Sidney was a big picture guy. I wrote this in March of 2005 not long after the Sidneyfest. I wasn’t sure if it was good enough to publish. I wasn’t at all close to Sidney so I don’t know if a lesson applies. If you are close to someone, the lesson is simple, but comes in two parts;

1. Shower the people you love with love. - Sweet Baby James

2. Do it while you can. - the guy who makes windows

In theory, some things could have been said better, but not by me(3/18/05). As for “Où allons-nous?“ The incompleteness or incompletability of theoretical physics doesn’t matter. The incompleteness of political economic theory does. Economic engineers, mistakenly called ‘policy makers’, have gone to treacherous lengths to conceal this. Their willingness to use any weapon, whether “smart” or merely brutal, is leading us to rack and ruin. Despite some gestures otherwise, we’re still “staying the course.” The gestures were just head fakes.

I’m a day late and more than a dollar short celebrating Black History Month. I started this project in February 2005 and it’s still not done. The page became an orphan [no inbound links] when I added pages. It was the beginning of the Iraq Veterans against the War tour and in April there was the Desiree Goodwin vs. Harvard trial. I was essentially trying to blog with bare html. It gives you a lot of freedom, but you have to keep track of everything yourself. If you get distracted - orphan pages. Three essays, High Cotton, Phd from the Edge of Hell , and Peeking Across the Color Line, are still unfinished. [Constructive comments might help me finish them.] I’ve spent a good part of my adult life on the back of the bus. I’ve learned from the people I’ve met there.

Half way through Physics 253, Quantum Field Theory, after introducing vacuum diagrams Sidney would observe:

In Classical Mechanics, you can only solve the two-body problem exactly. The rest is approximation. In General Relativity, you can only solve the one-body problem exactly. The rest is approximation. In Quantum Field Theory you can’t even solve the no-body problem exactly. This is progress?

I don’t know when he started telling this story. Probably before String Theory had its Cambrian explosion of vacua. I think I heard him ad lib on this point, but I never heard it worked into his routine. Maybe somebody else did?

Sidney used to tell a J250¹ full of students, “I remember which student taught me that!” The real thing. I saw it again thursday. I had seen a hint before.

¹An old J250 full of students.