CLICK ON ANY LABEL BELOW TO JUMP TO THAT TOPIC FROM HERE.
1. Scientific Theories and Laws
2. The First Decade (1936-1946)
4. The Second Decade (1946-1956)
6. The Third Decade (1956-1966)
8. The Fourth Decade (1966-1976)
10. The Fifth Decade (1976-1986)
12. The Sixth Decade (1986-1996)
14. The Seventh Decade (1996-2006)
15. The Theory of More than Everything
16. The Eighth Decade (2006-2016)
18. The Ninth Decade (2016-2026)
Appendix A Paintings
Appendix B Caps and Bunnies
Appendix C Musical Compositions
Appendix E A Googolplex Universe
Appendix F Acknowledgements
Chapter 0-Page 0
The orbit of Mercury around the sun didn't match Newton's formulas as well as Einstein's. So even a law is not sacred, and more accurate tests may force us to change it.
Here are a couple of real-life examples of my scientific approach when I was little.
Humans always like to explain things they notice. At the age of four, and already being a human, I noticed something. I felt air hitting me whenever I went out of our farmhouse on a windy day in Iowa. What made the air move? The trees were bending and twisting every time the wind blew. Aha! I'd discovered a theory: When the trees start moving, they push the air around.
I tested this theory for a few days noticing the pattern between trees and wind. The more the trees waved, the stronger the wind. The theory was so dependable that I declared it my first law of nature. It's still a pretty good one. Look out your window tomorrow morning. If the trees are waving around, you can predict they've started up a wind. Step outside if you don't believe me.
Another time, we were at my grandparents' farm when a storm came up. Before it got very close, we ended up in the basement. You have to understand one thing: Farm families around there were scared to death of tornadoes.
Appendix A: 22 Cause and Effect.
If a dark cloud appeared on the horizon, the family dove for the basement (with dignity, of course). Where I grew up, the horizon was so far away we always got to the basement in plenty of time. I don't remember ever seeing a storm from the surface of the planet we called Iowa in those early years.
Safe in the basement, I wondered what was happening outside in the storm. I heard loud booming and saw bright flashes, but the windows were too small and too high to see much, especially for a three-foot human. The trees waved around dramatically, so based on my first law, I figured they messed up the clouds which usually just floated around and looked pretty. It was time for a new theory:
Chapter 0-Page 0
