Abstruse Goose: The Sum of All Knowledge
By Ann Finkbeiner | June 23, 2010 | 3 Comments
Pay attention to the quote below the drawing. John Archibald Wheeler was a physicist whose specialities were nuclear physics, gravitation — he created the term, “black hole” — and getting people riled up. He died in 2008 at age 96.
I mean, when Victor Hugo writes that science says the last word on nothing, his sentence is beautiful; but then, he was a writer, and besides, what would he know? When John Archibald Wheeler says it, you can take his word for it
Category: Abstruse Goose, Art, Physics
Tags: abstruse goose > ignorance > J.A. Wheeler > knowledge > V. Hugo
Tags: abstruse goose > ignorance > J.A. Wheeler > knowledge > V. Hugo
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3 Responses to “Abstruse Goose: The Sum of All Knowledge”
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June 23rd, 2010 @ 11:58 am
The map makes me think of the book “Phantom Tollbooth” by norton juster. Milo, the main character, goes to and land surrounded by the sea of knowledge, with the mountains of Ignorance. Every year the kingdom of knowledge gets bigger and the mountains of ignorance get smaller. It’s the opposite of Mr. Wheeler statement.
June 23rd, 2010 @ 12:06 pm
Hey Alex! I never read “Phantom Tollbooth,” but I understand it’s very good. I suspect the difference between it and Mr. Wheeler is the difference between what adults would like a young person to believe and what they know to be real life. You didn’t hear that from me.
November 14th, 2011 @ 9:34 am
[...] John Archibald Wheeler was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and then the H bomb, helped clarify the atom, made up the phrase “black hole,” wrote the textbook on gravitational physics, and happily went down the rabbit hole of the anthropic principle. As a physicist, he was part poet. He was friendly, gracious, and deeply unpredictable. Several years before he died at age 96, he said, “This is the most interesting world I’ve ever lived in.’ [...]