17 - Father's Physics

I tracked the quasi-predestined course from early in life, with a few certificates under arms -in the domain of traditional positive sciences before engineering, guided less by my own initiative than external influence, which by and large acted upon me subconsciously. My involvement in sports activities I enjoyed and early literary ambitions were suppressed and suspended. My writings and discourse obtained technical, dry and wooden forms. Afterall, how many people make a decent living from writing stories or playing football?

The 1st Panhellenic Conference of the Union of Greek Physicists took place in the autumn of 1977 in Thessaloniki in a pavilion of the city’s Internation Trade Fair. Father was appointed member of the organizing committee, by virtue of his degree and short career in teaching physics, assigned the responsibility of providing telecom support for the conference, given his position in the Greek Telecom monopoly. It was also an opportunity for him, this conference, to exercise his self-proclaimed passion, from his student days for the branch science he chose to study, that is physics, although this passion had likely been weakened by the non-creative, routine work, more bureaucratic than technical, in the public telecom which had already employed him for a decade. The new school year had not started yet and I was towed along to the conference venue for a glimpse of the preparations he was overseeing, convinced that I might be intrigued, but also to introduce me to some of his fellow physicists-professors, potentially future teachers of mine in the future, although we both knew than not of much the aims of that gathering of physicists and the content of the sessions would have made much sense to me. It was the very first conference after the transition to democracy and, apparently, a milestone for the small society of Greek physicists, and besides for Father it carried the importance of a reunion with his university mates. It was even more important for the body of academics amongst them, who would dominate the technical sessions, less so, perhaps, for school teachers of physics or the few physics graduates, like Father, employed in engineering jobs in the public sector. And I could sense its importance for the members of the organizing committee members by the hustling, the handshakes and lively conversations between the various volunteers, many acquaintances of Father’s from his student days, and the few years he devoted in physics research and teaching, and the few curious associates coming and in and out of the halls that would house the conference.

Memories of that conference are hazy: there were pointless comings and goings, in and out of the conference halls or idly waiting in a corner for Father to end his long chats with people he knew and take me home. Urged by Father I attended some incomprehensible to me presentations in Nuclear Physics and Elementary Particle Physics, subjects at the frontier of physics research on which many Greek academics, conveniently detached from the Greek scientific and economic reality, devoted their efforts. Father saw it as a kind of baptism of fire for the hopeful and ambitious young man I was, with dreams and a drive to excel. Little sense did I make out of the talks, despite the intellectual effort I put in and a negligible effect did they have to enhance further my youthful predisposition to science. The latter was rather settled unwavering towards a career in science and engineering.

At the end of the week, from the generally pleasant mood and smiles of satisfaction and humor of Father, I surmised that first conference of the Greek Union of Physicists was crowned with success. First and foremost, Father had the opportunity to mingle with the few academic personalities and our national pillars in Physics he was acquainted with and respected. I sensed then how deep down he wished he had pursued an academic career in one of the branches of modern Physics, instead of the thankless, obscure and tedious quasi-engineering, mostly bureaucratic, role in a public telecom organization: to enjoy the prestige of a professorship some of his peers from university had already attained, the conferences and the expert speeches from the podium on pioneering research, in short, the lights of publicity the role of a university professor in Greece attracts.

In those days, tucked away deep in the cabinets of our bookcase, I discovered textbooks in physics and electrical engineering with the name of Father as the author. They were nothing more than typed lecture notes bound in a book, but the family name displayed in the cover of any sort of publication, such as those textbooks or even the conference program that caught the eye, I saw it as the crowning of some effort and dedication, as a piece of intellectual work that somehow withstands the passage of time. That generated a small dose of pride: I saw it as one of those infinitesimal contributions, notwithstanding the fact that they fast become obsolete and disappear under the weight of scientific progress.

