READERS’ PRAISE FOR MACLAY’S TRANSFORMATIONS
“Jordan Maclay is a rare combination of scientist and poet. He is William Shatner blasting off on Jeff Bezos’ rocket. The scientist in him studies the Universe in his poems. He ponders the possibility of using gravity to power spaceships. The poet in him ponders the hoard of damp boxes in his basement, the residue of seventy-plus years of living. He worries about taxes. He loves his old dog. He is afraid to dive deep into his pond – he fears the darkness. He fails at love. He washes away his sins in the shower. I love the book; it is so personal. His poems are confessional. They are for Everyman and Everywoman. I loved the drawings, so colorful and quirky, they are necessary. It makes it more of a surprise when you turn the page.”
-ELLIS FELKER, POET, RED OAK PUBLISHERS, AUTHOR OF “MOLAKAI DREAMS,“ “BOAZ MOON,” AND NUMEROUS OTHER POETRY BOOKS.
“Transformations truly evokes the soul of life experiences; it relates to the wonders and enigma of living a human life; very expressive and provocative; thoughtful.”
-JOSEPH R. STETTER, PH.D., ENTREPRENEUR, PRESIDENT OF SPEC-SENSORS, LLC AND KWJ ENGINEERING INCORPORATED
“In this charming little volume, Jordan touches us deeply by sharing the inner workings of his heart and soul.”
-CARVER MEAD, PH.D., GORDON, AND BETTY MOORE EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE, CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL MEDAL OF TECHNOLOGY,INVENTORS HALL OF FAME, AUTHOR OF “COLLECTIVE ELECTRODYNAMICS: QUANTUM FOUNDATIONS OF ELECTROMAGNETISM,” “INTRODUCTION TO VLSI SYSTEMS,” AND “ANALOG VLSI AND NEURAL SYSTEMS.”
“Jordan Maclay has had a lifelong passion for scientific, artistic, and spiritual exploration. This unusual book is mainly a collection of short poems and other material relating to his quest for meaning, purpose, and self-fulfillment in these explorations. While serious and deeply personal, it is presented with a sense of humor and compassion, and will likely be appreciated and enjoyed especially by like-minded readers pondering their own ‘transformations.’”
-PETER W. MILONNI, PH.D., LABORATORY FELLOW AT LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY, RESEARCH PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER, NY, AUTHOR OF “THE QUANTUM VACUUM,” “LASER PHYSICS,” AND “AN INTRODUCTION TO QUANTUM OPTICS AND QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS.”
“I have known Dr. Maclay for 40 years now, as a fellow entrepreneur and dear friend. Jordan is a lover of life and he dares to dive deeply into its mysteries. He is a world-class intellect yet his passionate love of art and beauty is a wonderful balance to his mental acuity. This shows up clearly in this book of poetry and art; what a gift to all of us this book is!”
-DAVID K. BANNER, PH.D., EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT, WALDEN UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF “LOVING IT ALL, LIVING WITH AN AWAKING HEART,” “FRAME SHIFTING: A PATH TO WHOLENESS,” AND “DESIGNING EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS: TRADITIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL VIEWS.”
“Reading Jordan Maclay’s Transformations, a series of essays, poems, and drawings, quite beautiful, a gem, I was captured by his easy give and take from the magical mystical to the scientific and philosophical. The interplay is between his personal connection with the intricate folds of a mind exploring the Mystery. He offers personal declarations of love with such open vulnerability. He offers us playful, magical drawing that reminds me of a mixture of John Lennon and Paul Klee. His training as a physicist/researcher is tinged with his lifelong quest and introspection in meditation and mysticism.
What is evident over and over is his vulnerability. In his poem, “Do I Dare” he questions the courage, his own courage to reveal “Who I am.” He declares “throw off my shield” and reveal myself, “like a butterfly escaping from its chrysalis.” This work continues to reveal the great penetration by the wise scientist/explorer/lover of life and reveals all that he has touched and been touched by in life. As we read the multiple poems and self-disclosures we discover a Modern Renaissance Man, with comically poetic mysticism and a penetrating intellect. Dr. Maclay oscillates between the Cosmic Mystic In the “Dance of Science” and the earthly pragmatist, ruminating on his decision to spend $3060.30 in his “Home Theater-Stereo” piece. His openness and honesty again are affirmed in his “Epilogue,” where he writes of his “carefully constructed inferiority complex,” being mediated by his “Spirit [which] watches amused at all my gyrations, quietly loving me.”
-NORMAN ANDREKUS, PH.D., LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST
“Some years ago, Jordan Maclay came to my office at the University of Washington and introduced himself, expressing an interest in my work on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. That was the beginning of a series of very productive interactions. In the most recent of those, he solicited and edited a long paper published in the journal Symmetry, in which Carver Mead and I described for the first time the intrinsic mechanism behind quantum wave function collapse. Without Jordan, that paper would never have been written.
In all the years of interacting with Jordan, I had no idea that he was a poet and artist, and that in the course of his work in physics he would be inspired to place poems and pictures among his technical notes. This book, containing that work, reveals a whole new aspect of his character that I had not even suspected. But now, in this small volume, we have the evidence, a collection of his poems and art.
When he described the book to me, I was expecting that it would reflect his work as a scientist, exploring aspects of quantum phenomena. There is some of this in the book, but most of the poems reflect Jordan, the human being rather than Jordan, the scientist. I find that refreshing and enlightening. I hope you do too.”
-JOHN G. CRAMER, PH.D., PROFESSOR EMERITUS UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, AUTHOR OF “THE QUANTUM HANDSHAKE: ENTANGLEMENT, NONLOCALITY AND TRANSACTIONS,” “EINSTEIN’S BRIDGE“, AND “TWISTOR.”