COAA News college of the atlantic association march 1985 FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK The structure of the newsletter as presented above Dear COA Community: is merely an outline, a framework. Of far more importance is the idea that a group of people with a This issue of the COAA News marks the beginning of common experience can maintain their ties and add to a renewed effort to foster communication within the COA their common experiences. community. The pool of potential contacts is large and Professionally, contacts can be made among those includes present and former COA students, faculty, and with similar interests including students looking for staff as well as members of the Board of Trustees, and internships, graduates looking for a first job, and alumni friends of the College. Through the newsletter we hope to continuing on their career paths. We can also rely on each keep the COA network active SO that, as the COA other for intellectual support and stimulation by sharing community diffuses into the world community, we can our widely divergent ideas and opinions. continue to draw on each other for professional, The fact that everybody turns first to Class Notes in emotional, ideological, or intellectualsupport. any alumni publication tells us that the newsletter will As we see it, the newsletter will be published also serve to reinforce both the friendships established quarterly with regularly featured articles including: with classmates and the emotional ties many of us have Class Notes; excerpts from the College newspaper "Off with the College. All of these connections are invaluable the Wall"; From the President's Desk news from the to us as individuals and to the College as an idea and an standing committees governing the College; and faculty organization. updates and profiles. Debuting in the May issue of the This year's editorial staff would like to thank our newsletter will also be a Forum for Discussion or "Free predecessors, Nancy Gunnlaugsson and Carole ODonnell Box" in which all members of the community will be and all those who assisted them for laying the groundwork invited and encouraged to share their thoughts, ideas, in the organization of this publication. You've made our reasons for living, and scintillating flashes of insight. We job that much easier by giving us an invaluable point of are also making an appeal for ART WORK which is 50 departure for our work. vague that no one ever responds so...we may be writing you a personal plea for your poetry, drawings, photographs, songs, etc. etc. But please don't hesitate to volunteer. In addition to serving our in-house networking needs, the newsletter unofficially represents the College to the outside world. It is in effect a very important P.R. tool informing others of our ideas, ideals, projects, prospects, and accomplishments. With this in mind we will be working toward upscaling the professionalism of the newsletter both in content and graphic quality. This willnecessarily be a gradual process and any suggestions for improvement (or sources of additional funding!) will always be encouraged and welcomed. This newsletter was produced by the If you are wondering about ways in which you can Communications Committee of COAA: especially help COA in the months ahead, may I suggest the followingavenues: Andrew Bennett a) Please continue to keep in touch with the Lisa Holley College. Your presence, opinions, and friendship are Jean McHugh welcome by all of the folks here. Indeed, if you haven't already circled graduation day on your calender, may I With assistance from: remind you the eventful date is Saturday, June 1st. b) You play a key role in identifying for COA the Bruce Friedman & very special and rare person who can benefit from Dorothy Shamonsky for type production attending COA. c) You already know this-financial support, Sally Crock, which many of you have given and are giving is most Marcia Dorr & important. COA hopes to have some ground breaking Charlie Hesse for general support and mailing under way in the Spring, if support for the building fund continues. The Annual Giving to the College has been enthusiastic, and you will be contacted shortly about your special role in some new activity. The very best way you can help COA is in the fashion that has marked alumni of COA from what I have FROM THE gathered: proud, sensitive, and informed citizenship as Human Ecologists. PRESIDENT'S DESK The students, faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees join me in sending our best wishes to you. To the Alumni, Sincerely, It is a delight to send this message. Although I have Louis Rabineau met only a few of you, I feel that I know most of you in spirit. Some random reactions based on five months at COA that I would like to share with you: 1) It is exciting to share the pride which alumni, faculty, students, staff and Board members have in COA. 2) Everyone has been wonderful in getting the 13th year of COA under way in top fashion: Rich Borden has been absolutely great as special assistant on top of his academic chores, which is no surprise to those who know him. Bill Carpenter as Dean of Faculty in the first term and Steve Katona currently (Bill is on leave which takes him to Mexico and Italy) are wonderful in their add-on duties. 