{"id":2935,"date":"2015-05-12T06:18:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T11:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=2935"},"modified":"2015-05-12T06:18:48","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T11:18:48","slug":"physics-blog-features-updike-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2015\/05\/12\/physics-blog-features-updike-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"Physics blog features Updike poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Neutrinos\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Physics Central<\/em><\/strong>, which links to American Physical Society Sites, yesterday posted “Physics in Verse: A John Updike Poem about Neutrinos.”<\/a><\/p>\n

“There is a long history of poets taking Nature as their muse, from the call of the sea to the draw of the wild. But poems about physics phenomena are harder to find,” Tamela Maciel writes. “Updike was not a physicist, but he did a remarkable job describing the current view of the physics community, as this article from Symmetry magazine<\/a> unravels.”<\/p>\n

Cosmic Gall<\/strong>
\nby John Updike
\nNeutrinos, they are very small.
\nThey have no charge and have no mass
\nAnd do not interact at all.
\nThe earth is just a silly ball
\nTo them, through which they simply pass,
\nLike dustmaids down a drafty hall
\nOr photons through a sheet of glass.
\nThey snub the most exquisite gas,
\nIgnore the most substantial wall,
\nCold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
\nInsult the stallion in his stall,
\nAnd, scorning barriers of class,
\nInfiltrate you and me! Like tall
\nAnd painless guillotines, they fall
\nDown through our heads into the grass.
\nAt night, they enter at Nepal
\nAnd pierce the lover and his lass
\nFrom underneath the bed\u2014you call
\nIt wonderful; I call it crass.<\/p>\n

Pictured is “The first observation of a neutrino-induced reaction in a hydrogen bubble chamber<\/a>. An invisible neutrino arrives from the right and strikes a proton where the three tracks join. The proton, a muon, and a pion then fly off in different directions.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Physics Central, which links to American Physical Society Sites, yesterday posted “Physics in Verse: A John Updike Poem about Neutrinos.” “There is a long history of poets taking Nature as their muse, from the call of the sea to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,23],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-2935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarship-analysis","category-updike-online","tag-updike-poems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2937,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions\/2937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}