The graphic novel Feynman recently got me more interested in the life and work of Richard Feynman, who was very cool. I was pleasantly surprised today when, by chance, I came across an article that referenced Feynman and shared a thought-provoking story:

We all tell stories. That's how we share. That's how we remember. Storytelling is what humans do. It's part of our nature — but natures, I've noticed, differ. I am not a scientist. I don't have a mind for what they do, which is to stick, doggedly, to hard facts, keeping emotion out of the room. It's a discipline for them, a way of being, that makes them, well, scientists.

For example, I'm thinking about the great American physicist, Richard Feynman, sitting in New Mexico, at the bed of his dying wife. He'd been called, and told that she had only hours to live; he'd hitchhiked from Los Alamos, where he was working on the top secret atomic bomb project. It was 1945.

He walks to her bedside, kisses her; she is breathing shallow breaths. We are still at war and six weeks later, America will explode its first atomic bomb. He stands there, sits there, watches her, kisses her, and very quietly, the Hodgkin's disease that had attacked her young body takes her. She was in her 20s, he was 27. They'd been married only two years. The nurse records the time of death: 9:21 p.m. He is empty with loss. What few things she had, he packs up; he arranges for a cremation, walks back into her room and sees that the clock had strangely stopped ticking. The hands are frozen at 9:21, the very moment of her death.

I know how this story would feel to me. It would be as though the universe had somehow noticed what had happened, that some invisible hand slipped into my world and pointed, as if to say, "We know. This is part of the plan."

So many of us, I think, would have this sense. Lawrence Krauss, in his new biography of Feynman, Quantum Man, says, "We seem to be hard-wired to find that what happens to each of us naturally appears to take on a special significance and meaning, even if it's an accident." But Feynman, he says, was unable to think that way. He couldn't and he wouldn't.

What he did was, he remembered that the clock had been fragile. He had been asked to fuss with it; he'd fixed it several times. In his memoirs (that is, in his version of this story), he says the nurse must have picked up the clock to determine the time of death, unsettled the workings inside, and the clock stopped. No miracle. Just an ordinary, accidental jostle. Here he is, describing a moment of enormous significance, and he won't allow a Signifier.

I couldn't do that. I would want to, almost need to, imagine a higher audience for a moment like that.

And maybe that's a difference between scientists and those of us who make our living in the storytelling game. Scientists thrill at the testimony of hard facts. We (or should I say "I") want to add a dash of warm color to the cold blacks and whites. I don't want to make things up, exactly. I just want to imagine that the things that happen to me just might have — and deserve — the attention of the universe.

Full story, including mor...ter, here.

What do you think? Are you someone who assigns value to things that probably have a more reasonable scientific explanation? The stopped clock story is sad, to be sure, but for some reason it makes me happy that Feynman said there was a rational explanation behind it.

That said, I assign meanings, sometimes boldly irrational meanings, to certain events. I don't do it all the time, and I usally keep it to myself, but it makes a certain kind of "sense" to me. I can completely understand why a different person definitely would have seen a meaning behind the stopped clock.

[Edited 9/6/11 11:59am]

Efan said:

I assign meanings, sometimes to certain events. I don't do it all the time, and I usally keep it to myself, but it makes a certain kind of "sense" to me. I can completely understand why a different person definitely would have seen a meaning behind the stopped clock.

Interesting ~ I will be doing a Signs N Omens workshop near the end of the month ...

This article will be good reading material for a short discussion during

Thanx for sharing !

Machaela said:

Interesting ~ I will be doing a Signs N Omens workshop near the end of the month ...

This article will be good reading material for a short discussion during

Thanx for sharing !

Cool! That sounds like a great workshop.

There's a certain object--admittedly, it's a very common object--that I associate with my late brother. When it pops up in my life, I always feel like he's around, or it sometimes makes me think he's weighing in on whatever I might be thinking about at the time. Or sometimes I think of it as just a "hello." Last week, it happened three days in a row, and I was quite happy.

i'm not superstitious at all but i HATE when a clock stops. i always associate it with an impending death.. coincidence or not, whenever it happens i hear of a death within days. it's something that honestly freaks me out. in fact the clock in my lounge stopped last week, i don't like it one bit!

Efan said:

Machaela said:

Interesting ~ I will be doing a Signs N Omens workshop near the end of the month ...

This article will be good reading material for a short discussion during

Thanx for sharing !

Cool! That sounds like a great workshop.

There's a certain object--admittedly, it's a very common object--that I associate with my late brother. When it pops up in my life, I always feel like he's around, or it sometimes makes me think he's weighing in on whatever I might be thinking about at the time. Or sometimes I think of it as just a "hello." Last week, it happened three days in a row, and I was quite happy.

It's the last in a series ( Hillfolk Hoodoo )

There is this penny ... I am working with my Mom's energy

I can deff relate to your story about your brother !

i also assign personal meaning to what may be random events in my life. but, i know i have this tendency, and so i resist it, sometimes to my detriment.

i believe the universe is operating along the lines of a really, really huge pattern that we can't perceive and i am a part of that. this helps me feel important when i remember my lifespan is like that of a mayfly's and i will never, ever know the beginning and end of events.

XxAxX said:

i also assign personal meaning to what may be random events in my life. but, i know i have this tendency, and so i resist it, sometimes to my detriment.

i believe the universe is operating along the lines of a really, really huge pattern that we can't perceive and i am a part of that. this helps me feel important when i remember my lifespan is like that of a mayfly's and i will never, ever know the beginning and end of events.

I like your response a lot.

Machaela said:

Interesting ~ I will be doing a Signs N Omens workshop near the end of the month ...

This article will be good reading material for a short discussion during

Thanx for sharing !

That sounds amazing.

I assign significance to certain things, definitely.

I believe that I am the one assigning the significance, not fate or god, but it does not make them any less meaningful to me

Efan said:

What do you think? Are you someone who assigns value to things that probably have a more reasonable scientific explanation? The stopped clock story is sad, to be sure, but for some reason it makes me happy that Feynman said there was a rational explanation behind it.

That said, I assign meanings, sometimes boldly irrational meanings, to certain events. I don't do it all the time, and I usally keep it to myself, but it makes a certain kind of "sense" to me. I can completely understand why a different person definitely would have seen a meaning behind the stopped clock.

I definitely assign meanings to certain events.

I don't believe in wild coincidences.

The stopped clock - while not as mysterious as originally considered - still has a deep significance. So what if his tinkering possibly led to it shutting down after being jostled? It still ceased to function at the moment when his wife's body ceased to function. I would never part with that clock, nor try to fix it.

Efan said:

XxAxX said:

i also assign personal meaning to what may be random events in my life. but, i know i have this tendency, and so i resist it, sometimes to my detriment.

i believe the universe is operating along the lines of a really, really huge pattern that we can't perceive and i am a part of that. this helps me feel important when i remember my lifespan is like that of a mayfly's and i will never, ever know the beginning and end of events.

I like your response a lot.

i'd really like to believe in synchronicity as the universe's way of letting us catch a glimpse of the big picture.

PurpleJedi said:

Machaela said:

Interesting ~ I will be doing a Signs N Omens workshop near the end of the month ...

This article will be good reading material for a short discussion during

Thanx for sharing !

That sounds amazing.

The whole series has been fantastic

"gaging noel" involves literally stopping time as a means of preventing death.