3) COA is one of the better kept secrets in higher education. We are trying to "get the word out" in a number of ways. Charlie Hesse as Vice-President for Development and Public Affairs has been splendid as many of you know; Elmer Beal as Director of Admissions has been spearheading a number of activities including the networking of alumni (for which many thanks to allof you involved or will be involved) plus an effort we are making to enhance our relationship with two-year institutes in near-by states. Kathy Wagner as Public Affairs Assistant has been doing some outstanding work in disseminating the word on COA. You willbe hearing more of this shortly. 2 COAA NEWS COAA BOARD NOTES The College of the Atlantic Alumni Association is in it's formative stage right now. We are a long way from being able to do many of the things we feel that the A. Canorez '84 association should be doing. This is due to a variety of OLD ONE, TELL Us YOUR GORY 1984 Dedica to Mick Faley factors, all of which boil down to finances. This will G C G change in time, so in the true spirit of COA, we are EVE NING GATHERS IN THE HOL- Lows making do quite well with what we have. C A The 1984-85 board, consisting of SallyMorong, Glen SINKS SLOWLY FROM THE Berkowitz, Bob Holley, Andy Bennett, and Tripp Royce, Em SUN SKIES C have been meeting bi-monthly since last June. It took the first two meetings to get US all in gear, and during the OLD ONE YOUR EYES SEEM TO FOL-LOW AS TO G G D subsequent meetings, we have set various priorties and goals for ourselves. Topping the list are the following: HOLD THE SUN FOR- EVER WITH YOUR EYES Co c G Newsletter: This Issue was our short term goal, OLD ONE TELL us YOUR STORY G Ce D Em D as wellas an isuue for May. Long term, we are trying to establish a format and production routine that will FOR WE ARE LIST- N/NG GATHERED BY AS THE Em Am Em A G gaurantee worthwhile quarterly isssues from now thru eternity. SUN SETS IN ITS TWI-LIGHT GLORY C G A Phonathon: The last one was a smashing success. We will be running another one March 18 and 19 in an BLAZE WITH THE PRO MISE OF FAIR SKIES. attempt to reach those of you who we missed the last time around. Carover 8/84 Budget: Glen B. has taken the lead in designing & 1984 Old One, Tell Us Your Story formal budget process for us. It is our plan to stop nickel Dedicated to "Fabey Evening gathers in the hollows and diming COA as costs come up, and to propose a Sun sinks slowly from the skies. Old One your Eyes seem to follow complete yearly budget to be worked in with the College's As if to hold the sun forever with your eyes Chorus: annual plans. Old One, tell us your story, For we are list'ning Gathered by COAA Staff Person: Before this outfit can really As The sun sets in it's twilight glory take off and do much more than it can do at the present, Ablage with the promise of fair skies. we need a paid staff person at the college. We cannnot The light fudes, we tum back to the comptire Thoughts drifting upward to the stars afford one right now, but we are working with the college A skyful of memories glowing But on your weathered face somethings showing on a graduated plan, possibly beginning with a work-study student. As need and finances warrant, work up to a full Maybe thoughts of a lifetime nearly over As you accept your turn to grow old. time, salaried coordinator who would do all the thousands In a lifetime of joys & some sorrow of things that we cannot do now. Where did you do & just who did you follow ?- CHORUS "Back when I was restless, young and handsome, Annual Meeting: This year we hope to hook it up The days E long nights were as are with graduation, and get all business attended to in an My cares flowed like currents in the river,, Where I went or what for I knew neither. hour and a half. The work finished, we are planning on " So, follow your river, where it will take you. fooling around most of the time. Then pick 'a course, along it stay true. may your circle of friends ever after Fill the air evermore with their laughter. " - CHORUS The list of things that we would like to be doing is "Tonight I watched. as that old sun was leaving. about a mile long. If you do not see your priority on this It had spent its best rays just like me. But I've got a night full of memories list, think about running for the board of directors in And a fireside circle of friends around me June. CHORUS (then repeat 1st line of chorus.) Tripp Royce COAA NEWS 3 TAKING A TRIP WITH TRIPP Have you ever watched a movie and enjoyed it despite knowing that it was a manipulative piece of garbage? Have you ever pondered the thin line between persuasive argument and a quarter pounder with cheese? These, and other less obscure issues have, my fellow Americans, been flitting around my head since I agreed to write this. What I am supposed to be doing is planting a seed in each and every mind out there. The seed to be planted is the idea of an exciting, fulfilling, and must-attend COAA annual meeting in Bar Harbor come June. I've thought about all this to the point of flirting with the banal, simply because this meeting will indeed be important- to me, to the board, and, most importantly, to COAA members and the College. Things are happening there that you'd probably want to know about. The aging process