a late note from a disoriented traveler

On my flight to the desert (see post below signaling the great journey) I met a prof of physics. He was extraordinarily good about explaining the laws of the universe to me. By 'universe' I mean everything you could imagine (for example he explained why it is bad for chidren to read Harry Potter, and why the kid behind me was crying so hard), rather than a universe of the black infinity that is beyond imagining. Recognizing his gift of explaining, I decided to ask a question which has always bothered me about the sciences: why is physics so difficult to comprehend?

By the time we were almost landing in Denver (a necessary stop on the way to the desert) I understood that the world is really divided into those who think like physicists, and those who do not. My seat mate teaches the 'physics for poets' class at UW and so he tells me that he works with a roomfull of students who cannot cross that great divide. They cannot make themselves think like physicists.

The reason I found this prof's explanation so interesting is that it filled the two hour flight in a congenial way, and, more importantly it sounded so very familiar. We, at the law school, offer the same incantation. The world is divided into two groups: those who think like lawyers, and those who do not. Not having the luxury of teaching "law for poets," and knowing that we have three years before we have to let loose the next batch of so-called lawyers, we take our job of teaching them to think like lawyers quite seriously.

I am not sure I could ever explain what the physics prof told me about a physics mindset. It was supremely complicated. And truthfully, I, like his class, never really managed to cross the great divide: I never fully comprehended the world of physics. But flying in the clear starry night, somewhere over Iowa or Kansas, it was fitting that we should be talking physics, possibly the only time in my entire life, in a knowledgeable sort of way.