Going back tens of millennia in human history to the Mesolithic days of our cave-dweller relatives in the Neander Valley of today’s Germany and also to the late Neolithic period in the mountainous valleys located in a territory shared by both France and Spain today, we find clear evidence of advanced human activity in the form of brilliantly colored cave wall paintings. These craggy displays of prehistoric animal scenes dating back in some cases to 30,000 to 40,000 years ago highlight the elusive quality of human beings, even under harsh and severe climatic conditions, to celebrate the beauty and bountiful nature found within their immediate environment. However, there is more to this observation than the paintings themselves. As hunter-gatherers, their livelihood depended on a constant exploration of the flora and fauna within their surroundings to ensure an adequate supply of proteins and nutrients for the survival of their community and, yet, some members of this group found time and energy enough to supply fellow creatures a spiritual outlet carved in the creative artwork on display. Maybe, this inner drive to create something new is an underlying characteristic of a human being?
In the mid-1950s, when I began to show some interest in mathematics, chemistry, and physics, Louis Pasteur, had, years before, already discovered the germ theory of disease. Also, Albert Einstein had fascinated the world with his Universal Theory of Relativity, which went way beyond E = mc2, and Erwin Schrödinger had been recognized worldwide for his wave quantum mechanical formulation of an elementary particle like a bound electron in a hydrogen-type atom.
What else needed to be discovered? Where would the son of a mill-rat from Lowell, who had been burdened with four jobs – 55 to 60 hours of work per week – possibly fit into this wider world of scientific discovery? How do you get started when you are still living the daily life of a third-generation, French- Canadian immigrant, who is bathed in the customs, attitudes, beliefs, and convictions from the early 18th century? That was the challenge facing me.
Some Tiny Steps to Understand the World Around Us
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