After graduation from high school in 1957, then college as a physics major, my life has been dominated with, or maybe I should say consumed by, three main areas of study and investigation. Now that they have been answered, I'm feeling at a loss, like there's nothing to work on anymore.
1. The ancestry of my gg-grandfather David Hartzell.This was the toughest! It took about 50 years to be 99.9% sure, and final proof came in 2008 by way of a Y-DNA 48-marker test between me and a 4th cousin descended from David Hartzell's brother John.2. The origin and structure of the universe.With my deep interest in astrophysics, this was my favorite science topic, from Einstein's Relativity beginning in 1957 to Guth's Inflation Theory around 2002 (The Inflationary Universe). It is still ongoing and will be for the rest of my life. I understand enough for my purposes, including why space exists, why time exists, and why matter has mass.3. Whether "all of creation" could have happened by chance.This only took about 10 years, beginning in 1972. It fell out of topic (2) above.Short answer: "Yes". Long answer: "Yes, it did happen by chance, and I would stake my life on it". This is reverse thinking from "Did God cause all of creation?" that I was brought up being taught not to question. It is an area where I like to say "I wandered into The Forbidden Land, and made it to the other side".
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