Organizing Compassionate Communication: Pragmatic

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Organizing Compassionate Communication: Pragmatic Organizing Compassionate Communication: Pragmatic Fieldwork with Nonprofits and Homeless Young Adults by Timothy Huffman A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved March 2013 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Angela Trethewey, Chair Sarah J. Tracy Mark Hagar ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2013 ABSTRACT In an effort to understand and improve interactions between homeless young adults and the nonprofit organizations that serve them, I engaged in a long-term, qualitative, participatory action project. My project involved input from homeless young adults, nonprofit organizations, volunteers/staff, and communication scholarship. While taking a community-engaged, participatory, and qualitative approach, I focused on the interactions between youth and the organizations. Particularly, I drew on homeless young adult experiences to inform services and illuminate compassion within the context of the nonprofit organizations. In the end, this project extends the individual model of compassion to include presence, identifies potential ruptures in the process of compassion, and models compassionate dynamics in organizations. It also articulates a method I call pragmatic fieldwork, a qualitative and pragmatic approach to participatory action research. Each of these outcomes speaks to varied community interests, from theoretically nuancing scholarly models of compassion to informing policy in the interest of more effectively and compassionately serving homeless youth. i DEDICATION For those who live without homes. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The work described herein would not be possible without three communities: The volunteers of StandUp For Kids, including Anna, Dean, Jacque, John, and Krista. The young adults of StandUp For Kids, particularly Andrew, DK, JD, and Sam. My academic mentors, most notably Angela, Duff, Mark, and Sarah. I am especially indebted to my wife and editor, Kristen. As my partner in all things, she moves with me through every community and is part of all my labors from inception to completion. iii CHAPTER 1 FORWARD ......................................................................................................... 1 2 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 19 Improving Organized Service to Homeless Young Adults .......................... 20 Describing Organized Service to Homeless Young Adults .......................... 21 Explaining Organized Service to Homeless Young Adults .......................... 21 Why Homelessness? ...................................................................................... 22 Project Summary ............................................................................................ 24 Chapter One – Forward.................................................................................. 24 Chapter Two – Introduction ........................................................................... 24 Chapter Three – Context ................................................................................ 24 Chapter Four – Methods ................................................................................ 25 Chapter Five – Individual Compassion in Organizations ............................. 25 Chapter Six – Ruptures in Compassion ......................................................... 25 Chapter Seven – Compassionate Dynamics in Organizations...................... 26 Chapter Eight – Pragmatic Fieldwork ........................................................... 26 Chapter Nine – Implications and Discussion ................................................ 27 Chapter Ten – Conclusion ............................................................................. 27 3 CONTEXT ......................................................................................................... 28 Topical Context: Youth Homelessness ......................................................... 28 Struggles of Being Homeless ........................................................................ 29 (Sub)disciplinary Context: Communication, Nonprofits, and Social Justice ..................................................................................... 31 iv Theoretical Frame: Compassion in Organizations ........................................ 37 Compassion as a Theoretic Frame .................................................... 37 Emotional Labor, Burnout, and Compassion Fatigue ...................... 38 Compassion in Organizations ........................................................... 40 Expanding on Noticing, Connecting, and Responding .................... 43 Ethics and Care .................................................................................. 44 Conceptualizing Compassion ............................................................ 45 Summary of Theoretical Context ...................................................... 48 Research Problem and Research Question ....................................... 48 Conceptual Context ........................................................................................ 48 Paradigmatic Background ................................................................. 49 Pragmatism ........................................................................................ 51 Phronesis ............................................................................................ 