We were talking about Higgs-Boson fields over dinner tonight. Specifically how Higgs-Boson fields are supposed to give other sub-atomic particles mass.

I find these subjects interesting. I am intrigued by the stuff of creation. Yet with all this interest it was not me but my 13-year-old son Caleb who started in on the subject. His mind was filled with quantum questions and propositions that floored me. He proposed theories of temperatures hot enough to bend light; he suggested the possibility of gravity intense enough to warp existence. He posited multiverses and dimensions beyond the three we are comfortable with. When we talked about HB fields being responsible for mass he started talking about the theoretical gravitron particle and its relationship to the Higgs-Boson.

I listened. He talked a mile a minute.

We talked about the speed of light and how Voyager 2 had left the Solar System at a speed of 58,000 km/hr. I told him Alpha Centauri was the closest star at 4.3 light years away and he wanted to calculate how long it would take for it to travel that far.

Caleb is a mechanic at heart. He likes to build things. He likes to take them apart. He likes to understand how things work but he does so increasingly at a theoretical quantum level which fills me to bursting with pride.

Ok I know parents are always talking up their kids. I do it too…all the time. Still to have a conversation with him at this level when he has just turned 13 floors me. Will we be able to converse at this level when he is 15 or will he be well past me by then? A humbling thought.

I gave him my copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time to read. I told him he would not understand a lot of it (underestimate?) but that it is talking at the level he was with me.

These moments are priceless. They help one understand that their children will surpass them. It is a necessary humility.