Zwicky

Zwicky, I understand. Bitter, funny. One night with the slit of the telescope open like the eye of a salamander he could not get a signal. The earthing was wrong; there was noise in the system so he got his assistant to fetch a gun and ordered him to fire through the open eye. Why not!
       A radical conservative. Others were stranger still. Alfven discovered magnetic rays that stretch like elastic bands over the poles. They stretch until they snap with violence. No one believed him but it has since been proven that photons ride those waves at the speed of light and sometimes a little more.
       Imagine the joy of holding on for dear life before the final collision with oxygen and nitrogen as they’re thrown into the swirling dark; red and green surf where the waves crash and foam.
       When Zwicky got his assistant to fire a gun through that slit of the salamander eye perhaps he wanted to break one of those waves that had yet to be discovered. It didn’t work but I understand him. A radical conservative. Magic without magic. Bitter and funny.
       His favourite insult was to call someone he didn’t like a spherical bastard because he’s a bastard no matter which way you look at him.

Laurence O’Dwyer | Little Skier / Eternal Life
Contents | Mudlark No. 79 (2024)