56 Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) ...................................... 57 Pragmatism, Phronesis, and POS in Participatory Action Research ................................................................................ 58 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 62 4 METHODS ........................................................................................................ 63 Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis ..................................................... 63 Observation and Fieldnotes ............................................................... 63 SUFK Youth Center .............................................................. 65 Mill Avenue (“The Ave”) ..................................................... 66 Tumbleweed Youth Resource Center .................................. 67 v Phoenix Shelters (“The Zone”) ............................................. 67 Interviews........................................................................................... 68 Participation ....................................................................................... 69 Data Analysis ..................................................................................... 70 Qualitative Analysis and Reasoning ................................................. 71 IRB Approval .................................................................................... 74 5 INDIVIDUAL COMPASSION IN ORGANIZATIONS .............................................. 76 Presence .......................................................................................................... 80 The Basic Relationship: Presence Indicates Care............................. 81 Necessary, but Not Sufficient ........................................................... 84 A Critical Juxtoposition – Human Service Agencies and Disney World ................................................................................................. 86 Immediacy – Initiating and Welcoming Presence ............................ 90 Acts of Service ................................................................................... 93 Embodied Aboutness ......................................................................... 95 Extending Compassion Models ........................................................ 96 On Presence and Compassion ........................................................................ 98 6 RUPTURES IN COMPASSION ................................................................................. 100 Ruptures in Presence – Being Present in a Noncompassionate Way .................................................................................................. 100 Ruptures in Recognition – Noticing Needs Others Do Not Think They Have .............................................................................................................. 103 vi Ruptures in Relating – Relating Interpreted as Noncompassionate as Interpreted by Homeless Young Adults ...................................................... 105 Ruptures in (Re)acting – Noncompassionate Reacting .............................. 110 Other Ruptures Lead to Noncompassionate (Re)acting ................. 110 Ineffective Response ....................................................................... 112 Verb-Preponsition Pairs ............................................................................... 114 Understanding the Prepositions Using Interpellation ................................. 116 The Interpellative Power of “Against” ........................................... 118 The Interpellative Power of “For” .................................................. 118 The Interpellative Power of “With” ................................................ 119 Summary ...................................................................................................... 120 7 DYNAMICS OF COMPASSION IN ORGANIZATIONS ......................................... 121 Modeling the Dynamics of Compassion in Organizations ........................
Recommended publications
  • This Is an Accepted Manuscript of an Article Published by Taylor
    This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in African and Black Diaspora on 11th September 2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17528631.2018.1516276 Unaccented Beat: Positional politics and the enigma of visibility in The Stuart Hall Project Hager Weslati In his essay film, The Stuart Hall Project, Akomfrah resumes his exploration of the multi-layered screen approach to political aesthetics, offering a complex portrait of his subject’s abiding concern with social inequality, tracking its manifestations in the ‘conjugated cultural realities’ of colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism down to its vanishing point in the ‘neo-liberal problem space’ of present-day Britain. Paying close attention to the use of associative editing, Vertovian color montage, and contrapuntal rhythmicity, this paper highlights the film’s critical take on the coalescence of multicultural drift, the slow moving glacier of feminism, and the paradigm of the diaspora into three-layered screens through which positional politics is redefined within the framework of Présence Africaine and the larger trajectory of contemporary African and diasporan artists, intellectuals, and activists. Keywords: Stuart Hall, John Akomfrah, Franz Fanon, essay film, color montage, rhythmicity, displacement, multiculturalism, sexual politics Neither the drawing nor the painting belongs to the in-itself any more than the image does. They are the inside of the outside and the outside of the inside. Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
