An Open Mind, 069

These words, first written in English in 1835, and claimed to date from the time of Abraham (almost 2000 years BC) seem especially relevant to someone who grew up in the western United States in the 1960’s. Star Trek and its offshoots became a favorite television show and movie genre. Growing up in the age of Sputnik, this is probably pretty natural. As a specific example, one year at the annual 4th of July party at Ray Gardner's house we decided to make a multi-stage rocket. We had become pretty good at taking an open tin can, making an opening just large enough to stick in a firecracker, and putting the open side in a larger tin can with a little water in it. Then when the firecracker was set off, the energy of the explosion was all captured inside the can, and it would fly 20 or 30 feet up in the air. We decided to make a three stage rocket, and to seal the boundary between successively smaller cans with clay. We had three firecrackers sticking out of their little holes on three successively smaller cans stacked to make our rocket. We caught a cricket and taped him to the top of the top module as our astronaut. We announced to our parents and their friends that we were going to set off a can rocket, and they all turned to watch us. Then Ray and I lit our matches, and as planned lit the bottom, then the middle, and finally the top firecrackers. The first stage of the rocket went off beautifully, and the rocket was maybe 20 feet in the air when the weight of the clay started rotating the remaining stages so the top last two stages were pointed right back at us. It was one of those moments one never forget, which seemed to last an eternity, watching an invention turn around and point right back down your throat, and recognizing you were going to get in real trouble if you came out of the experience alive. When the second and third stages went off, very close together, it sent the three cans heading straight for us. It was just like the early rocket experiments in the movie “October Sky.” Our cricket was squished to death by the force of the explosions, and our parents were so glad we weren't hurt we didn't get in too much trouble. After all we were just practicing what we learned at school. And just maybe these early science experiments laid groundwork for this book.

The geological perspective brings the concepts of time and space down to earth. It was only in 1801 that William Smith made the map that changed the world.^2.38 William Smith was born as the first son of the local blacksmith in the hamlet of Churchill in Oxfordshire on March 23, 1769.^2.39 The world he was born into was full of dogma, faith, and certainty about the relationship of man and God. Yet over his career, he discovered rocks with fossils, which he placed in historical order, and by means of the fossils in these rocks was able to predict and delineate their underground arrangement. William Smith’s intellectual passion, his need for recognition, and his desire for wealth and recognition conspired to motivate him to make the first proper geological map of England.^2.40 This map was a key contribution to development of the science of geology.

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