What these people have realized is one of the best secrets of life: let your self go. If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only just scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. Keeping that awestruck vision of the world ready to hand while dealing with the demands of daily living is no easy exercise, but it is definitely worth the effort, for if you can stay centered, and engaged, you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will indeed be a better person. That, I propose, is the secret to spirituality, and it has nothing to do with believing in an immortal soul, or anything else supernatural.

---Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006). New York, New York: Viking, p. 303.

Contact Information: Dowman P Varn, PhD Complexity Sciences Center Department of Physics University of California One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 Cell Phone: +01 (646) 228 7256 E-mail: dpv@ComplexMatter.org Web site: www.WissenPlatz.org

Photo courtesy of Mechelle King

Welcome to my little corner of the web! I keep this page as a permanent link to my research, teaching and personal information. Feel free to browse! To find out what's new with me, click here.

I am a physicist interested in chaotic crystallography, complex systems, bibliometrics, networks, science education, science policy and biomedical informatics. My research has centered around applying tools developed in the study of complex systems to disordered, layered materials. More specifically, I have examined how one can discover and characterize stacking disorder in layered materials directly from x-ray diffraction spectra. Below there are links to my research interests, academic papers, curriculum vitæ, teaching resources, and some personal information.

PS -- In case you're wondering, WissenPlatz is constructed from the German, das Wissen, (knowledge) and der Platz, (space or area). -- dpv