Youth talks and age listens

Age sat quietly and listened intently as youth explained the building blocks of life and what is “here?”

A view inside the Large
Hadron Collider.

A journey that began as a different way to take a “gap year”, hesitated momentarily in Shepparton recently to explain a sliver of particle physics.

Listening as the Shepparton born and bred, Kristian McDonald, told a little of himself and then explored the universe, the one we can see, and then, his speciality, the one we can’t, were about 30 members of Shepparton’s University of Third Age (U3A).

Kristian, 36, an advocate of education, at any age, exposed the wonders of modern particle physics in a two hour presentation to inquisitive, but older minds, some of whom described what they had seen and heard in rapturous terms.

Kristian had boldly taken an idea so broad in concept and yet so small in reality that it can’t be seen and helped those at U3A’s “Big Issues in Science” class understand “what is here?”

Oddly it was that very question that arose during a gap year after first studying aerospace and modified to “why are we here?” that helped Kristian understand that it was science that ignited his interest and spawned a whole new life for him.

The pursuit of science, specifically the examination of the near invisible, took him around the world to experience science in Canada and then for a time the excitement and wonder of working at one of the world’s leading science institutions in Germany, the Max Planck Institute.

After his brief stopover in his hometown, Kristian is now working at the University of Sydney.

Kristian has not been to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the Swiss-Franco border near Geneva, but sees this nearly 30 kilometres in circumference piece of equipment as a wonderful example of what can be achieved when people have a common goal and so work together.

The LHC was built in collaboration between more than 10 000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries, as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories, again from all parts of the world.

As an example of one of the great engineering milestones of mankind, the LHC, according to Kristian, epitomizes what happens when people collaborate for good, rather than behave in a confrontational manner.

Collaboration was also apparent in the room – the combined wisdom of the U3A members matched Kristian’s youthful knowledge and together they become a powerful resource that balanced his vigor, enthusiasm and acute understanding of physics with the prudence and scholarship that only age can provide.

Years of intense study for Kristian could not be articulated or illustrated in just two hours, but after that brief session, those listening understood more fully what is “here”.

 

Idea goes up in smoke, leader announced by smoke

The young boy fantasized about having his own club, somewhere he could gather with like-minded souls, talk about things he now knows are social justice, equality, fairness, peace and altruism, but the idea vanished like smoke.



Charles Mackay
discusses madness
and delusions. 

Even then, in his naïve and youthful way, he could see there was no place for such an alliance as the world, it seemed, was driven by division and littered by other clubs that proffered similar values, but rarely, if ever, practiced them.

The club, he imagined, would have its own quarters remote from the influence of what he saw was a troubled and divided society, and its supporters would be clearly recognizable because of a distinct garment they wore.

Its totem, his youthful mind had decided, would be tangible, something he could physically experience; something palpable from the existing world and not an imaginary thing whose force rested upon faith that defied reason and drew its strength from illusion.

His idea dissolved as maturity advanced and in listening with intent to the “responsible men”, he became, throughout his teenage years embedded in the status quo to march in lockstep with the very people whom he instinctively suspected, but who, at the time, appeared to have a clear view of the future.

As it turns out, no one, not even the responsible men, could see or imagine what was going to happen and so their efforts combined with the peculiar and eccentric behaviour of the bizarre “clubs” that proliferated like weeds, did little but distort life.

Strangely, one of those, which has more than 1.2 billion club members from all corners of the earth, meets in a club-house remote from society, wears distinctive and in today’s world inappropriate clothing, conveys its message through chants, sustains itself though addiction to a litany of myths, recently announced the arrival of a new leader by pumping white smoke from the club-house chimney.

The young boy understood the importance of his idea, but the fearing people would laugh at his immature utopianism, abandoned his dream only to be seduced by the magic promised by the responsible men.

Youth, they say, is wasted on the young, but once imbedded the ideals remain and although mislaid for a time and confused by modern life, those foundational values of justice, equality, fairness, peace and altruism have recovered.

The white smoke from the club-house chimney might have signalled a new leader, but it was also a timely reminder that the ideals of youth; ideals about tangible public goods, have more value than is to be realized through adherence to a myth.

Nineteenth century author, Charles Mackay, wrote about Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and watching that rising smoke confirmed, for me, the Scotsman’s views.