In Memoriam

Over the past ten days or so, a trio of men who’ve been of peripheral interest to me over the years have left this swiftly tilting planet and ventured on toward the Maha Beyond.

The first was a man named Stanton Friedman. He’s the guy you may have seen while channel surfing if your surfing has taken you past the History – uh, Alien – Channel. Friedman was a legitimate physicist in the 50s and 60s, working on many advanced and classified projects, who got taken in to the whole UFO thing. He was one of the first to publicize the whole Roswell saucer crash and “broke” the story on MJ-12, a group of a dozen high-ranking American men who formed some sort of secret saucer supervisory specialists. I read it all back in the 80s, not entirely convinced, even less so today. He also appeared as a “consultant” on that Abduction in Lake County found-footage teevee special first aired in January of 1998, the first show I watched with my future wife in which she jumped a foot off the couch at the scare at the end.

In honor of Mr. Friedman’s passing, I present a short post on the weird thing I saw in the night-time sky as a young lad in 1980, here.

Next I noted that eminent writer Herman Wouk had permanently put down his pen, unless perhaps God is in need of some funny and/or riveting tales of World War II. The Caine Mutiny is possibly my favorite WW2 movie, and I read the book back in 2015 and was a thousand percent taken in by it for a week I didn’t want to end. A great work, better even than the movie, and highly recommended. I have his Winds of War on the shelf behind me, and may crack it open this summer, perhaps on vacation down in Hilton Head in August.

I thought I had reviewed The Caine Mutiny but it seems I never did. A pity. Instead, I offer you some reasons why you should read histories of war (with westerns chucked in). Or at least some reasons why I do. Here.

Finally, Murray Gell-Mann has found all his answers to the great mysteries of the microcosm. Who is Murray Gell-Mann? An American physicist from the golden age of the 50s who won the Nobel Prize in 1969 for his earlier work on a theory of quarks. In my physics heyday in the mid-90s, I attempted his book, The Quark and the Jaguar, but did not get too far into it, and I don’t quite remember why. Maybe a second go at it a quarter century later might do the trick. Particle physics always held a special fascination for me, and I thought at the time I might want to specialize in it.

On a side note, I always associated Gell-Mann with Tolkien’s Second Age Elven King Gil-Galad. Not sure why, but this dual intersectionality of nerddom has always pleased me.

Here, a list of some great questions of physics I’ve always wanted answers to. No doubt finally revealed to Dr. Gell-Mann, and if not, I’m sure he’s fast at work in a laboratory in some other dimensions figuring it all out.

Rest in peace, men!