When JaiChai was 6 1/2 y/o, his parents finally had the means to visit the places they could only dream about a decade earlier; when they were a couple of new, poor immigrants from Asia.
After having two children - "Barbs" (nickname of JaiChai's older sister "Barbara Jean") and "JC" (short for "Jittaparn Chattuchat Suankhularb", later expanded to "JaiChai"), and the many rough years overcoming one challenging obstacle after another - while graciously tolerating the overt, ubiquitous racial bias and discrimination of 1950-60's Boston MA, JaiChai's mother was now a senior Nurse Practitioner and O.R. Anesthetist at Boston General Hospital and his father was a Boston University educated MD-PhD and Head, Department of Counseling and Rehabilitation, U.S. Veteran's Administration.
They had enough money and several weeks of accrued leave that had to be used or taken in commensurate hourly wages before the end of the fiscal year.
Up till now, his parents had always found reasons for postponing their vacation and take the extra money instead.
But apparently, this year would be different. And here's why...
Unbeknownst to JaiChai and Barbs at the time, the real reason for taking the globe-trotting vacation right now - in the middle of the kid's school year, instead of later during the summer break, was because his father had recently been diagnosed with Cancer; specifically, Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.*
During the world tour, they stopped in Rome and visited the Vatican's famous Sistine Chapel.
The young JaiChai was mesmerized by the ceiling fresco.
At 4 1/2 y/o and already labeled as a "Gifted" child with an I.Q. too high for accurate assessment by current standards, JaiChai was in awe of Michaelangelo's keen awareness of, and practical application of, the distance/visual clarity relationship and its effect on human visual perception.
The young, 15th century genius of the Renaissance intuitively knew exactly how the conglomeration of amorphous, multi-colored blotches of paint he was creating at arm's length from the ceiling would appear to the viewers far below on the ground: "A beautifully rendered masterpiece of vivid colors and uncanny detail."
Without getting into the theory and mathematical proof behind it, let's just say that the clarity/distance relationship is why the unaided visual of things lose clarity (get blurry), while moving away and increasing the distance between the viewer and the object being viewed.
The further away one gets from an image, the more clarity is lost.
First it's a little fuzzy, then blurry and finally, it becomes an unrecognizable mess of blending colors, gray-scale contrasts and fading silhouettes, a Rorschach with zero (or a zillion) ways to interpret it.
This process continues up to a certain point where an inversion threshold is located.
Crossing this threshold causes the clarity-distance relationship to invert; that is, in spite of moving further away, the object starts getting clearer - until enough distance is covered to reach the next inversion threshold.
It's similar to what happens when altering the "Hue" of a digital image.
Moving the adjustment slider from beginning to end produces varying shades of different colors until a threshold is crossed.
Then color presentation reverses and you end up with the same color you started with.
JaiChai noticed this multi-directional, zoom in/zoom out effect was not limited to just visual clarity and color, but happens in virtually every physical process of the natural world and is directly responsible for the Human Perception of reality.
JaiChai dubbed this phenomenon as the "Little Gidding Effect". The moniker comes from the last poem in T.S. Elliot's Quartets** of the same name and contains the following:
“We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.”
JaiChai's awareness of the "Little Gidding Effect" led to his several breakthroughs in STEM R&D and cut the time from proof-of-concept to practical application in half.
A short list of achievements includes:
A Crispr Cas-20 modification to normal fungi responsible for routine penicillin; enabling them to produce a new line of top-tier, custom made, 100% compatible, patient-specific antibiotics.
Created a similar modification for a species of common algae resulting in safe, effective vaccines to combat a host of deadly, pandemic-capable diseases.
A class of highly effective anti-virals from the domestication of common E-Coli bacteria.
A robust, long-lasting QBit (the smallest functional unit in Quantum Computing) able to withstand normal levels of decoherence.
Stated differently, his QBit doesn't need a sub-zero, dust-free, vibration-free environment to function properly.
It operates fine at room temperature and has a human level of tolerance for noise, vibration, dust and light.
- Solved the speed/accuracy/security "Triad of Trouble" problem that plagued quantum computing from its inception.
Ironically, JaiChai found the solution by combining elements from modern CPUs with those found in ancient devices created for early mechanical computing.
With the "Little Gidding Effect" always playing in the back of his mind, JaiChai is currently using a similar analog-plus-digital approach in hopes of creating a safe, accurate and reliable method for transferring human consciousness...
Addendum:
*Upon returning home from Moscow - the last tourist site of the family vacation, JaiChai's father completed his fourth quarterly/PRN (as needed) medical evaluation.
48 hrs. later, his oncologist was happy to deliver some great news:
"All laboratory results and bio-med scans confirm a marked, 33% decrease of malignant lymphatic cells. Intermediate Diagnosis: Partial Recession. Prognosis: Continued decline of lymphoma."
In other words, JaiChai's father was in "Partial Remission " and chances were very good that he'd soon be in "Full Remission".
As it turned out, JaiChai's father enjoyed the next 30+ years symptom-free from Cancer.
Then, right before the mutual birthday of JaiChai and his father (the 42nd and 72nd, respectively), the Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma returned - permanently this time and six months later, claimed the life of JaiChai's father.
**Little Gidding is the fourth and final poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, a series of poems that discuss time, perspective, humanity, and salvation.
It was first published in September 1942 after being delayed for over a year because of the air-raids on Great Britain during World War II and Eliot's declining health. (Wiki)
[Submitted for your entertainment.]
May you and yours be well and loving life today.
In Lak'ech, JaiChai