Chasing rainbows

“You can live your life as if nothing was a miracle or as if everything was” according to a well-known saying attributed to Albert Einstein. This leaves me hungry for more explanation: how can a scientist of his caliber live as if everything was a miracle? Or did he mean exactly the opposite? Was nothing a miracle for him, and this is what pushed him to challenge the state of knowledge at his times? I’m not sure.

If you easily take things as miracles, you probably won’t be tempted to discover the reasons why (and kill any interesting conversation directly):

-          Why do leaves fall down in the autumn?
-          I don’t know.  It must be a miracle.
-          Why doesn’t this boat sink?
-          I don’t know, probably a miracle.
-          Why do I get hungry when I don’t eat?
-          Must be a miracle.

Would Einstein really promote such kind of intellectual sluggishness? I don’t think so. The secret is in the timing, I guess: the “it’s a miracle” answer should not come directly after the question has been asked. I’m of the opinion that one should investigate, reflect and go so deep that there is only one answer left: “it’s a miracle”.

Max Planck, too, once confessed “I became a believer because I got to the end of my reasoning and I couldn’t think any further. We all stop thinking too early.”

I’d say many religious people say “It’s a miracle” too quick, while atheists claim they never do. But where do they stop then? What comes after their final “why”? It can’t be the “I don’t know” because then they wouldn’t be called “atheists” but “agnostics”. I would like to once meet a real atheist, not the “I don’t care” or “I just don’t believe” variety; one that really went the whole way, got to the end of his reasoning and stayed there, satisfied.  

 You may know all the technicalities of a rainbow being formed: how those droplets disperse the light and why  they form an arch – but I’m afraid one can never get to the point where the rainbow starts. There’s of course a logical reason for it – with every step towards it you see a different rainbow, a tiny bit further and so it will continue, until the arch disappears. And even if it doesn’t (by “miracle”, “coincidence” or “I don’t know why”) and you just keep walking towards it, you’ll keep seeing a different rainbow with every single step.

 So far as rainbows go, I’m very religious – I say “It’s a miracle” way too quick, and I do it on purpose. I’m a rainbow-hunter, I have no time to lose: I quickly grab my phone and take a photo. Miracles are so ephemeral: the moment is gone, you stop believing it was one. You start to look for a logical explanation:  check the technicalities behind  and  soon you’re sure it was just a meteorological phenomenon. If you’re a hunter, you need to act quick, otherwise you’ll have another Wikipedia article instead of the following picture, miracle caught in the act on the Masurian Lake District on 9aug12:

There’s one more reason I’m particularly attracted to rainbows. It has to do with my address: 42 is “The angle rounded to whole degrees for which a rainbow appears (the critical angle)”, according to Wikipedia. Whatever it means. As far as miracles go, I'm not too critical…