comes to mind. PHONATHON NEWS It's hard for me to imagine this but the college is no longer a fresh faced alternative college in the woods. It. has been sixteen years since the school was The second annual COA Alumni Phonathon, back by incorporated, and somewhere along the line, we stopped popular demand, will take place on Monday and Tuesday, being an experiment with potential and became an March 18 and 19. at the Gutman Library (Harvard established institution dedicated to experimentation. A University) in Cambridge, Mass. This is the Alumni fine point maybe, but a critical one. Association's major effort to raise money for the If you have read any of our accreditation reviews, Pheonix Fund. Last March, the phonathon was a big you have seen glowing praise for our adventurous spirit success. Over $26,000 was pledged by over ninety and energetic students and staff. It is hard to put a place percent of those contacted, but less than one third of all down for shaky finances and obscure ideologies when the alumni were reached. So this year. we are trying to people in the place are so damn enthusiastic about reach the remainder with our message of prudent, everything. I think that the spirit of the place has kept it ecologicallysound giving. alive, despite the recent hard times. Volunteers with pleasant telephone voices are Still, people are expecting post-adolescent stability unabashedly solicited! Others are also eagerly sought for when they look us over; the standards by which we are a myriad of behind-the-scenes positions. As anyone who judged have changed. Active input from alumni is an was involved last year can attest--don't take it from important factor in allowing COA to meet these new me--it was lots of fun, and a good cause. expectations. The Alumni Board has requested that the pledges of As one of the more elderly members of COAA, I can this year's phonathon be dedicated to the Faculty Fund attest to the fact that there are precious few of US who which will help replace faculty libraries lost in the fire. are making enough dough to be looking for tax shelters. Both local alumni and out of towners seeking an excuse to We can't keep the place going with our disposable income. visit Historic Boston are welcome to help out on one or What we can and really have to do now is invest our both nights. Things willget underway at about 6:30 PM energy. Not only will active participation by our and the calling will end at around 10:00 PM. A catered membership make things like recruiting, fund raising, and buffet is included absolutely gratis, and the caterer has inter-association communication happen, it willalso make assured us, excellent as last year's fare was, that there the college look good in the eyes of the rest of the world. willbe no leftovers from '84! As a student, I thought the college existed in a vacuum; Since I am in the process of moving, donations of now I don't think it ever has, or ever will. time may be arranged with John March at 495-6554 (work *) or 492-6891 *). Don't miss out on a good time! Henry Elliot 4 COAA NEWS Last spring's phonathon raised some seriously needed cash for the school. More significant was the alumni's show of support. Over ninety percent of the people contacted agreed to contribute to the fund. To the potential financial backers, this public display of affection must be impressive. So here's the pitch If I was any good at sexy MISSINGI slogans and catchy phrases, I wouldn't hesitate to use them right now. I'd even offer my car as a door prize, but it wouldn't make the trip up to Bar Harbor. The Any information leading to the discovery of the phonathon made it clear that we are an interested bunch. following missing-to-the-COA-community alumni will be Sticking a check in the mail is a tangible contribution generously rewarded. Please help US out or we may have which feels good as soon as the jaws close on the mail to start printing photos on milk cartons and the sides of box. Greyhound buses! We are particularly in need of phone But for those of US who don't have the cash, there numbers. Thanks. are other ways to give. Please send all correspondence to: Traveling for two days, sitting around talking, and flirting with becoming over-commiteed are more COAA News complicated forms of contribution. The returns are c/o Jean McHugh certainly harder to measure. But that's what we've got to give and that's what the collegecan use from US. So, dear reader of alumni news letters, think about it. Think about ways in which we can make the annual Janet Amdur Leanne MacIntire meeting a pleasure, because we llknow that things done Donna Riley Ben Walters with pleasure tend to be things done well. Chris Burner Scott Bucking Details-place, date, and agenda--are still in the Barbara Brooks Brian Buckley fantasy stage. In the meantime, spend some time Shannon Carson Karin Bagny fantasizing about this: Where else on Earth would you Anne Goodwin Debby Blugman rather spend a weekend in June than in Bar Harbor? Eh! Cliff Bernier Rebecca Boger Standish Bourne Michael Belenky Tripp Royce Bill Briggs JoAnne Broscovak Janet Burstein Tammy Bodge Betsy Castle Sarah Jennison Debbie Abramsky Amy Aldredge Andrea Allen Jonathan Allen Beth Allman Charlie Hutchison Amy Kitay Steve Donoso Cindy Harrar Ron Cote Bart Culbertson