    [Show full text]
  • FRAMES of REPRESENTATION Spectatorship Ica.Art/For20 27 November – #For20 13 December 2020
    27 November – 13 December 2020 FRAMES of REPRESENTATION Spectatorship ica.art/FoR20 27 November – #FoR20 13 December 2020 FRAMES of REPRESENTATION Spectatorship FRAMES of REPRESENTATION embraces the cinema of the real, which lies at the intersection of fiction and non-fiction. We believe that the aesthetics, politics and ethics of the cinema of the real enables the depiction of individual lives and an engagement with contemporary sociopolitical struggles. Programme Friday 27 November, 6.30pm Panquiaco Saturday 28 November, 4.30pm Oroslan Saturday 28 November, 7pm The Earth Is Blue as an Orange Sunday 29 November, 4pm Immortal Sunday 29 November, 6.15pm Soviet Cycles: A Round-table Discussion on Spectatorship and Censorship Tuesday 1 December, 6.45pm La vida en común Wednesday 2 December, 6.45pm Piedra sola Thursday 3 December, 6.45pm Los conductos Friday 4 December, 6pm IWOW: I Walk on Water Saturday 5 December, 6pm FoR Shorts #1: Reynard (Raposa) + Seven Years in May (Sete anos em maio) + Tender (Tendre) Sunday 6 December, 6.15pm Un Film Dramatique Monday 7 December, 7pm Harlem – 125th Street / Lexington Avenue:Artist’s Talk with Khalik Allah Tuesday 8 December, 6.30pm A Storm Was Coming (Anunciaron tormenta) Wednesday 9 December, 6.30pm Endless Night (Longa noite) Thursday 10 December, 7pm From Tomorrow on, I Will (Chun nuan hua kai) Friday 11 December, 6.20pm The Cloud in Her Room (Ta fang jian li de yun) Saturday 12 December, 6.30pm FoR Shorts #2: Apiyemiyekî? + Aggregate States of Matters + Sun Dog Sunday 13 December, 6pm Air Conditioner
    [Show full text]
  • Krystal Aegis Krystal Star Guardian Spiritual Support
    KRYSTAL AEGIS KRYSTAL STAR GUARDIAN SPIRITUAL SUPPORT Created as a Collaborative Effort by: Krystal Star Guardians, Lisa Renee and ES Community Members www.EnergeticSynthesis.com Table of Contents Welcome to the Krystal Aegis ..................................................................................................... 3 Step One: The Agreement and Request for Intercession ........................................................... 9 Step Two: Preparing the Foundation ........................................................................................ 10 Step Three: ES Core Triad for Daily Use .................................................................................... 12 Step Four: 12D Calibration for Crux Implant Remove .............................................................. 15 Step Five: Building Integrity of Spiritual House ........................................................................ 18 Prioritizing Spiritual Commitment ............................................................................................ 19 Discipline Mental Body Technique ........................................................................................... 21 Law of One Practices ................................................................................................................. 24 Practice of Mastering Relationships ......................................................................................... 26 Nine Steps to Mastery .............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • KATHY HIGH, Professor of Video and New Media, Department of the Arts
    :: KATHY HIGH, Professor of Video and New Media, Department of the Arts, RPI, Troy, NY 12180 mobile 518.209.6209, email [email protected], website http://kathyhigh.com/index.html :: EDUCATION 1981 Master of Arts, S.U.N.Y. AT BUFFALO, NY Interdisciplinary degree with areas of study in video/film at the Center for Media Study and Photography, Department of Fine Arts 1977 Bachelor of Arts, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY Majors in Fine Arts and English Literature :: TEACHING 2013-present Professor of Video & New Media, Arts Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 2002-2013 Associate Professor of Video & New Media, Arts Department, RPI 2018-2019 Head of Arts Department, RPI, Troy, NY 2004-2008 Head of Arts Department, RPI, Troy, NY 1995-2001 Lecturer (Assoc. Prof.), digital media, Visual Arts Program, Princeton University, NJ 1998-2001 Lecturer, Video production, School of Art Cooper Union, NYC :: EXHIBITIONS, INSTALLATIONS and SCREENINGS (SELECTED) 2020 WASTE! ADAPTATION! RESISTENCE!, (solo exhibition) UCSD, multimedia installation, San Diego, CA, April. 2019 Rat Laughter, IMPAKT Festival, Utrecht, NL, Oct. 31- Nov 2. Rat Laughter installation, Netherlands. The Cured, (group exhibition), Curator, Tansy Xiao, Radiator Gallery, Long Island City, NYC, Burial Globes, July-August. 2018 Space-evolution (group exhibition), curated by Maria Antonia Gonzalez, Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City, November, mixed media. Catalogue. This Mess We're In, Unhallowed Arts Festival 2018, (group exhibition), curated Tarsh Bates, Old Customs House, Fremantle, WA, Australia, 13 Oct– 2 Nov, screening OkPoopid. Catalogue. Posthuman Cinema: How Experimental Films Teach (and Learn) How to Show Animals, Ujazdoski Castel, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland, curated by Michał Matuszewski, October 18-31, Lily Does Derrida.
