(14) ...Well, How About Stunning Another Waiting World?

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My next idea was to call the physics department at the college I had attended.

Again, I was treated with much politeness, even friendliness. Then after a bit of checking on various points, the individual I had been I referred to told me rather apologetically that "nobody around here knows much of anything about light and color." (This was from an institution whose physics department is usually regarded as being in the forefront of the advancement of human knowledge.)

But eventually I realized that light and color are hardly "hot" or "glamor" issues in the world of contemporary physicists. If everything is presumed to have been more or less figured out and settled centuries ago, who would bother to specialize in such an area?

I was grateful to at least be referred to somebody who was said to have a better knowledge of the field--a professor at a far less prestigious college, but nonetheless the author of a detailed and widely used textbook on the subject.

This individual, too, treated me very considerately. Unfortunately, the gist of his response to my letter and write-up was "Thank you for your interesting idea. Here is how the rest of us view this matter." He then very kindly pointed me to the specific pages of his text where the conventional explanation was laid out

I found the book in the library and looked up the passages in question. It was exactly the same stuff that had seemed like such nonsense to me in the first place--and exactly what I believed I had found a refutation to.

What in the world could I do now?

© COPYRIGHT 1993 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.