Peter Mitchell spent fifteen years being told that the cell keeps its energy in a molecule. It keeps it as a difference across a wall, and a neuron speaks by spending the same kind of difference.
I am a pensioner who suffers from pulsating tinnitus (not so much suffering as awareness). Each night I lay my head down on a pillow and listen to a pulse behind my ear. The electrical charge, release and re-charge of my heart and respiration system. The only rest is the short gap between changes, where for a fraction of a second, there is silence.
Everything is nicely balanced and reliable. No chaos, yet. Sounds a bit like the mill metaphor wherein the mill is turned by water returning downhill. My heart being something like the dam and the grinding mill stone. A human system.
Now to the pensioner side of my existence. Here, again, is a human system. For forty years I toiled to fill my pension reservoir with potential financial energy. All the little positive charges I provided over the years accumulated. Then came retirement, my creditors and a relentless drain on my reservoir (bank account), all the negative charges. I can still fill the reservoir, but at a reduced rate, as the negative draw sometimes exceeds the positive refills. We all know where this ultimately leads. Pump failure, disassembly and chaos.
I guess my point here (if I have one) is: the tiny, intricate machinery within the living, human body is replicated by human beings to fit the macro world their bodies live in. God creates, humans replicate.
And as to Peter Mitchell, it sounds as though civilization was eating him up from the inside. His cure was to use his hands to build something beautiful, calming and peaceful, like the flow of water through a water wheel.
It's mind boggling how guys like Mitchell can stay focussed for so many years on unravelling the mystery behind such a tiny detail. Many might respond, "So what?", but as George's comment illustrates, what Mitchell discovered highlights a universal principle that operates at every level, from the microscopic to the galactic, and includes the in-between level of practical daily life.
Somewhere in Mitchell's research and findings lies a key to successful living. It's difficult to articulate, but it can be felt.
My take on it is that everything is simply Form and Flow. Each form is a temporary disruption, an imbalance in the stuff of Reality, which we mostly experience as Matter. Flow is the natural tendency to restore balance, which we mostly experience as Energy.
So, to produce (form) something we want to have in our life, we need to create a disruption into which the form of that thing will naturally flow, and maintain that disruption.
Imagination and desire are the beginning of that disruption. But it stops there unless we follow through with sustained action, which draws in the Flow to shape the desired Form.
In the case of Mitchell, he bravely sustained his "disruption" for many years, despite seemingly overwhelming opposition, and finally established a truth. I take my hat off to the amazing guys who can do that.
There's only space for a few crumbs in this comment, but I hope it's enough to give a taste of the whole loaf.
I am a pensioner who suffers from pulsating tinnitus (not so much suffering as awareness). Each night I lay my head down on a pillow and listen to a pulse behind my ear. The electrical charge, release and re-charge of my heart and respiration system. The only rest is the short gap between changes, where for a fraction of a second, there is silence.
Everything is nicely balanced and reliable. No chaos, yet. Sounds a bit like the mill metaphor wherein the mill is turned by water returning downhill. My heart being something like the dam and the grinding mill stone. A human system.
Now to the pensioner side of my existence. Here, again, is a human system. For forty years I toiled to fill my pension reservoir with potential financial energy. All the little positive charges I provided over the years accumulated. Then came retirement, my creditors and a relentless drain on my reservoir (bank account), all the negative charges. I can still fill the reservoir, but at a reduced rate, as the negative draw sometimes exceeds the positive refills. We all know where this ultimately leads. Pump failure, disassembly and chaos.
I guess my point here (if I have one) is: the tiny, intricate machinery within the living, human body is replicated by human beings to fit the macro world their bodies live in. God creates, humans replicate.
And as to Peter Mitchell, it sounds as though civilization was eating him up from the inside. His cure was to use his hands to build something beautiful, calming and peaceful, like the flow of water through a water wheel.
Nice piece of writing if I don’t mind saying so myself.
It's mind boggling how guys like Mitchell can stay focussed for so many years on unravelling the mystery behind such a tiny detail. Many might respond, "So what?", but as George's comment illustrates, what Mitchell discovered highlights a universal principle that operates at every level, from the microscopic to the galactic, and includes the in-between level of practical daily life.
Somewhere in Mitchell's research and findings lies a key to successful living. It's difficult to articulate, but it can be felt.
My take on it is that everything is simply Form and Flow. Each form is a temporary disruption, an imbalance in the stuff of Reality, which we mostly experience as Matter. Flow is the natural tendency to restore balance, which we mostly experience as Energy.
So, to produce (form) something we want to have in our life, we need to create a disruption into which the form of that thing will naturally flow, and maintain that disruption.
Imagination and desire are the beginning of that disruption. But it stops there unless we follow through with sustained action, which draws in the Flow to shape the desired Form.
In the case of Mitchell, he bravely sustained his "disruption" for many years, despite seemingly overwhelming opposition, and finally established a truth. I take my hat off to the amazing guys who can do that.
There's only space for a few crumbs in this comment, but I hope it's enough to give a taste of the whole loaf.