Three Galaxies

As a young particle physicist, he was the first to calculate the mass of the then-merely-theorized charmed quark. But the answer he found seemed implausible to him because it was in a range of masses that had already been studied, and if such a particle existed there, he figured, it would already have been discovered. So he published one paper and moved on to more promising topics. Other physicists, however, pursued it, unlikely as it seemed.

A few years later the charmed quark was discovered, and its mass was in the range Joel had calculated, but those other scientists who stuck with the idea and kept working to develop it won the Nobel Prize. Joel knew it could have been him, but he had let his intuition of what was possible and impossible completely mislead him.

He never made that mistake again. He moved into astrophysics. When there turned out to be 98 possible versions of his Cold Dark Matter Theory, he didn’t choose which was most likely. He and a graduate student calculated the consequences of all 98 of them -- and discovered the only two that could possibly be true.

Joel’s belt buckle with his favorite galaxy: M51 interacting with the dwarf galaxy M51B

No one else had been in the house and no window was open. No living person made the dust galaxies, and I have heard no feasible physical explanation for them from the many scientists who have seen them.

We had adventures, dreams, and careers,

We lived a big life, not too many tears

You brought love and brilliance, a child of delight

To this once provincial New Jerseyite

You lived for science and integrity

You’d never dismiss, but you’d never believe

That on beyond death there might still be

Some part of you that can still talk to me

You taught me…

We live in a universe wild with mystery

Mostly dark matter and dark energy

We have intuition that tells us we know things

But we don’t remember that we are just Earthlings

“Never assume, “you’d always say,

“That Mother Nature thinks your way”

We didn’t swear, “Till death do us part”

“As long as love lasts” – that’s what we swore from the heart

Who could imagine, who could divine

That ours would be the longer time?

I loved your message, it came through so clear

There on the washer three galaxies appeared

You’ve shaken my world, boggled my mind

I tell you now, I’m open to whatever I’ll find

Because…

We live in a universe wild with mystery

Mostly dark matter and dark energy

We have intuition that tells us we know things

But we don’t remember that we are just Earthlings

“Never assume, “you’d always say,

“That Mother Nature thinks your way”

I tell everybody, everyone smiles

Even the skeptics -- I can tell they’re beguiled

Knowing it could be is such a gift

There is true magic in acting as if

We live in a universe wild with mystery

Mostly dark matter and dark energy

We have intuition that tells us we know things

But we don’t remember that we are just Earthlings

“Never assume, “you’d always say,

“That Mother Nature thinks your way”