    [Show full text]
  • Born in America, Jazz Can Be Seen As a Reflection of the Cultural Diversity and Individualism of This Country
    1 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in “Styles in Jazz Music”. In Section 1 of this course you will cover these topics: Introduction What Is Jazz? Appreciating Jazz Improvisation The Origins Of Jazz Topic : Introduction Topic Objective: At the end of this topic student would be able to: Discuss the Birth of Jazz Discuss the concept of Louis Armstrong Discuss the Expansion of Jazz Understand the concepts of Bebop Discuss todays Jazz Definition/Overview: The topic discusses that the style of music known as jazz is largely based on improvisation. It has evolved while balancing traditional forces with the pursuit of new ideas and approaches. Today jazz continues to expand at an exciting rate while following a similar path. Here you will find resources that shed light on the basics of one of the greatest musical developments in modern history.WWW.BSSVE.IN Born in America, jazz can be seen as a reflection of the cultural diversity and individualism of this country. At its core are openness to all influences, and personal expression through improvisation. Throughout its history, jazz has straddled the worlds of popular music and art music, and it has expanded to a point where its styles are so varied that one may sound completely unrelated to another. First performed in bars, jazz can now be heard in clubs, concert halls, universities, and large festivals all over the world. www.bsscommunitycollege.in www.bssnewgeneration.in www.bsslifeskillscollege.in 2 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in Key Points: 1. The Birth of Jazz New Orleans, Louisiana around the turn of the 20th century was a melting pot of cultures.
    [Show full text]
  • Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse Physics, Philosophy, and Quantum Decision Making Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse Christian D
    Christian D. Schade Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse Physics, Philosophy, and Quantum Decision Making Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse Christian D. Schade Free Will and Consciousness in the Multiverse Physics, Philosophy, and Quantum Decision Making 123 Christian D. Schade School of Business and Economics Humboldt University of Berlin Berlin, Germany ISBN 978-3-030-03582-2 ISBN 978-3-030-03583-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03583-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962787 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
    [Show full text]
  • Natureandartistry in Theancient Americas
    Nature and Artistry in the Ancient Americas ATeacher’s Guide michael c. carlos museum Nature and Artistry in the Ancient Americas ATeacher’s Guide by Julie Taylor Green Copyright 2004 Michael C. Carlos Museum All rights reserved. Designed by Times 3, Atlanta Drawings by Ande Cook and Nina West Photographic credits: Peter Harholdt, Mike McKelvey, and the archives of the Michael C. Carlos Museum 1 introduction 4 how to read a label at the carlos museum Contents 5 chapter one Shamanism and Transformation in the Ancient Americas 19 chapter two Art, Nature, and the Human Connection 32 chapter three Textile Primacy in the Ancient Andes 44 chapter four Document-Based Questions 47 map 48 glossary 49 bibliography 51 list of images introduction t was not long ago that ancient American cultures were relegated to a foot- Inote in the social studies curriculum. Even that footnote traced the European conquest of indigenous cultures rather than the Amerindian accomplishments during the many millennia before the European invasions. Students learned that Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519 and defeated Montezuma, the last Aztec king (whose name was actually Motecuhzoma the Second). Montezuma was the only indigenous person who was consistently referenced in the history books. Of course, there was mention of great hordes of gold, sought after by the Europeans (Spain was nearly bankrupt at the time) and readily available in the Americas where it was valued more when worked into art than as a standard of value itself. The usual tale is that a few hundred Spaniards defeated millions of “Indians.” This myth of a quick overthrow of superstitious “natives” is quite misleading, distorting the complexity of the encounters of these radically opposing worldviews.
