step into the center of Trezan's office.

"Lebe? Please..."

"Doctor Trezan?"

"Yes Lebe?"

"How much of my grant is left?"

"Lebe..."

"Do you know why I have lots left"

I turn back around to face Trezan.

"What?"

"Do you know why I have so much grant money left?"

"Why don't you tell me, Lebe?"

"Because, one, I do not use much because I just use computational time and; two, because I got a big grant."

"And the point is, Lebe?"

"You know I can look at an equation and see what it's really trying to say. Vector fields scream 'force/flux relation'. Entropy is dissipation. You know, you look at 'Newton' and see 'Hamilton'. 'Look to something bigger.' They speak to me, show themselves to me. I can see the connections to the other great relations. I can divine their true nature."

"Your work is good, but it is only a hypotheses. A good theory explains what we already know, and predicts what we don't. Without verification, it's just a mathematic exercise. 'There's nothing like a ugly fact to destroy a beautiful theory.'"

"Thomas Huxley, paraphrased. I know. I'm talking about a fresh look; a new concept for light. What it means to exist and travel as energy."

"Lebe, this is not the way. A completed work, and yours isn't, has to have exact solutions that can be used to confirm or explain existing data sets..."

"But it..."

"Or allow prediction of experimentally-verifiable novel phenomena. "

"Who reworked the string treatment of Witten's unification of light and the weak nuclear force?"

"Lebe..."

"Who was asked to write a chapter in the 3rd edition of Wachter's 'Compendium of Theoretical Physics' because of my clarity and insight into Wein's relation?"

"Lebe, I accepted your hypothesis contingent upon simulation from computing. Now that Cliff has transferred to M.I.T., I see three options for you: find another modeler, move into the light lab, or..."

"Or?"

"Pursue another line of research."

He's forgetting it is my grant money. He is willing to say goodbye to me and my ideas and my money. The only thing he has is attaching his name to mine., and he is willing to let that go. But I want this school on my resume."

"You know I can't read a damn blueprint."

"That doesn't mean you can't think like an experimentalist. Is Vecky out there?"

"Yes."

"Send her in on your way out. "

What a bastard! Let me just dumb-down to a lab-rat. Experiments. I can't experiment you idiot, not with...

"Lebe."

"Yes, Doctor Trezan?"

"Beautiful or not, your theories can only stand if they survive experimentation. No one here will cut you any slack on that."

The unpleasantness of that meeting now several hours behind me, I have swung by the library, set up my room and greeted my new and returning housemates. Organized and fruitful, a good day so far. Now if I could concentrate on this paper I could complete my tasks today.

...