Nuclear Physics

Poetry | Force

Vernon Kerr

Force

© 2016 Vernon Miles Kerr

 

Forces are nothing.

All of them are nothing:

The strong nuclear, the weak nuclear, the electromagnetic,

Even gravity.

We can describe their effects but not their causes.

 

We can write voluminous pages of equations

Which predict the effects

Ever more accurately,

And we are smug.

 

We can discern the forces,

We can name the forces,

We can predict the effects;

But we cannot describe the forces themselves,

Nor their origins.

They simply are.

 

This is the bottom line

Of our mortal existence.

This is our supreme limitation.

This belies and ridicules our smugness.

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