Lee Longnecker Ray Wirth Richard Lilly Dana Vocisano Stephen Diepenbrock Catherine Drabkin Douglas Crawford Deborah Greg Chris Lander Steve Long Majorie Lau Rebecca Buyers-Basso Alice Leeds Dee Kimball Jessica Donnel Peter Barret Tim Lavin Jay McNally Mary Anne Machis Suzanne Franklin Bethany Aronow Kirsten Backstrom Lt. David Avery Irene Szurley Carla Leonardi Greg Merrill Rick Schauffler Katrin Hyman Arthur Kettle Laura Starr Steve Baird COAA NEWS 5 CLASS NOTES Also in the process of home building is Skye Cornwell Perkins who wed Daniel Perkins in a Quaker ceremony in 1980. Skye works as a mother to 3-year-old Class of '77 daughter Rachel Brooks Perkins, co-manages a compiled by David Winship health-food store, teaches macrobiotic cooking, and is an organic gardener and apprentice potter. The woods and waters of Maine are still home and The New York region has several alums. Philip and livlihood to some of our alums. Alexandra Brown Margaret Kunhardt are living is Ossining, NY where Conover and Garrett Conover operate North Woods Philip is rector of St. Paul's-on-the-Hill Episcopal Church. Ways, an educational guidance service for wilderness Ron Cote is working as a paralegal, specializing in trips, and work with North Woods Arts Center, which pensions, in a law office on Wall Street. John teaches and revives traditional wilderness skills. They Biderman is working with the March of Dimes have future plans to do ethnographic work in videotaping Foundation where he is managing editor in the Public nearly lost skills of Native Americans in the United States Information department. John continues to do freelance and Canada. writing such as his May '82 piece in Aududon and has Megan Godfrey Kraus and Scott Kraus divide been elected to the COA Board of Trustees. their time between Boston and Downeast. Working with Virginia is home to alums who hardly imagined their Greg Stone and others, they have founded SEAFARERS current lines of work during their COA years. Keith which runs week-long natural history tours to the Bay of Farrar and Elizabeth Moretti Farrar live in Fundy, Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Gaspe Peninsula. Scott Ft.Belvoir where Keith is a lieutenant in the Army, a continues his work as Biologist-Research Associate at the maintenance test pilot and head of quality control for Boston Aquarium and they are both busy with their two ERADCOM Flight Test Activity. Elizabeth has been children, Brennan, age 3 and Keely Min, age 1. working as an historical interpreter in various locales, Also involved in water is Karen Roy who has including Yorktown, Savannah, GA, and Jamestown. finished her Masters in Water Resource Planning from the They have one daughter, Megan Elizabeth Anne Farrar, University of Vermont. Her concentration has been in age 10 months. surface and groundwater resource management with Steve Savage and Vicki Smith live in Virginia research into acid rain. Meanwhile, she's enjoying the Beach and proudly announce the birth of their son, breezes and waters of Lake Champlain. Nicholas, in August, 1984. Steve has been in the Navy for The environmental design and construction fields four years and Vicki works at home as a computer have provided good work for several alums. Scott programmer. David and Lynn Winship live in the Mclsaac took his B.A.in Architecture from Yale and Southwestern mountains where David is a high school Masters in City Planning and Business Administration librarian and Lynn is a special education teacher. David is from the University of Pennsylvania. Scott now works as also teaching computer literacy at a local community an acquisition officer with Liberty Properties of Boston, college. a company which purchases troubled or abandoned office Far afield in California, Caroline Tandy Fadness or industrial buildings and designs plans for recycling lives in Santa Monica where she is a them into further productive use. bookkeeper/accountant in a CPA firm and is preparing to Tom and Cynthia Fisher are in North Carolina sit for her CPA exam. Michael Prior has done where Tom is working on his Masters in Architecture, additional study at the University of California at Santa intending to do his thesis work in development planning on Cruz in his interest area of astronomy. Carolina coastal islands. Cynthia is a Montessori teacher with a computer software firm which provides child care for its employees. Hugh MacArthur is doing carpentry with a small Rick Moss (79) lives in California and is currently residential design and construction company in Vermont working for the State Department of Transportation as where he and his wife Rhea McKay are fixing up an old an air quality/transportation planner. farmhouse near White River Junction. Rhea has a private counseling practice and they hope to start building their own house soon. Hugh has also become active with a local Quaker Friends Meeting. 