Essays by Larry Barnett
Charles Darwin introduced the concept of natural selection to describe the mechanism of evolution and the ways in which life on earth reflects a continuum of time and change. His theory challenged generations of belief in an absolute, immutable order of existence, and in his own way,… Read the rest
Sitting in the hot tub watching the afternoon wind whip a flag flying atop a 40-foot bamboo pole in my garden, I thought about waves. Flags wave in the wind, a convergence of weight, length, wind speed, and air turbulence. If the right… Read the rest
Roughly 500 years ago, Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable type and the modern book was born. Gutenberg hoped that his invention would make the Bible more available and help sustain and enlarge the Catholic faith, but ironically… Read the rest
Acre for acre, natural rainforests contain more biological diversity than any other place on earth, both plants and animals. The rainforest is the likely mother of us all.
Only a small fraction of the many rainforest species are identified, yet modern civilization is systematically destroying the… Read the rest
Both Presidential candidates are convinced that getting people back to work is the most essential ingredient in improving the American economy. This is, of course, true; more people working means more money consumption, more taxes to be collected, and more profits to be earned. The folly in this, … Read the rest
I recently accompanied my wife as she traveled to Minnesota for her 50th high school reunion. It’s not easy being a reunion “spouse” while a group of 68-year-olds reexamine their senior year neuroses.
Being a reunion spouse is a lot like being nobody.
I opted out … Read the rest
Industrialization is grinding the planet to dust, pollution radically changing our climate, population increasing to unsustainable levels, disease and poverty continue to spread and politicians worldwide bicker foolishly over non-issues; … Read the rest
While on vacation recently my wife and I were in no mood to search high and low for the best restaurant in Chicago and decided to eat as close to our hotel as possible. The day had been long and the temperature hot…one sign I read said 102 degrees. We’d spent the day visiting a 160-year-old farm that … Read the rest
Package labeling has become the art of deception, the intentional use of language to confuse and deceive the consumer. This is particularly obvious as food companies seek to exploit the organic food movement, currently the fastest-growing segment of the food industry, but the cosmetic and pharmaceutical… Read the rest
I remember sitting in our family living room as my father turned and folded pages, snapping and creasing the newsprint as he made his way through every section. Meanwhile, my mother would work across and down, completing the crossword puzzle with a pen. Growing up with … Read the rest
I was sitting on the couch with granddaughter Isabelle listening to her talk about numbers the other day – how ten is a bigger number than one, that one-hundred is even bigger, and that a million is even bigger than that. Suddenly she blurted out “infinity!” My mind stopped for an instant;… Read the rest
The presidential race is ramping up quickly, both sides having moved assertively into attack mode. Politics in America has degraded to the point that the billions spent on advertising are all about trash talk. It’s hard not to feel like one must choose the lesser of two evils when so much time and money… Read the rest
Among the channels proliferating via Dish Network I’ve recently taken to watching reruns of old network TV westerns. I watched many of these episodes when I was 10 or twelve years old, black and white westerns about good guys and bad guys and the women attracted to … Read the rest
This past month marks what looks like the confirmation of the Higgs Particle, or what has been called “The God Particle.” Like most things quantum, the Higgs Particle is simultaneously the Higgs Field, and its confirmation is a big deal.
The Standard Model in… Read the rest
The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado this past week reminds me of the killings by Charles Whitman in Texas during 1966. Whitman was the son of a middle class family, a former marine who climbed to the top of a tower at the University of Texas in Austin and shot 46 people with a high-powered rifle; fourteen people… Read the rest
Before our universe began, things were simple. All-and-everything, including time, space and matter, was compressed into an infinitesimal, dimensionless singularity of virtual probability. Then something happened; depending upon what you choose to believe either God initiated the big bang… Read the rest
An economy in shambles with persistently high unemployment; wide income inequality; increasingly belligerent saber-rattling by political parties; street demonstrations accompanied by vandalism and violence on the part of both demonstrators… Read the rest
When Orwell penned this slogan in his book “1984” he was addressing political theory, not neuroscience, yet from the perspective of current brain research, he was spot on. Our consciousness is but a sliver of the operation of mind, the rest hidden from our awareness. Turns out “free will” is less of a … Read the rest
If you read my column regularly, by now you know that I enjoy a cup of tea. My tastes in tea run to classic Chinese varieties like Oolong and Pu’er, and I can joyfully spend an hour or two exploring new varieties of fine tea.
Teapots, on the other hand, are a source of disappointment, specifically, the way … Read the rest
“We can’t return, we can only look behind.”
– Joni Mitchell
Despite the persistence and power of memory, the seduction of the past and 20/20 hindsight, the arrow of time appears to go in one direction only: forward. It might be more accurate to say “outward,” insofar as forward inclines one to think… Read the rest