Daddy & Ethan

Mommy & Sarah

Eric L. Michelsen (I'm on the left), PhD, Physics 2010 UCSD


Ethan Quotes:
"Watch Nemo....  Five minutes"

Ethan: "What letter is that?"
Daddy: "It's an 'O'."
Ethan: "Is that like an ellipse?"

"I'm so tired, I don't think I could eat a whole elephant."

 

“Daddy, I’m going to do an experiment.  So if you hear a loud explosion, don’t be scared.”

 

While discussing shrinking things:

Daddy: That’s as small as we could make it.  You can’t have anything smaller than an atom.

Ethan:  You could have a quark!

 

“Hey, Dad.  I’ll bet you $20 I can burp Beethoven’s 9th symphony.”

Sarah Quotes:
"It's hard to ride a scooter in high heels."

Sarah: "Daddy, what are you going to be for Halloween?"
Daddy: "A sleep deprived physics student."
Sarah: "No, Daddy.  I said for Halloween."

"I wish the earth didn't spin.  Then I wouldn't have to go to bed."

"Daddy, why do super red giants explode?"

How big is... ?

This is a personal web page.  All information is the opinion of the owner, and NOT UCSD.                    Rev 5/17/2017

Eric’s Physics web page:        http://physics.ucsd.edu/~emichels/

Personal Amnesty Internation page:   http://physics.ucsd.edu/~emichels/ai.html

 

Listening is an act of love.

 

“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”  --Albert Einstein

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  --Albert Einstein

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”  --Albert Einstein

“Forgiveness is not given; it is earned.  And once earned, it cannot be withheld."

 

“Friends tell friends what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.”

 

“To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.”  --George Orwell

 

“Between grief and nothing, I would choose grief.” -- Wilbourne, in If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem, (aka The Wild Palms) by William Faulkner

“But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”  --Hermann Goering


Favorite book:     But Not the Hippopotamus, by Sandra Boynton.
         Runners up: A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon
                           Old Turtle and the Broken Truth, by Douglas Wood
Fun activity:         Jogging two miles at elevation 2788 m (9147 ft)

Mark MacPhail died in the service of his community, and of an individual being attacked.  That makes him a hero.  It was never our intention to neglect the memory of Officer MacPhail.  It was only the continual threat by the State to a man, against whom there was no significant evidence, that forced us to focus on averting yet another avoidable tragedy. 

 

How much greater would we, the electors of the State, all be, if we had been free to honor those who deserve honor, instead of fighting for justice on behalf of those who deserve justice?

 

 

 

Stop Violence Against Women


"You are not required to complete the task, yet you are not free to withdraw from it." (Talmud, Avot 2:21)

Why I Support Amnesty International

 

Hear my interview with Maureen Cavanaugh on KPBS (21:23):

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/apr/04/high-technology-advancing-cause-human-rights/

amnestyint

 

Petition the Justice Department to break up Microsoft.

  1. Faith is belief in the right things (including the virtues!).
  2. Hope is taking a positive future view, that good will prevail.
  3. Charity is concern for, and active helping of, others.
  4. Fortitude is never giving up.
  5. Justice is being fair and equitable with others. 
  6. Prudence is care of and moderation with money.
  7. Temperance is moderation of needed things and abstinence from things which are not needed.

Why isn’t “tolerance” a virtue?

 

Why is the Sky Blues?

(with harmonica and staccato beat.)

 

Stat Mech got me moanin’

It’s as random as can be.

Quantum got me groanin’.

Too much uncertainty.

 

Springs and strings vibratin’

If you listen, you can here ‘em.

My head: it’s sure rotatin’

From the Wigner-Eckart theorem.

 

I'm stuck here in my cube,

Just a particle in a box.

I s’pose that makes me a rube

Pondering moving rods and clocks.

 

 

I’m sittin’ at my station

The walls are closin’ in.

This sudden approximation

Is itchin’ under ma skin!

 

I gots to feel the sun,

And see the skies a’ blue.

Watch the photons run;

Just magical, that hue.

 

It’s time to end this quarter,

And run outside and play!

‘Cause scattering’s a fourth order

Function of k.

 

 

Thieves


In perfect stealth
            They freely move.
Known to all,
            Though none can prove.
 
Who knows what use
            Their bounty sees ?
Paid in Time
            By victim's fees.
 
They know its worth,
            And seize the best,
Tossing, broken,
            All the rest.

 

 

 
To them it's solid,
            Deftly snatched.
To mortals, formless,
            Torn, and patched.
 
Seek to hold it,
            Make it last.
The more you cling,
            The more flies past.
 
No force of brute,
            Nor poet's rhyme,
Can stop the plund'ring
            Thieves of Time.

 

Hallelujah

 

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

 

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

 

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

 

            -- Leonard Cohen

 

Sirens

 

Where the cold wind blows

And icy rain falls,

Over roads no one knows,

I follow distant calls.

 

Where I'm from, I don't remember,

Where I'm bound, the calls will say,

While a fire's dying ember

Is my warmth for the day.

 

Amid sirens' soft inflection,

I have cursed, and I have wept.

For though I tread in their direction,

They recede with every step.

 

 

My fingers channel gentle rain.

My clothes can't turn the cold,

Though blessed numbness chills the pain

That reaches to my soul.

 

For eons on, I've trudged the hills

To find the voices' source.

Driven by relentless wills,

While shackled in remorse.

 

The skies foretell the winter's birth.

The leaves embrace my fall.

But sleep is short with frozen earth,

And din of sirens' call.

 

 

Lies

 

From wrenching sorrow in the heart

Does wishful thinking ever start.

The tallest tale so oft is told:

That Time will heal the wounds of old.

 

 

The hemorrhage staunched before too long;

The scar is knit, though ugly, strong.

And though the halves together keep,

From the rift, still, red does weep.

 

Now Time has come and Time has gone;

The time is past for holding on.

But Time alone, and in the end,

Doth not a broken heart amend.

 

 

 

 

Weep for Jamie

 

The other side of Jamie's door is aching loneliness.

One, two, three, four.

She dances with the ancient fears,

With porcelain smiles and wetless tears.

 

(Chorus)

Weep for Jamie,

For the bones that tear at her flesh inside.

Weep for Jamie,

She lives in the land where her father died.

 

Don't try to answer her helpless call.
She can't hear your words she feels nothing at all.
With no tomorrow promised by today,
She's the child of emptiness and yesterday.

(Chorus)

I'll sing you one of a song without an end.
I'll sing you two of a tree that cannot bend.

I'll sing you three of a womb never filled,

And the fourth deepest wound, and the love that it killed.

 

(Chorus)

 

Let there be peace on earth,

And let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on earth,

The peace that was meant to be.

All one with creation,

Family all are we.

Let me walk with my family

In perfect harmony.

 

Let peace begin with me,

Let this be the moment now.

With every step I take,

Let this be my solemn vow:

To take each moment

And live each moment

In peace eternally.

Let there be peace on earth,

And let it begin with me.