6 COAA NEWS Class of '82 Rick Epstein (83) continues to fulfill his Watson compiled by Janey Winchell FellowshipGrant and is making his way around the world along the 40th parallelrecording the varied architectual George Benington. most recently of Portland. vernacular of this meridian. Keep on truckin' Rickster. Maine, is very busy these days as Executive Director and Director of Distribution and Promotion of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. He is also editor and founder of the Coyote Love Press. The Alliance currently distributes 500 titles from over 100 publishers from Letter from Tim and Bridie Milne: around the world. They also sponsor the Maine! Writers! Live! reading series, the Maine Writers Festival, Please forgive this rather impersonal Christmas numerous workshops and seminars, and publish a letter. All our precious friends and relations deserve newsletter. The Coyote Love Press was founded in much more attention than we've been able to give since Portland, Maine in April, 1982 and has, as of 1984, we began our full-time work on the Molesworth Wheat to published three books. George edited, designed, and the Starving" campaign. This is our latest and by far printed the last two books He has also been appointed by most demanding involvement in the campaign to stop the the New England Foundation for the Arts to an advisory nuclear arms race at Molesworth, which began for Bridie panel for their Literary Press Assistance Project. in early 1981, brought US together in early 1982 and Bruce Friedman is now living in Lexington, MA and resulted in our being married here in 1983!. working as a Solar Design Consultant at IES Solar Eirene' the New Testament word for Peace is the Contracting and Design in Peabody, MA. He may be a name of the All Faiths Peace Chapel we are building on potential sponsor of a COA intern SO if you play your Ministry of Defense land out of Ministry of Defense cards right runway rubble! We have already had Jews, Bahai, Jack McAndrew has finally settled in Portland, Quakers, Mennonites, Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists, and and is working for a localarchitectual firm. a Mayan Indian using the chapel since the cornerstone was Paul Cady is working for the 2nd largest company laid by a former Jain monk and disciple of Gandhi in April. in the world He is the principal software engineer for The still unfinished building was dedicated by the Bishop Digital's "Rainbow" personal computer. He intends to of Huntingdon in September and we are now launching an remain with Digital until his COA loans are paid off In appeal for the roof, the building of which will probably his own words "Luckily I don't have to work in the have to wait for spring weather. Meanwhile, wasteland of suburban Massachusetts Paul went back construction work continues almost daily with people to Bar Harbor last October. from all over the country coming to help, leaving their Kathy Massimini is living in Ellsworthand working personal treasures embedded in the rubble walls of what as a free-lance editor-indexer. Elizabeth Barnet is in is becoming a unique and very beautiful chapel indeed. Sante Fe, New Mexico at St. John's College. She is Our first wheat crop on the base was more or less a working toward her B.A. in Philosophy and Math. (Sorry, failure but like the loaves and fishes we ended up with we can only print as much info as we get!-ed.) donations of nearly 50 tons of food, clothing and blankets, Janey Winchelland Tim Mangini have been married all of which is now in Eritrea along with two friends of for one and a half years. Janey is working as a ours who are helping with its distribution. What began Curatorial Assistant in the Mammalogy department of the with spades and forks and was measured in square yards Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. She is also now involves tractors and ploughs and is measured by the working on a Hawaiin monk seal necropsy manual for acre! Hundreds of people came to sow our second crop National Marine Fisheries traveling extensively between including three Eritreans. This winter wheat is now her home in Lincoln and the Harvard research library. coming up on 31/2 acres and there is littledoubt that this She is also a potential intern sponsor. time we will have a good harvest owing to good advice and help from a few localfarmers. Meanwhile we are trying to sort out the technicalities for establishing a Gandhi Centre at the Old Abby Littlefield (83) is living in a farm cabin in School, Clopton where we are presently living as Vermont and is teaching cross-country skiing at a nearby caretakers. We are now unavoidably in the thick of a touring center. She is in the process of becoming a rapidly growing national (international?) campaign to professional ski instructor and is spending some time oppose construction of the base including a huge march actually racing. On the horizon, Abby is contemplating a and demonstration here next Easter when we expect up to graduate degree in education for the deaf. 40,000 people to help US plant our third crop for Eritrea. COAA NEWS 7 In allof this we are trying to keep to a clear vision of constructive non-violent action, building, creating, planting the seeds of a hopeful, life-affirming alternative to the path of certain disaster on which the world continues to move at an ever-greater pace. We are more than ever convinced that this nonviolence--ahimsa to Gandhi, agape to Jesus--is the only hope for humanity. Whatever we do at Molesworth is but a training for the constructive nonviolent campaign that ultimately must absorb all who are committed to life-to peace, justice, and survival itself. BEWARE OF CALCULUS