Sumadastron on the Particles

 

Sumadastron on the Particles:

CANTO THE NINTH

 

Hark! Hark! A mote of spark!

It, with cousins two, can feel

the lightning, lodestone, light and dark;

          its orbits, all we call what’s real.

 

So weak a mote, devoid of spark;

With cousins two, it cannot feel;

not light nor strength; nor leave a mark

at swiftest speed through air and steel.

 

The eightfold way is now defined

by these six motes for Muster Mark;

          To twos and threes they are confined

by colored glue too strong to part.

 

A lightning-lodestone mote of act

at swiftest speed goes far and free;

with shocking optic vim it’s packed

to bind, to break, to fly, to see.

 

Behold these motes’ alchemic plight;

Be wise to why their powers peak;

They would have had the might of light

But they have weight, and so they’re weak.

 

To blue, to red, to green, to blue

these colored motes will bind so tight

to twos and threes by mighty glue

and wash them out to neutral white.

 

O slowness mote, you came so late!

At last you meet our theory’s need,

by giving chosen motes their weight,

to slow them down from swiftest speed.

 

Where have you hid, O mote of weight?

Our theory still is incomplete.

To deeper truth you are the gate

where motes and curvy space shall meet.

 

Where have you hid, O motes of night?

What might your shady secret be?

Are you a mote of lodestone’d light?

Or proof of superb symmetry?

 

For every single mote of note

there is a mirror twin;

a backwards, pastwards, inverse mote;

the two add up to din.

 

Canto 9, Comments

 

C9, Q1:

Brother Quark:

Portrait of the Seraphim, holiest of angels.

Hellerstein:

This is about electrons.

 

C9, Q2:

Brother Quark:

Portrait of ghosts.

Hellerstein:

This is about neutrinos.

 

C9, Q3:

Brother Quark:

Portrait of the holy Trinity.

Hellerstein:

This is about quarks.

 

C9, Q4:

Brother Quark:

This is an angelic messenger.

Hellerstein:

Portrait of the photon.

 

C9, Q5:

Brother Quark:

These angels fell by the sin of Gluttony.

Hellerstein:

This is about the W and Z bosons, which mediate the weak force.

 

C9, Q6:

Brother Quark:

These are Cherubim, attendant upon the Throne of God.

Hellerstein:

These are gluons, which bind mesons and baryons.

 

 

 

C9, Q7:

Brother Quark:

Portrait of Sloth.

Hellerstein:

This is about the Higgs boson.

 

C9, Q8:

Brother Quark:

This is a prayer for the second coming of Christ.

Hellerstein:

Portrait of the graviton.

 

C9, Q9:

Brother Quark:

Portrait of the hidden Elvish folk.

Hellerstein:

This is about dark matter particles: axion, supersymmetrical.

 

C9, Q10:

Brother Quark:

The mystic preaches that for every angel there is a devil.

Hellerstein:

This is about antiparticles.