Two Realizations on April 1

By Steve kindred TWO REALIZATIONS ON APRIL 1 Seder, kids, 'til I die, New York in larger natural contexts - even fundamental cosmic ones. Twenty ----years ago I joined my wife Ellen and son, Benjamin  in a wonderful apartment overlooking the Hudson River. Guests would marvel and envy our view.  For me looking at the river a couple time a week opened my eyes to something that took years to stir my brain.  My heart was quicker. The surface of the Hudson is ever changing. It can be as smooth as a mirror.  It can have choppy white caps like a lake in a storm.  Sometimes small swells like a giant passing boat go up river toward the river's source in the Adirondacks. Less often, smaller swells push out to sea. My favorite time is when a nearly uniform herringbone pattern covers the river. Perhaps sitting back and looking around at our Seder in Philadelphia and my good fortune had put me in a reflective mood.  Reading Walter Issacson's recent biography of Einstein had given me a great clear view of the century-long research and discussion on the forces governing our world from the tiniest sub atomic particles to the whole cosmos.  As I went to bed I took my regular calming glance at the river. But I sat back for an extra minute.  I had guessed for some years that the Hudson's every changing nature was due to the collision of millions of tons of water moved by the tides in the sea with millions of gallons of water flowing down from the river's source. Just as I had seen something in an instant at the Seder, that extra minute of unthinking calm opened me to a new realization - what I had been watching for all the years came from two separate manifestations of a fundamental natural force - gravity.  The moon's gravity pulls and pushes everything on earth back and forth, usually in ways too small to see. But in our oceans it produces the tides, which push the sea up into the Hudson River. And then it relents and flows back out. The same gravitational force, but of the earth, keeps us on the ground, holds the air we breath from drifting into space and draws the water downhill toward the sea. That was enough for one night.   ................... ON SUNSETS, VOLCANOS, CURRENTS, Winds AND OUR GLOBE. [[ For several years Ellen had taken a series of photos of our unimpeded view of beautiful sunsets over New Jersey. They were beautiful. We still get beautiful sunsets, of course , when we take a few minutes to look out our window at the right time. We no longer take pictures.  [Ellen had earlier realized that the sun's appearance from behind a nearby building marked the spring ?equinox.] I wonder if glorious sunsets are getting less frequent along with the industrial decline of New York and New Jersey and the general progress in cleaning up the air. ]] My thoughts on sunsets were jogged by Simon Winchester's recent Times Op-Ed piece on two volcanic eruptions.  He has written a book on the 188-- eruption of Krakatoa. It  led to glorious sunsets around the world as the globe spanning dust from the volcano gavethe sun's light a new mix of atmospheric ingredients through which to refract.  He noted that this episode had given impetus to the Hudson River school of painting with its glorious sunsets.  He also noted that the addition of new "tracer elements" in the atmosphere had made visible the shifting but persistent high winds we now know as the Jet Stream. The Krakatoa eruption had been huge. The enhanced sunsets lasted over a year. Once awakened our knowledge of the upper atmosphere has grown as technology opened new information and the work of thousands of scientists was added together to give a more complete, though still clouded view.             In earlier times we had discovered other things in a much more painstaking way.  Just think of all the sailors who had recorded winds and currents each day as they traveled to new places around the globe.  Those who survived the trip handed in their records and the knowledge to their governments, which gained commercial and military advantage. I still remember my excitement as a youth in Iowa during the UN sponsored International coordinated scientific activity, began to systematically explore the winds and currents . It also was the first serious start towards turning a maverick theory - plate tectonics - from a minority view into our current best understanding THE ICELAND EVENT [how the fairly small volcanic activity in Iceland has stopped vital air traffic over much of Europe. It turns out this may pass soon as winds shifts and the fine volcanic dust, which corrode plane engines moves elsewhere less disruptive. The dust will dissipate. Some will fall to earth. Some will move upward. It will take weeks or months. Quicker than Krakatoa. Smaller event. Quicker disperal. But in the short term, a big chunk of commerce in Europe depends on shifting winds. Though these events came from natural causes not subject to human activity, the Iceland event demonstrates how our most developed societies can be affected by small, distant events.  Perhaps this will give the climate change skeptics pause to reconsider.] Website ..tidecharts, picturs - past present future. Essays by scientist, resources bibliographie. Current discoveries on cosmic graivity. Stuff for kids and teachers Section on east river - connects long island sound to ny harbor - two parts of the sea, tides on slightly different time tables. Tidal estuary. Roils like a pot of boiling water. Maybe thats why the gangsters put bodies there.