23 MAY 1992, Page 37

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Von Helmholtz

Hermann Helmholtz said the problem facing the scientist is this: reduce a creek, a kiss, a flaming coal from this random tracing to some irreducible final text dancing to the air of the inverse square, and we are left with a question: what next?

But there is also another layer above, beyond, below the last answer: we know the scientist and poet shape their prayer with Newton and Frost, who searched for order instead of answers and found such grace in number and sound they glorify the spell of light on water.

Peter Meinke