Tim and Bridie Milne A Process Perspective on Differentiation & Integration Daniel H. Kane, Jr. 1984 Introduction The transition from the classical mechanics of Galileo, Newton, and Descartes to the quantum physics of Planck, Bohr, deBroglie, and Schrodinger involves a fundamental shift in the relationship of mathematics to science. Newtonian physics views the world as a machine, divisible into parts that are lesser mechanisms. Even organisms are reducible to material parts, mechanically interrelated and assembled. The events and happenings of the parts of the world are described and determined with mathematical precision by Newton's laws of motion. Classical physics leads to a mechanistic and deterministic world view, fully expressed by mathematical equations. The fundamental basis of modern physics, quantum theory, presents quite a different picture of physical reality. The quantum events of modern physics are viewed as wholes rather than assemblages of parts, From time to time, this newsletter complete entities comparable, for example, to organisms. will include articles submitted by Quantum physics encounters the same dilemma as biology. alumni, staff, faculty, and friends. We Fragile quantum events may be dissected mathematically encourage anyone's effort or interest in and analyzed into parts for greater understanding only by sending US something that's been in "sacrificing" them and in the process introducing mind. The articles might be categorized irrevocable changes. All the complementary factors of an as material for our "free box", event cannot be known at once. Quantum theory presents something different than the Forum. We a deeply organic, interconnected and indeterministic hope that the articles may stimulate a picture of physical reality. Its mathematical formulation discussion of their own, S0 don't includes a "Principle of Uncertainty". hesitate to send comments, additional This transition from a mechanical to an organic world material to continue a theme, new view of physical reality and nature introduces an ideas, etc. interesting perspective on the limits of calculus. While Thanks to former faculty member, calculus is generally deemed the most important and Dan Kane, this premier issue actually has a "free box" item. Read on and powerful invention in the history of mathematics second only to Euclidean geometry, a closer look at the please send comments (on anything) relationship between calculus and physics during the either to the editors or to Dan himself, present historic paradigm shift in modern science care of COA. prompts the caveat: BEWARE OF CALCULUS1 8 COAA NEWS Physical Description by Convergence To carry this mode of analysis further, we may think to Simplicity of a motion picture of the soccer game captured for our understanding in successive frames each of which may be Suppose you are a classical physicist, that is, a separately viewed and studied in the same manner as a scientist who studies and describes physical events. slide. Our technology purports to reconstruct the event Suppose furthermore that you wish to describe by parading the succession of instantaneous motionless accurately, with precision, the physics of complex arrangements in space recreating the illusion of motion. events, for example, a soccer squad moving down the We know intuitively that events are not in fact field, dribbling the ball toward the goal. The game is constructed from such a succession of motionless initially viewed as a whole event appreciated over an pictures or frames. They occur as wholes! But interval or duration of time and extended across a interestingly, as the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead region of space, from an identifiable beginning to a notes, this is how our intellects, our practical intelligence relative termination. While the event is enjoyed as a seeks to understand motion and events. whole from beginning to end, it is difficult to describe The title of this article is "Beware of Calculus" and and communicate the event as a whole to someone who readers not familiar with this powerful mathematical was not a witness. method may have wondered whether they would To desribe, record, and communicate you therefore understand a discourse on calculus. However, the begin by dissecting the event into simplified components foregoing account provides a basic description of that are easier to grasp and communicate in a serial differential and integral calculus, or at least the general fashion. One way to simplify the event is to consider methodology by which calculus as a mathematical tool what took place during defined periods of time in confined proceeds to assist science in the description of nature regions of space. For example, during progression of the and physical reality. Science in its effort to describe soccer team up the field it might be easier initially to nature, the physical reality around US, has perfected the describe what took place between the thiry yard line and intellectual of "convergence to simplicity by the twenty yard line than to try to describe all at once diminution of extent" through the tool of mathematical what took place during the drive from the thirty yard line calculus. to the goal. Similarly, it might be more effective first to describe what took