Part 2 Into Paper Walls
WHAT ARE MAGNETISM, GRAVITY, LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS?
After reading Bruno Maddox's article "Blinded by Science" in the May 2008 issue of the science magazine "Discover", I just can't resist writing down some ideas that flow on from Blinded by Science's article about the nature of magnetism. The beginning of this particular train of thought of mine could be said to lie with the deep fascination Albert Einstein felt when he was first shown a magnet as a child. Together with May 2008's Blinded by Science, this challenged me to find an acceptable answer to the question "What is Magnetism?" Naturally, I then started to ponder Einstein once more (this time in connection with his Theory of General Relativity and its statements about gravity). Einstein's theory never told us exactly what gravity is - and Isaac Newton, who discovered over 340 years ago that the same force which causes an apple to fall also keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth, didn't know what gravity was either. So once again I felt challenged, and I decided I'd try to find a plausible answer to the query "What is Gravity?" A few months after these events, I started reading Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". This latest incident prompted me to continue my "What is ..." questions (this time I wanted to know "What is the nature of Life and Consciousness?").
WHAT IS MAGNETISM?
If you read May’s Blinded by Science, you’ll notice that the rest of this paragraph borrows virtually every word from that article – I thought this would make a fun introduction to my ideas on "What is Magnetism?" Here are a few words from one of Mr. Maddox's fellow "Dummies" who no longer has a seat at the dinner table for science (so my words are purely mental exercise