The Pursuit of Dreams

In the midst of an eventful week, dominated by news of events in Pakistan, the results of a remarkable science experiment were released. The findings, the product of an amazing experiment, 52 years in the making, confirm the validity of two key elements of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

No, this week's blog is not about the nature of revenge, the manner in which to react to the death of an adversary, or the contributions of mothers. (Happy Mother's Day, Mom!) No politics this week. Instead, we'll consider something more ethereal: The pursuit of dreams.

But before we do, a little context. In 1916, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, which described how light, gravity, space and time are governed by the movement of planets and the universe. Since then, scientists have attempted to evaluate the many applications of his theory. One aspect of relativity theory states that the revolving mass of something large like, say, Earth, imperceptibly bends and twists the very fabric of space and time in two ways. Earth distorts space-time much like a heavy person sitting on a couch. And, as the Earth revolves, it literally drags space-time around with it. (The grid in the illustration represents space-time.)

Hard to get your head around that? Too Star Trek for you? Try this: Think of an apple on a stick. Put it in a bowl of caramel and the shape of the caramel changes. Then, as you turn the apple, the caramel begins to turn too. The longer you turn the apple, more of the caramel comes along for the ride, so to speak. Now, replace the apple with Earth and the caramel with space-time and you're there. In a stickier and sweeter universe.

(One of the most complex aspects in all of astrophysics equated with an apple being dipped and rotated in caramel. That's what we do here at The Job of Work: Make the most difficult concepts approachable. Delicious, even. It's just our way of giving back.)

To test this wild notion (who was Einstein anyway and what was he smoking?), scientists were required to create breakthrough ideas and overcome technological challenges at nearly every turn along the 52-year path of this work. The researchers -- Leonard Schiff, William Fairbank and Robert Cannon of Stanford University -- elected to use four incredibly exacting gyroscopes to measure how the Earth's mass distorts space-time and pulls at objectives orbiting the planet (the 'dragging' part). At the core of the research was a set of spinning crystal balls -- part of the most precise gyroscopes ever made. One million times more sensitive than any others at the time, each one was a super-chilled orb of quartz crystal the size of a ping-pong ball polished to within 40 atomic layers of a perfect sphere. (Don't try that at home, kids.) The Guinness Book of World Records cites them as the most perfectly round objects ever made. Yes, even more round than a baseball.

Once put in orbit, the gyroscopes were first aligned perfectly with a distant 'guide' star in the constellation Pegasus. If Einstein's theory was correct, the spinning gyroscopes would tilt and wobble ever so slightly as they were dragged by the vortex of space-time stirred by Earth.

You with me so far? Good. My faith in you remains unbounded.

So, what did they find? After 52 years, budget fights, seven federal investigations, launch delays, engineering failures, and solar flares on the guide star, the researchers found that the Earth, all of its 24,900-mile circumference, indeed distorts and drags space-time. By 1.1 inches. An absolutely remarkable outcome, when it's space and time we're talking about being distorted and dragged. Einstein was proven correct and three researchers, who spent the better part of their lives in pursuit of truth, could finally rest knowing that they had done something others could only dream of doing -- and one rather important person actually thought to be impossible.

And therein lies a wonderful teaching moment. What began 52 years ago -- and experienced more twists and turns than space-time itself -- ended this past week in success. Talk about persistence and ingenuity. Talk about passion, about the drive to realize a dream. And the person who thought it was impossible to assess? Einstein himself. In 1953, Einstein, shown here at Cal Tech in Pasadena, wrote that the magnitude of the distortion and dragging was so small as to render the concept "impossible to measure". He got the theory right -- we'll give him credit for that -- but was wrong about the ability to measure the effect. Three scientists from Stanford proved that nothing is impossible -- even the measurement of Earth's impact on space-time.

Sufficient passion fuels determination which drives breakthrough thinking which, in turn, can result in the overcoming of the most impossible of odds. Even by Einstein's standards.

What this means, of course, is that you can, indeed, do it. Whatever it is, whatever you're dreaming of, you can do it. If you're passionate enough -- and you have a dream to pursue -- you can do it. Tell us we're wrong.

Way to go, Albert. Very nicely done, Leonard, William and Robert. May you serve as an inspiration to us all.

One last thing before you go: A huge shout-out to our favorite horn player, Mic Gillette (shown here with his lovely daughter, Megan), who turned 60 over the weekend. Keep blowin', Mic. Loud.

Now go find that caramel apple. You know you want one.

See you next week for our 100th edition of TJOW.