I awakened to a clear sunny morning this June 21, 2026, knowing it was the summer solstice. You could say I’m basking in its light despite being indoors in a modern house with plenty of windows admitting this light. Daylight (of which there are numerous definitions, I have recently learned) in Pittsburgh is 15 hours and 6 minutes today; in Reykjavik, it’s over 21 hours!
I’ve been thinking about these lengthening days in which I take a certain comfort, when compared to those of December. For the past few days, I have been anticipating - with some dread, actually - this inflection point, the day on which this process reverses. Contrary to this comfort provided by longer days is a certain pause, let’s say, resulting from my realization of just how fast the days seem to have passed since the vernal equinox of March; seems like yesterday. This so palpably reminds me how my days are numbered - even more so than by counting down the sands of time remaining by my many 90 day prescription refills. These, too, go by quickly and weirdly correspond to the change of the seasons.
I’m also aware today is Father’s Day in some fraction of the world. This, too, is cause for reflection. Though acknowledged as a species of fact for a certain date each year, such manmade holidays seem paltry and arbitrary by comparison to the aforementioned movements of our planet and solar system Newton first accurately described in the 17th century after likely millennia of curiosity by our forbears.
I’ve recently acquired some welcome insight into just how our ancient ancestors’ curiosity - arising from observations with their mere senses - were satisfied by the likes of Newton, Hook, Huygens and others. My insights into this are owed to a trilogy of inspiring historical novels by Neal Stephenson, called The Baroque Cycle. These include Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the world.
These books combine some central fictional characters and their plausible interactions with many real historical figures, including those mentioned. What is so enlightening is that these books show what surely must have been some of the thoughts and motivations leading to discovery of the nature of realities which had been observed in ignorance since time immemorial. These stories are inspiring, no less than are my own meager observations of today’s position of the earth in relation to the sun. YouTube is chock full of videos showing all this in ways which are also inspiring.
All these thoughts, in turn, lead unmistakably to the Founder of the Scanalyst site and father of our community - John Walker. There is no doubt in my mind that John was not one in a million, but at least one, two, or even three orders of magnitude greater. John was surely made of the same intellectual and curiosity stuff as Newton, Leibniz, et.al. I found John’s humility, which accompanied his brilliance, to have been all the more exceptional.
I never knew anyone like him. I miss him.