    [Show full text]
  • JACK Dejohnette NEA Jazz Master (2112)
    Funding for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. JACK DeJOHNETTE NEA Jazz Master (2112) Interviewee: Jack DeJohnette (August 9, 1942 - ) Interviewer: Dr. Anthony Brown with sound engineer Ken Kimery Date: November, 10-11th, 2011 Repository: Archives Center, National Museum of American History Description: Transcript, pp. 107 Brown: Today is November 10th, 2011, and this is The Smithsonian Oral History Interview with NEA Jazz Master, percussionist, pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, educator, and my hero, Jack DeJohnette, in his house in Silver Hollow, Upstate New York. How are you doing today, Mr. DeJohnette? DeJohnette: I'm doing great! Brown: Great, great. DeJohnette: Great. Brown: If we could start the interview by you stating your full name, full birth name, birthplace and birth date? DeJohnette: Okay. Jack DeJohnette…born in Chicago, Illinois in the county of Cook, August 9th, 1942. Brown: And if you could tell us the names of your parents. For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] 1 DeJohnette: Yeah, my mother's name was Eva Jeanette Wood and my father's name is Jack DeJohnette Sr. in that case. Brown: Oh, so you're a Jr.? DeJohnette: Yeah, I'm a Jr. Brown: No middle name? DeJohnette: No. Brown: And do you know where your parents are originally from? DeJohnette: Yeah, my mother was from Lionel, Georgia. My father was from Oak Ridge, Louisiana. Brown: And did they meet and marry in Chicago, do you know anything about that? DeJohnette: Mm-hmm.
    [Show full text]
  • About Jazz – Take 5 Interview
    All About Jazz – Take 5 Interview Which instrument(s) are you playing? My main instrument is the guitar (although that’s already a plural; see my answer on “sound and approach to music” below). I also play some drums, percussions and vocals. Who are you teachers and/or influences? I’ve had and continue to have numerous influences, but to name the most important ones: Pat Metheny, Mike Stern, John Scofield, Bobby McFerrin, Michael Brecker, Chick Corea, Uzeb, Joe Zawinul, Tribal Tech, the Yellow Jacquets. When did you realize you wanted to be a musician? I discovered Jazz and improvisation, at the age of 15. I had been learning music theory and various instruments for quite some time, but while I knew I loved music already, I also felt that something was wrong. In fact, I couldn’t see the point in learning a tune, playing it, and then move on to the next. This just didn’t make sense to me. But once I discovered improvisation, I suddenly realized that it was what I had been looking for: music as an everlasting personal development path, experiment and game. Music as a lifetime of research and evolution. Music as a language in perpetual motion. It’s all about Jazz and Jazz is all about that: it’s a philosophy of music rather than a particular musical genre. What is your sound and approach to music? I’m a guitar player not because I love the guitar, but because when I discovered Jazz and improvi- sation and fell in love with it, I was learning the guitar.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hidden Reality Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos / by Brian Greene.—1St Ed
    ALSO BY BRIAN GREENE Icarus at the Edge of Time The Fabric of the Cosmos The Elegant Universe THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF Copyright © 2011 Brian Greene All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. www.aaknopf.com Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greene, B. (Brian), [date] The hidden reality parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos / by Brian Greene.—1st ed. p. cm. eISBN: 978-0-307-59525-6 1. Physics—Philosophy. 2. Quantum theory. 