My delving into physics continued with more zeal in the aftermath of the conference. Amongst several books, mainly university textbooks, Father had collected on physics, I discovered a relatively popularized version of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, which, however, included mathematics and a pre-required knowledge yet to acquire. I labored through its pages with effort, racking my brain, gasping from one equation to the next, struggling to understand the mental experiments supposedly proving expansion and contraction of time with speed, starting from the axiom that the speed of light was a universal constant, considered the maximum possible speed in nature. I realized huge gaps in my scientific knowledge, in mathematics and physics, despite my excellent record with my studies at school and of exam grades. Yet, I considered that laborious study, which only scratched the surface of an important theory, as a minor intellectual achievement, a small victory of the brain like when solving a difficult puzzle. Later in life I recorded as personal intellectual achievements of similar magnitude the completion of reading and understanding of some of the great scientific or philosophical works, the magnus opuses of human civilization, and noted the experience of the great satisfaction I derived from these endeavors.

With the encouragement and pocket money from Father, who, at least as far as book purchases were concerned, tended to ignore their impact on the family budget, I bought the five thick volumes of Berkeley’s Physics. It was a purchase that filled me with joy and boosted my confidence in my scientific future, especially when, after reading through the first pages of the first volume, that of classical Mechanics, I realized that I understood most of its content and walked through it without many setbacks and relative ease from one chapter to the next. The awareness that it was used as a textbook of one of the world's leading Universities was uplifting for a generally fragile confidence, and reassuring in terms of the limits of my cognitive abilities and the attainment of bright future in science. This youthful enthusiasm subsided somehow after I skipped several chapters and volumes to venture into the more advanced and exotic subjects of physics, which would have attracted any restless young scientist in the embryonic stages of one’s career: Quantum Mechanics, Nuclear Physics, Relativity, fascinating objects considered springboards of scientific prominence. It was the bitter realization of a novice of the many things he had yet to learn before he could be counted for in this arena!

It was also at the culmination of the conference and my first contact with modern theories, when lying on the floor amongst stacks of physics books, in a cloud of childish naivety, I tried to come up with ideas, conjectures and hypotheses, like Einstein and the great physicists of his ilk· to establish, in my illusion, a novel revolutionary theory: about the structure of matter or the beginning of the universe, which at some point would place me on the same pedestal with great scientists like Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, Planck, and others, whom I heard of and admired. My ambitions set new aims, scientific this time. It was just absurd childish dreaming, of course! I was quickly disappointed by fruitless attempts for a ‘new’ theory in physics, with the rudimentary, schoolboy knowledge I had: my scribblings ended up in the wastebasket. The road to scientific glory was long. I was by no means a prodigy and I realized again how much still was ahead of me to learn. Along with those thoughts and sketches of my so-called ‘theories’, my wanderings through the volumes of Berkeley's Physics were limited to chapters that corresponded to, supported and somewhat extended the curriculum and forthcoming exams material.

And those those ominous national exams were fast approaching and each passing day was weighing heavily in the revision schedule. Mother, ignorant of science, was overwhelmed by anxiety caused by a belief that my focus was diverting from the revision of core exam material and this might dent the prospect of achieving the major goal of every petty-bourgeois family: the admission of their offspring to the university, preferably in a respectable subject with sound professional career prospects, preferably in my hometown -the latter, for economic reason. The departments of physics or mathematics were not incorporated in the category of schools that would safeguard a prosperous future in Greece and considered second rate-choices for candidates. After exhausting every line, every equation and example from the chapters Berkeley’s Physics pertinent to the exam syllabus, the main points duly highlighted, I placed its volumes of on a shelf in the library -to Mother’s relief, with the covers of just the first two volumes (on Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism) worn out, some of their contents underlined in red ink. Since then, rarely the need occurred to refer to the physics topics they addressed, but all five volumes traveled with me, in their scientific weight and value, wherever around the world I have been, to any house I happened to occupy. It became a legacy nostalgic reminder of another set of naïve and unfulfilled ambitions from an age of callowness as much as of an unbridled imagination.