Something for scientists and the rest of us alike. |
The Prize by Samuel Ramratan. Science has been my life for sixty years. It has The Prizetaken up more of my life than my three wives, my numerous dogs, countless research assistants, and endless experiments. It wasn't my idea to get into physics in the first place, it was mothers. I still remember that autumn day after many bouts of drunkenness, consoling myself on the meager life as a science teacher when my mother suggested going to graduate school. She had painted a picture so wonderful that I hadn't any need to get drunk for a few weeks. I never knew much about the circle of friends she and my dad kept. I didn't know anything they knew. For all it is worth those days, I was ignorant to the ways of the mature adult world. A world which turned out to be full of horrors including broken marriages, ungrateful dogs, meddling assistants and failed experiments. The only thing which had stuck in my head was her telling me about the prize money which was given every year to those who had excelled in science. Sometimes one word can put a man's life so much off course that he loses himself. For me that one word was called excelling. In the old days they had a phrase for that syndrome called wine, women and song. I have had all three in varying amounts but the song which has evaded me the most was the singeing cries of excellence. By starting my career under a man the whole world respected someone who had already claimed the prize money, I had felt entitled. He always had a smile for me, notation for my notes, advice on women and caution for my chosen graduate experiment. Back in those days I was trying to find the compression relationships atoms underwent when accelerated to high speeds. The final result was supposed to mirror what occur ed at relativistic speeds namely approaching the natural speed of light. He was an experimentalist and my thesis was supposed to constitute a single marriage between theoretical work and experimentation. I don't know why I am recounting these initial episodes of my life because my experimental part failed miserably. There was no experiment available to back my claims. Even today those damn high-brow experimentalists cannot accelerate whole atoms, much less measure what is occurring inside an accelerating one. I should have taken his advice, that damn old coot, when he had told me to find an easier experiment. The committee did however award me my doctorate, but I had failed the prize money and had had to settle for an average salary as assistant professor in a relatively unknown university. There I had married my first research assistant only to lose her to some kook who after his graduate studies moved up to a recognized institution. I didn't regret losing her because she was one of the first females whom I had encountered in physics and being enthralled by her ambitions but not by her female qualities, my love for her subsided quickly. After, my thoughts of her arrived more as a masculine type figure and they even multiplied when seeing her boss participants around the next time at a conference their university was holding. Everyone was doing something then except me. Those days I was trying to coax spectral lines out of atoms by selective heat radiation. Problem was my equipment always broke down and the resolution of its heating apparatus was insufficiently adequate. I could not match theory with experiment. They all laughed when I said that. However one good thing which arose from all those failures was I learned how to write. Finding all sorts of words which would hide my lack of excellence was difficult. Coining new phrases and searching for reasons why my experiments bombed had become my forte. Turning into the bad workman who always blamed his tools became easy. By the time my arrival at an average university was welcomed I had remarried and was supporting three large black dogs. It is not that I dislike dogs, I tried hard to get along with them but they always showed a preference for my wife seeing she never worked, being with them at all times. When my current experiment at that time failed, no one at the university blamed me. Perhaps it was because one day I had gone home early and found her with her legs in a position she had never shown me straddled by some unknown variable grunting over her. His color was not important, but his position above me still haunts to this day. Funny thing was, I was working on heavy metals at that time and was sure I could have solved the precession problem which still haunts current experimental scientists to this day. Heavy metals annoy me to no end even showing up as a distaste for metal bands. So much for real song and dance! It took me many many years to trust women again, and even so I still view most women with distrust. Dogs are almost a taboo in my small circle of friends. Their wagging tails seem to tell me a different story. Yesterday after retiring from the university without the prize money, getting only a small pension but a wonderful going away party, I felt like they were glad to see the last of me. The Dean, a woman, wished me luck and congratulated me on my life's achievements which were next to nothing. She had said I had excelled during my stay there. That had brought tears to my eyes for the first time in my life. They were tears of sadness. I had felt lonely at the function looking back at my past. My third wife, she wasn't there because she had died almost three years ago. The coroner had said, and I quote, a combination of heart failure and stress. I had hung on looking for prize money for too long, in search of that elusive Excellence and life had passed me by. I don't even know how to smile properly. I have no children from any of my marriages and no doggone best friend. Last week I was mugged outside my home and even the mugger seemed kinder to me than the years which have passed me by. He had left me my wallet with the few momentos inside at my bidding. These memories surfaced today while I was throwing out all my notes preparing that grand bonfire in my backyard. I wish I had never heard of that prize. |