The quantum world that underlies your macro-world operates on strangeness: Entanglement, wave function, duality, foam, etc. Among the strange entities of the subatomic world (I don’t know how else to define them) are the quarks, such as the up quarks and the down quarks, components of protons and neutrons. I say strange because even in the context of our experiencing quantum effects directly, as in electromagnetism, quarks have relationships that are more the aspects of what I call “true love.”
“Here we go,” you say, “this is going to be a one of those love homilies so common among the commoners. It’s going to be about an ‘ideal,’ and not about the ‘real.’ Everyone knows that no one can define true love for someone else. But, since I’m already here, go ahead, I’ll read on if only for my amusement. No one is really going to say something profound about love because it’s different for all.”
You have experienced the attraction and repulsion of magnets: The closer two magnets to each other, the stronger the force between them. Proximity is a control on the strength of the pull that makes two bar magnets into one larger bar magnet. Well, quarks seem to act differently.
Protons are combinations of three quarks: Two Up Quarks and one Down Quark. Neutrons are made of two Down Quarks and one Up Quark. No quarks seem to exist outside these nucleons. Anyway, here’s one of those strange effects: Unlike magnets, quarks seem to act more independently as they get closer and less so when they are farther apart. Think now. That’s the opposite of what magnets do, and from science classes through which you slept, you remember vaguely that that’s also opposite of what bodies do because gravity weakens with the square of the distance. With respect to the electromagnetic (also electroweak) and gravitational forces, proximity makes the bonder fonder.
Quarks become more independent when they are close. And this is where I introduce one of my usually strange analogies (Is “usually strange” an oxymoron?). True love is, I believe, quark-like.
I’m not one to favor co-dependency in a relationship. I believe in the “magnetism” of love, but I don’t think love should be magnetic. I don’t think that two lovers brought into close proximity should lose their independence; rather, I think the relationship should strengthen that independence, each lover supporting and enhancing the other’s special character. I’m one who thinks that love doesn’t equate to need.
The adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” applies. Like separated quarks, lovers experience an attraction born of distance. But in my model of love, lovers also act like quarks in close proximity. Love isn’t a matter of control. Love frees.
I know. You’re saying, “All that for an explanation of an old adage?”
Well, it occurred to me that love is very much like a nucleon. It is the framework within which lovers relate just as a nucleon is the framework for quarks. But all analogies limp, and this one also limps. Quarks come in groups of threes. And I’m not suggesting ménage à trois except in the case of a family, where the “third” quark is the offspring, for a child, too, can garner greater independence through a close relationship. A “household of three,” or one of any number, should foster independence through the force of love.
Oh! I know again what you’re thinking, “This guy forgets the other adage, ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ People whose jobs take them on the road probably have greater instances of infidelities. Nothing like a business conference to stimulate hormone production.”
Yeah. I thought of that, and you’re probably right in practice. Many spouses have found a new “quark” quite attractive in the nuclear confines of a conference far from home. But the adage and counter-adage combine to make a point about love as I see it: It’s one of the most contradictory of emotional experiences. It both ties and frees. I just happen to think that the tying and binding mimics quarks in the scenario of a “true love.”
So, look into the eyes of the one you love, and say, “I don’t need you; I love you.” Like quarks, the closer a lover is to the loved, the more each can go a separate way.
“Here we go,” you say, “this is going to be a one of those love homilies so common among the commoners. It’s going to be about an ‘ideal,’ and not about the ‘real.’ Everyone knows that no one can define true love for someone else. But, since I’m already here, go ahead, I’ll read on if only for my amusement. No one is really going to say something profound about love because it’s different for all.”
You have experienced the attraction and repulsion of magnets: The closer two magnets to each other, the stronger the force between them. Proximity is a control on the strength of the pull that makes two bar magnets into one larger bar magnet. Well, quarks seem to act differently.
Protons are combinations of three quarks: Two Up Quarks and one Down Quark. Neutrons are made of two Down Quarks and one Up Quark. No quarks seem to exist outside these nucleons. Anyway, here’s one of those strange effects: Unlike magnets, quarks seem to act more independently as they get closer and less so when they are farther apart. Think now. That’s the opposite of what magnets do, and from science classes through which you slept, you remember vaguely that that’s also opposite of what bodies do because gravity weakens with the square of the distance. With respect to the electromagnetic (also electroweak) and gravitational forces, proximity makes the bonder fonder.
Quarks become more independent when they are close. And this is where I introduce one of my usually strange analogies (Is “usually strange” an oxymoron?). True love is, I believe, quark-like.
I’m not one to favor co-dependency in a relationship. I believe in the “magnetism” of love, but I don’t think love should be magnetic. I don’t think that two lovers brought into close proximity should lose their independence; rather, I think the relationship should strengthen that independence, each lover supporting and enhancing the other’s special character. I’m one who thinks that love doesn’t equate to need.
The adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” applies. Like separated quarks, lovers experience an attraction born of distance. But in my model of love, lovers also act like quarks in close proximity. Love isn’t a matter of control. Love frees.
I know. You’re saying, “All that for an explanation of an old adage?”
Well, it occurred to me that love is very much like a nucleon. It is the framework within which lovers relate just as a nucleon is the framework for quarks. But all analogies limp, and this one also limps. Quarks come in groups of threes. And I’m not suggesting ménage à trois except in the case of a family, where the “third” quark is the offspring, for a child, too, can garner greater independence through a close relationship. A “household of three,” or one of any number, should foster independence through the force of love.
Oh! I know again what you’re thinking, “This guy forgets the other adage, ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ People whose jobs take them on the road probably have greater instances of infidelities. Nothing like a business conference to stimulate hormone production.”
Yeah. I thought of that, and you’re probably right in practice. Many spouses have found a new “quark” quite attractive in the nuclear confines of a conference far from home. But the adage and counter-adage combine to make a point about love as I see it: It’s one of the most contradictory of emotional experiences. It both ties and frees. I just happen to think that the tying and binding mimics quarks in the scenario of a “true love.”
So, look into the eyes of the one you love, and say, “I don’t need you; I love you.” Like quarks, the closer a lover is to the loved, the more each can go a separate way.
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