Carpenter and son

26Jan12

OK, OK… in light of yesterday’s comments from so many knowledgeable people whose judgement I respect, I’m rethinking my door plans. I’ll look for a professional hangman (see Mrs R’s comment – I’ll show her).

I know that this will probably disappoint the silent majority who were hoping for another posting telling a sorry tale of poor craftsmanship and possible injury. I’m certainly disappointed that I won’t get the chance to write about my successful door hanging under the title “Well hung” (you have no idea how titles like that boost my traffic from search engines…).

Meanwhile I’ve used the time saved by not doing any carpentry in receiving a timely lesson in quantum physics from teenage son (although I should be careful in using the word ‘timely’ when talking about quantum physics). All I asked him was “what did you learn at school today?” He gave me a brief summary in which he demonstrated that I was simply a collection of fundamental particles, some of which are Strange and some are anti-Strange.

Then it struck me that most of what he learnt today had not even been discovered when I was at school. Much of it was simply theoretical and undemonstrated. That made me feel better – it is reassuring to know that you are ignorant because you were born too early, rather than being ignorant because you have forgotten what you were taught. As I get close to my fiftieth year I’m prepared to accept that I’ll never keep up.

Door hanging, on the other hand, has been known about for at least as long as there have been doors. In fact it is entirely possible that theoretical carpentry posited the possibility of door hanging even before doors were known to exist. That is how human knowledge develops.

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