3. General relativity (Physics) 4. Cosmology. I. Title. QC6.G6885 2011 530.12—dc22 2010042710 Jacket design by Peter Mendelsund v3.1 To Alec and Sophia Contents 1. The Bounds of Reality On Parallel Worlds 2. Endless Doppelgängers The Quilted Multiverse 3. Eternity and Infinity The Inflationary Multiverse 4. Unifying Nature’s Laws On the Road to String Theory 5. Hovering Universes in Nearby Dimensions The Brane and Cyclic Multiverses 6. New Thinking About an Old Constant The Landscape Multiverse 7. Science and the Multiverse On Inference, Explanation, and Prediction 8. The Many Worlds of Quantum Measurement The Quantum Multiverse 9. Black Holes and Holograms The Holographic Multiverse 10. Universes, Computers, and Mathematical Reality The Simulated and Ultimate Multiverses 11. The Limits of Inquiry Multiverses and the Future Notes Suggestions for Further Reading About the Author Preface If there was any doubt at the turn of the twentieth century, by the turn of the twenty-first, it was a foregone conclusion: when it comes to revealing the true nature of reality, common experience is deceptive.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Modern Jazz
    BEYOND MODERN JAZZ THE EVOLUTION OF POSTMODERN JAZZ PERFORMANCE AND COMPOSITION FROM 1969 TO THE PRESENT DAVID OWEN RESTIVO A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO OCTOBER, 2017 © David Owen Restivo, 2017 ABSTRACT In the following paper, I will address what I perceive to be a gap in scholarship regarding the evolution of African-American classical music (popularly referred to as ‘jazz’) following the end of its primary phase of development, which I would refer to as the pre- modern and modern periods, and which I define as stretching roughly from the turn of the last century until the end of the 1960s. To this end, I will borrow from concepts of postmodernism as expressed by Jean-François Lyotard, James Morley, and Kenneth Gloag, in order to attempt to define what I feel it means within the context of the jazz lineage. In the process of examining this ‘post-history’, I will bring particular focus to the contributions of two key figures, Keith Jarrett and Wynton Marsalis. I will also look at a series of my own compositions and consider where they fit into the ‘postmodern’ paradigm. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to the following people, without whom this project would not have been possible: Dr. Sundar Viswanathan; Prof. Barry Elmes; Prof. Michael Coghlan; Prof. Ron Westray; Prof. David Mott; Prof. Paul Sych; Tere Tilban-Ross; Peggy Jane Hope; Mary Margaret Hope-Restivo; Dr. Valerie Alia; Dr. Sal Restivo; Dan Restivo; Alan Henderson; Terry Promane; Fawn Fritzen; Mark Chambers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Quantum Multiverse
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Previously Published Works Title The Quantum Multiverse. Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/51m5n139 Journal Scientific American, 316(6) ISSN 0036-8733 Author Nomura, Yasunori Publication Date 2017-05-01 DOI 10.1038/scientificamerican0617-28 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California 28 Scientific American, June 2017 sad0617Nomu3p.indd 28 4/14/17 1:12 PM QUANTUM COSMOLOGY A surprising connection between cosmology and quantum mechanics could unveil the secrets of space and time By Yasunori Nomura THE MULTIVERSE Photograph by The Voorhes June 2017, ScientificAmerican.com 29 sad0617Nomu3p.indd 29 4/14/17 1:12 PM Yasunori Nomura is a professor of physics and director of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a principal investigator at the University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe. what seems to be the entire universe may actually be only a tiny part of a much larger structure called the multiverse. In this picture, multiple universes exist, and the rules we once assumed were basic laws of nature take di erent forms in each; for example, the types and properties of elementary particles may di er from one universe to another. The multiverse idea emerges from a theory that suggests the physicists. Some researchers, including me, have now realized Mvery early cosmos expanded exponentially. During this period of that quantum theory—which, in contrast to the multiverse “infl ation,” some regions would have halted their rapid expansion notion, is concerned with the very smallest particles in exis- sooner than others, forming what are called bubble universes, tence—may, ironically, point the way to a solution.
    [Show full text]