Historical Analogies

• Sir Isaac Newton lived to enjoy world fame.
• He realized however, that none of his work ever amounted to the final triumph of mind over the forces of nature, for the study of the world has no limits.
• Newton’s words about this ultimate truth appear in David Brewster’s Memoirs of Newton, 1860

                        I do not know what may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to                                     have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting                            myself in now  and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell                                    than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered                            before me.

• Consider also the well-known dictum relating to Socrates and Job (Book of Job, 10: 8-12) know thyself.

Key Concepts

A young man at the shore is that very boy, more engaged in playing with the invisible hook than in fishing. The circles on the water indicate spots where the mysterious fish can be found.

A sunbeam refracted in the ocean lens is that very “light of truth” reaching the boy’s awareness. In the sky above the fisherman, a pearly formation takes the shape of the real fish.

As the artist presents it, there is a whole formation of blood vessels branching out on the shore (or at the bottom of the ocean). At the same time, the semitransparent fish in the sky forms a link that connects the external with the internal human world.

This connection is confirmed in the law of optics that bring light to the web of veins (which is in essence, an enlarged view of the eye’s retina). The signal reaching the retina is interpreted as a single whole and forms the image seen by the boy on the shore.

The artist makes us realize--- and wonder--- how this wide world spreading before our eyes fits into human perception as it is assisted by a bio-optical lab with a broad network of tiny vessels.