place during the one minute interval Differential Calculus between five and six minutes than to try and desribe all at once what took place during the first half. To go a step Differential Calculus is a mathematical tool for further, it would be even simpler to describe what took analyzing physical events with increasing specificity. We place between the thirty yard line and the twenty-five begin by describing motion of an object over an interval yard line and to describe what took place between five of space through an interval of time. The interval of minutes and five and one-half minutes. space is sometimes referred to as "Delta x", a finite Our intellect for practical understanding begins a interval of space, for example, the interval through which process of convergence to simplicity by paring away a soccer player passes from the 30 yard line to the 20 most of what happens in time and space leaving subject yard line. Similarly, the interval of time over which the matter of manageable portions. This process was motion is measured is referred to as "Delta t", a finite described by Alfred North Whitehead as "the method of interval of time during which the soccer team is moving extensive abstraction". In the extreme we converge from an earlier time to a later time. and focus our attention for example on what happened The differential calculus then purports to contract or during the one second interval at five minutes and twenty compress the space and time interval until the interval seconds to five minutes and twenty-one seconds or even itself, the "Delta", is entirely squeezed out and we are converge further down the interval of time from one left with the specific configuration at the 25 yard line at second to something approximating an instant of time. an instant of time. Differential calculus provides a frame in a motion picture. The concept of an instant of time is The Cinematic Character of Calculus a curious one, an interval of time compressed to no dimensions with no before and no after but simply a We are assisted in this process by modern video stationary present referred to as "dt". Similarly, the technology which permits the instant replay in which we point of space is an extension from one location to can stop the action in a frame and actuallysee what took another compressed to a point of no dimension referred place during something like an instant of time. Or, we to as "dx". Calculus purports to give US nature at an may converge down in space to exactly the bodies and instant, exact and sharp. objects lying across or flying over the twenty-five yard line only. COAA NEWS 9 Integral Calculus and motion could be analyzed into points of space and instants of time and then reconstructed out of a Integral calculus is just the converse of differential succession of frames so to speak. He expressed a calculus and reconstructs the whole from_the static number of paradoxes known as Zeno's paradoxes to show instantaneous points of space and time extracted or the impossibility of this procedure of understanding. abstracted by differential calculus. Differential calculus Consider the arrow in flight, he said. Once in flight the analyzes and breaks up motion into a succession of an arrow can have no exact location of space. infinite number of frames, each at successive instants of Furthermmore when the arrow does have an exact time and space of no temporal duration or spatial position, it is at rest and therefore not moving. It cannot dimension. Integral calculus then sums the frames and both be moving and have an exact location. It cannot have reconstructs the action on the soccer field by summing an both exact position and exact velocity. This was the first infinite number of the dimensionless components. Integral formulation of what is known as the "Uncertainty calculus would lead US to believe that life and motion and Principle". nature are a moving picture of instantaneous frames. Many other skeptics of course followed Zeno culminating in more recent times in the philosophers of Calculus: The Mathematics of Classical Physics science exemplified by Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead. They pointed out that our experience in real It is little wonder that calculus was invented by the life is of whole intervals of time. We actually experience brilliant seventeenth-century physicist, Sir Isaac Newton events through real durations of time with temporal also the prime originator of classical laws of physics and duration. There are no such things as instants of time in motion. Newton's laws in effect decree that the universe our experience. No event has been composed of objects is composed of particles of matter located in confined to a point in space and time. In fact, allevents dimensionless points of space at successive instants of occupy regions in space and require historical periods of time. Furthermore, the motions of the particles of duration. matter are determined by the laws of motion formulated as either differential or integral equations and must Quantum Physics and the Displacement therefore follow only predetermined paths through the of Calculus points of space (dx) and at instants of time (dt) predicted by Newton's laws. Whitehead referred to the particles of At the same time that philosophers