Nobel Laureates for 2011

I love keeping an eye on our Nobel Laureates. What are we doing for the betterment of Mankind. What genius is being discovered? What inspiration has taken hold? I don't speak the deep languages of the scientists, but I see an essence in their work that is mirrored in every day experiences because be it a molecule or deep space, we are talking about measuring distances, looking at light, discovering patterns. Their genius has to be brought down to a level a human can grasp, and so they use human tools, a microscope, a telescope, and for the poet the heart and a sense of sight unparalleled. Not that I am biased or anything.

Let's celebrate these few, for the qualities we all have access to.

Tomas Tranströmer is a poet. His day job was psychology. (I am instantly brought to tears upon hearing this.) Seamus Heaney said, "Maybe it is becasue he's a poet that he makes a good psychologist. Both deal with the fleeting moment." I believe psychology and poetry are two windows looking out on the same park, but from a different floor. Psychology can speak to the wet gravel from the rain the night before. And from above the mountain sloping, ocean, and fog are blended into a single horizon, and you can see the oneness of all that is so seemingly unique. Both speak to and about the human experience for the purpose of soothing the soul, resonating with the heart, and sparking a passion.

Seamus also talked about visiting Tomas after the his stroke. Tomas couldn't speak, but he played the piano, and through this the same transcendant quality in his poetry came through. He was in a trance with the music. There were notes, silences, and Tomas and in the room something was transmitted. (Beautiful Presence.)

As for Dan Shechtman the chemist who discovered (at the age of 42) five sided molecules in crystals, my favorite quote (on the KCSM program) was when he said with excitement and daring,"I found a material that had a forbidden symmetry."

Living in Isreal, they quickly panned the Islamic tile work that uses 5 sided patterns profusely. Sometimes, I think life imitates art, and those living closest to the art are quickest to see it made manifest in life. (Did you hear about the South American family that believed in a magic lake with mermaids, and then the woman who have birth to a daughter with fused legs that looked like a mermaid tail? Or the Indian family who birthed a child with two arms on each side of her body, like so many of their goddesses?)

"Discovery consists or seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." -Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Nobel Laureate in Medicine 1937.