Saturday, November 7, 2009

One and the Same?

Watching the opening ceremonies at the Olympics last year, I was shocked to see the idol from my youth, Jimmy Page, on a moving float with some chick:




He let his hair go completely white (he was 64 at the time), tying it into a short ponytail. Seeing his choice of wardrobe for the high-profile five-minute segment, I had but no choice to refer to him as "George Washington" to my wife, who wondered who the heck he was.

But now I'm rethinking it. Since I've been reading a whole bunch of light Physics-for-the-masses books, I realize that I may have stumbled upon a minor conspiracy. Take a look:


JIMMY PAGE, ROCK GOD:



MICHIO KAKU, PHYSICS GOD:




Is it even remotely possible - hear me out, okay? - that these two men might be the same person? I mean, can anyone prove that they are not? All right, I know you can't prove a negative, but I would settle for a photo of the two on stage, together, somewhere. Hmmm. Okay, there's probably no event on the planet where these two men would be on the same podium. But still I wonder. Kaku's been extremely active over the past two decades, while Page really hasn't ...

Oh, enough of that. Bad joke, I admit. (It seemed infinitely better in my head a few days back.) The six or seven of you regulars don't come here for the komedy. Jimmy Page is and always will be the greatest guitar player of all time. I can still play half the songs from the Led Zep catalogue, and would still buy anything he put out. And honestly, the way the man abused himself in the 70s, I should look as good when I reach his current age.

Michio Kaku is one of the greatest populizers of physics writing over the past two decades or so. I read his first book, Hyperspace, a dozen years ago and have read a couple more since. I am currently surfing through his latest, Physics of the Impossible. He's always readable, humorous, and interesting. The book has got me thinking, and it's packed with a lot of fascinating esoterica, which never ceases to draw me mothlike to the flame. Great, great stuff. I think I'll post some little tidbits here and there throughout the upcoming week.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I loved his work on "Stairway to Relativity"

Uncle