A brief explanation

No, no, that’s not it. Blame Einstein.

©Perry Clark

I’ve been asked a couple times recently if the title of this enterprise—An Elephant’s Tail—is taken from, points to, references, etc. the story I featured a short while back, about the blind men and the elephant. The short answer is no, though there’s probably something to be said about this in the context of convergent evolution of ideas.

For the title, I chose a phrase that points to an apocryphal anecdote about Einstein, who, like many prominent figures (Twain and Churchill being probably the most common and notable examples), didn’t say or do much of what’s often attributed by someone wishing to deploy a statement or idea buoyed by the credibility or authority of some Person of Great Esteem. For what it’s worth, I think this one is at least mostly true, but I am not entirely sure of it at the moment. So, you’re informed.

The story, such as it is, is this: Einstein had stated, as was his wont, that his drive to expand the frontiers of physics came from his desire to understand Nature. He knew, however, that his, and our, understanding is incomplete. Sadly, woefully, incredibly incomplete. Why? Well, there’s the sheer immensity of Nature and the enterprise we call Nature’s work—i.e., the universe, and should there be such things, the various metaverses, or the mind-blowingly big server running the program creating and maintaining the hologram we’re simply part of. Whatever. And then there’s the fact that, to those trying to peak under the hood and see the thrumming, humming, churning, burning, grimy details, it often seems like Nature is hiding stuff from us. Einstein likened it to Nature being an elephant. An elephant we know only by examination of Nature’s—the elephant’s—tail.

So, there it is, the deep story behind the headlines. I’m trying to understand things, examine things, share thoughts about things—and by “things” I mean pretty much anything, everything, all things, imagined things, forgotten things, abandoned things, and the things that live in the back of the kitchen drawer, where there’s this whole other world that we just simply know virtually nothing about. And this all means I shall never have the full story, an all-encompassing theory of everything, or the question that really should be asked about life, the universe, and everything. So please, don’t expect too much. But we’ll do the best we can.

Try the salmon, the chef’s done a wonderful job with, and don’t forget to tip the wait staff. G’day.