That Changes Everything - Reinventing yourself and the universe
I walk with my daughter, Alana, to school each morning. It's no more than a ten minute walk, but it's a moment in the day that is our's and our's alone, and sets me up nicely for my working day. We often have earnest conversations about nothing; perhaps speculating how a snail came to be crushed on the pavement.
Today, I had had the radio on while we had breakfast and did the morning chores. BBC Radio 4 led the news with an item about physics and the speed of light. Along with SIR David Attenborough and DOCTOR Alice Roberts, PROFESSOR Brian Cox is one of Alana's heroes (and titles are important to Alana). So, as we walked, I told her that scientists at CERN - she knows CERN because Professor Brian Cox works there - had sent particles from Geneva to a lab in Italy at what appears to be faster than the speed of light.
"Re-ally?" She asked, heavily emphasising the RE.
"Yes". Now Alana has an enthusiasm for science and archeology that seems genuine, bordering on the fanatic. At the moment becoming an archeologist is her ambition (unless Sir David Attenborough were to offer a traineeship to take up his mantle). So I continued "Yes, and if they are right, it could mean that what is understood about the universe might have to be reconsidered. The next twenty years could be very exciting times in physics and science."
"That changes everything," she declared. "I'm going to have to completely reconsider what I do with my life!"
Oh, Alana is eight years old.
