A Final Jeopardy! Answer, and Lifespans

The final Jeopardy! answer on tonight's episode of that long-lasting game show series concerned a topic I had no reason to be knowledgeable about: who is buried in England's Westminster Abbey.  It is where British royalty has historically been interred, but there is a place within, called "Poet's Corner", where standouts in the arts, most notably literary, have also been accorded burial spots.  I'm not sure exactly what the wording was in the Jeopardy! answer, but it did include the year of burial as being 1991...and I came up with the correct solution: "Who was Laurence Olivier?"  In case you didn't already know, he is widely acknowledged as being one of the greatest actors of all time...although, I'm sure to my own loss, the only movies I remember seeing him in were Marathon Man and The Boys from Brazil.  Yet in only those two films his performance was dazzling, especially in the former.  Being a dweller of the year 2025 as I write this, I was convinced that Olivier had already passed away...but was a little surprised that he died sometime in 1989, some 36 years ago.  As each of us passes, riding the "now" moment, through our own individual lifespans, we can only perceive the subjective reality of the years we remember being alive through our own experience and realities, depending on others' records and memories of those times preceding our births.  I don't know how long I will remain on Earth, but I'm confident that 36 years after my passing I will in no way be weighing in on the passage of time in that as-yet unknown, but inevitable year.  For each of us individually, as far as our own subjected perception is concerned, there is only one time, and it is now.  The nearly universal biography statistic of lifespan...the birth year, a hyphen, and the year of dying...is one of objective perception from outsiders.  Each of us can play a little at this and see ourselves as our birth years, a hyphen...and nothing, but never with that final year.  We belong to our lifespans, and that will always be real, as it has always been for every biological entity that has ever been.  The big mystery, which religion and philosophy tend to address, is what happens to that personally-experienced "now" at death.  If I say that I am defined for myself as being the "here and now", then not only does that mean that your "here" is by nature different from mine, but also that your "now" is different as well in spite of it seeming the same.  So my "now" doesn't depend on you or others or the so-called objective reality that trudges on ahead through time.  But enough of this metaphysical speculation, time to go get another coffee...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Newton by James Gleick

Isaac Newton, more than any other individual, ushered in the revolution in science and technology that we so often take for granted today.  James Gleick, a noted science historian and author, decided to write a biography of Sir Isaac, who lived in England from 1642 to 1727, a prodigious life span for someone in his day.  Gleick traces elements of Newton's childhood including his family and their "in-between" social class status as modest landowners, going through his academic years and settling on the Great Plague of 1665-66, when his Cambridge classes were cancelled, and he studied in reclusion at his family's countryside home.  It was then that Newton developed many of his ideas that would later bring him fame and reward, such as classical mechanics, the nature of gravity as a universal principal both on Earth and with celestial bodies, and the invention of calculus...he tended to avoid publishing his results, however, which would later lead him into conflict with others claiming that they were the discoverers.  Gleick's biography is balanced between discussing Isaac Newton the person and the subject matter he tackled...you don't need to be a scientist or mathematician to appreciate this well-thought-out book.  I happened to check it out from my library using the Libby app...so can you if you're registered with a participating public library.  I haven't read too many biographies of late, although when I was a kid in elementary school, I must have read every single book in the children's biography series my school's library carried...and that was a lot!  I think that may have been one of the main catalysts in my lifelong interest in history.  One thing I appreciate about Isaac Newton is that he, like myself, tended to do better in seclusion than when stuck surrounded by a lot of people with their agendas, egos and tribalism.  Newton was an individualist who wasn't averse to arguing vehemently over his beliefs, and could be pretty hard on others, as when after assuming the role of standardizing Britain's currency he supported capital punishment for convicted counterfeiters.  Gleick also examined Newton's religious beliefs, including his privately held rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  You can't read this book without coming away with a greater appreciate of this giant of science as well as learning a few things about that science...and the different schools of thought about it in Newton's era...