such as Bergson matter, points of space and instants of time as the and Whitehead voiced concerns that the methodology of "trinity of natural materialism". calculus was leading to entities that do not exist in In the world view of classicalphysics, the universe is nature, physicists such as Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Louis a machine, an immense clockwork where living deBroglie and Erwin Schrodinger were determining from organisms are also ultimately analyzable as machines with actual experiments and events and the developing ideas of parts that follow predetermined movements and motions quantum theory that nature could not be arbitrarily predicted by Newton's laws. Newton's physics was a dissected. There were limits to how far one could go in great success in predicting the many kinds of events, converging to simplicity. Physicists could only divide up such as the firing of a connonball, that involve the larger nature to a certain point beyond which minimum events aggregations of inanimate classical matter. But were encountered. These minimum events are now intuitively, it does not at all seem to describe our known as quanta. predominate experience of feelings, thoughts, emotions, Each event in the universe must include at least one living tissue, organic growth, freedom, choice, and quantum of action. The word "quantum" denotes that the higher experiences. It is no surprise that religious, event must have a minimum quantity of action and artistic, and sensitive people along with many indivisble duration of time. There are no instants of time philosophers had a difficult time reconciling Newton's or dimensionless spaces. There must be a minimum physics and Newton's calculuswith a belief in God, higher amount of momentum and energy extended through space intelligence and higher experience. and time known as Planck's Quantum of Action. History occurs in "lumps" 50 to speak which cannot be divided Anti-Calculus Thought further. Zeno was right. The Principle of Uncertainty in quantum theory no longer permits calculus to divide Doubts about the whole process by which the intellect nature into particles of matter at exact positions with dissects nature by chopping it up into infinitely small exact velocities. Whitehead was also right. The extensions of time and space were voiced by the ancient exactness whih calculus tries to give us in analyzing Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea. He doubted that events nature is actually a "fake". Organic events in the 10 COAA NEWS microscopic world of particle physics make it clear that we are left ultimately with whole events. The precision of calculus can no longer apply to the description of the quantum events themselves, but rather only to the probability of occurence. The end result is that the world view of modern quantum physics is quite different from that of the classical physics of Newton. Quantum theory leads to an organic model of the world in which real events are like organisms, interconected and ultimately irreducible to mechanically operating parts. The whole picture provided by quantum theory is far more flexible than classical physics and in fact views the world as a flexible ever-changing unit. It provides a world view in which our real life experiences of feelings, thoughts, concepts, and higher experience can be reconciled with our understanding of matter. Matter in fact is hardly material any more but perhaps pulses of feeling and our thought processes may actually reflect the quantum nature of matter. Calculus is a valuable and powerful tool in our understanding and description of nature. But its primary value is in presenting classical Newtonian physics and engineering. New forms of mathematics are required to deal with whole events: matrix algebra and other Mon abstract algebras, tensors, finite difference equations, symbolic logic and theory of formal systems, topology, and discrete computer mathematics generally. Ultimately events cannot be described with the exactness of calculus because the exactness does not exist in nature. As FROM CLASSROOM TO CAREER Whitehead noted and Heisenberg codified, Nature has a "ragged edge". This past fall a re-accreditation team spent three full days scrutinizing the faculty. students, staff, finances, and facilities of COA. The perspective of their report is necessarily that of an outsider looking in at the College. However, a COA education must also be evaluated by insiders looking out, that is, by alumni and past students who, as former insiders have now had a chance to look out and see if Human Ecology is an idea whose time has come. One, two, five, ten years later, what is Human Ecology and what role does it play in real life? This is no time for "Mea culpa, mea culpa I have strayed from the shining vision of Human Ecology." Leaving aside the "might have beens," what do we as a community stand for or behind? Can Human Ecology stop the arms race, abortion clinic bombings, covert aid to El Salvador, or divorce? Editorial policy The editorial staff reserves the right to edit for reasons of space and clarity. COAA NEWS 11 qui Non Profit Org, U.S. POSTAGE PAID Bar Harbor, Me. 04609 College COD of the Atlantic Association Permit #47 COAA News c/o Jean McHugh 141 Warren Street Arlington, MA 02174