July 04, 2011
Monday Poem
“(Physicist) Stephen Hawking … showed that black holes
were not completely black but could leak radiation …”
Crumb of Light
Black holes are not completely black.
One physicist says they leak light
so even in deepest space
where nothing breathes
where you couldn’t be more alone
where stillness is not peace but ice
where distance between entities
makes the idea of neighborhood absurd
where utter is deepest and space is most profound
where moons can’t kiss and the closest thing to embrace
is to orbit which is not an encircling of arms
but a constant falling away,
where the inertia of origin commands
that all things separate, expand,
proceed apart day after day
.
—even from the black eye of a black hole
a crumb of light is tossed
and the chance of seeing you again
is not forever lost
by Jim Culleny
5/10/11
Posted by Jim Culleny at 12:15 AM | Permalink
Comments
"—even from the black eye of a black hole
a crumb of light is tossed
and the chance of seeing you again
is not forever lost."
Exquisite!!!
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 4, 2011 9:31:02 AM
Nice.
Posted by: wolfstan | Jul 4, 2011 11:32:53 AM
Black holes might leak radiation, but it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox#Hawking_radiation>meaningless. So a little less hope, and a little more pathos in your poem please.
Posted by: Mal | Jul 4, 2011 1:56:57 PM
Mal-
I'm neither an astrophysicist nor a juke box. But check back now and then and maybe I'll have written something more meaningful and hopeless with a pinch more pathos —just the right combo for you.
If you have a recipe send it along I'll run it through Word and serve it up on a silver platter garnished with asterisks and footnotes and a side of explicit haiku.
Thanks,
Jim
Posted by: JIm | Jul 4, 2011 6:24:54 PM
Mal,
I remember a line in the movie, "Amadeus," when Mozart was told by his patron that there were too many notes in one of his compositions. The script brought out that the patron had a tin ear and no feel for music.
If this were physics and not poetry you might have observed that moons do not kiss, anyway.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 4, 2011 8:53:32 PM
@ Jim:
"...the closest thing to embrace
is to orbit which is not an encircling of arms
but a constant falling away,..."
Just beautiful!
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 4, 2011 8:56:10 PM
Norman-
Glad you enjoyed the poem. Thanks.
Posted by: JIm | Jul 5, 2011 6:18:14 AM
You're a great poet, Jim. Have you tried songwriting, maybe you could reach a wider audience.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jul 5, 2011 10:06:08 AM
aguy--
Oh yeah. Long Time. Here's one:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jimculleny?blend=5&ob=5#p/u/0/RJD3oHkKc8I
Posted by: JIm | Jul 5, 2011 11:00:32 AM
I'm not sure where you got your opening quote, but it was Stephen Hawking who showed that black holes emit radiation, usually taken to be massive particles (electrons, etc.) not light.
Posted by: Aaron | Jul 5, 2011 4:13:57 PM
Aaron--
Right you are. Although Stephen Hawkings worked with Penrose in the 1960s to explicate the properties of black holes it was Hawkings, not Penrose, who theorized that black holes leak radiation.
My attribution was an outright mistake. But since (visible) light is radiation, I took the liberty of stretching the envelope a little on that.
Posted by: JIm | Jul 5, 2011 7:36:58 PM
Just a little time with you
Beautiful sweet and touching!!!!!
Thanks for the link!
Posted by: aguy109 | Jul 6, 2011 9:41:27 AM
Hi Jim,
Sorry to be a pedant, but the name is "Hawking"— no "s."
If you're interested, Hawking and Penrose did work on black holes and cosmology together in the 1960s, but not on this (Penrose had / has pretty heterodox views about how one should think about combining General Relativity and Quantum Theory, which is how Hawking came to his conclusions). The black-hole-radiation work started with J. Bekenstein in 1972, Hawking published on it in 1974.
Of course, you're welcome to poetic license in the details of the (rather complicated) physics.
Posted by: Aaron | Jul 6, 2011 5:16:13 PM
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