The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 3, T+ 50 -- October 2, 2018

Market. Wow, I'm in a great mood. Who would have expected? WTI holds and the overall market continues to surge. Major indices are up (Russell 2000 is still struggling). But, wow, the Dow! Irrelevant but everyone watches it. What's the S&P 500 doing? Trading sideways but still green.

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The Library Page

But this is why I'm in a great mood. Physics. Particle physics to be exact.

I don't understand a thing when it comes to quantum physics. I can't do the equations. I don't understand symmetry, much less super-symmetry. I forget Bell's Theorem. But the first step is knowing the language or the words, I would suppose. On the bike ride today, I could actually run through the "zoo": fermions and bosons; leptons and quarks; baryons and hadrons.

I wish there was a book that just went through "The Standard Model."

And then it appears I found it it. Atom Land by Jon Butterworth which I picked up a few days ago at the library is excellent -- I thought I might buy my own copy, but the "sailing" platform just doesn't work. But bits and pieces of the book are great.

But this looks like this might be a winner: Jeremy Bernstein's A Palette of Particles, c. 2013, Harvard College. Small, compact, and seems to get right to the point. We'll see.

Along the way, in my stack today:
The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality, Paul Halpern, c. 2017. The title is too long; should have been Quantum: Feynman and Wheeler.
Understanding The Great Gatsby, Dalton Gross and MaryJean Gross, c. 1998
So, four books.

I'm going on a cross-country road trip, wondering whether to take these four books with me. I never read as much as I want / plan when I take these cross-country trips but maybe ...

The Great Gatsby -- I know exactly the climax -- I'm curious if the authors agree. "Climax" is  not in the index. In the "Table of Contents"? Nope. It looks like the authors are putting the book in its historical context, not exactly what I was looking for. It's a timeless story and historical context is less important than the human dimension. Does anyone read Romeo and Juliet only after understanding the historical context? LOL. Of course not. Romeo and Juliet is timeless; no historical context needed.

Same with The Great Gatsby. Historical context completely unnecessary. A love story. The protagonist (?) learns two lessons. And those lessons are timeless. One lesson has to do with money. (Obvious.) The other lesson has to do with time (not obvious).

Enough for now.

The weather forecast says no rain, but the clouds are ominous; the humidity is very, very hight; and it smells like rain. And I'm on my bike, a long way from home. With several books in my backpack that is not particularly waterproof. What could possible go wrong?