Thursday, May 24, 2007

Works Cited

One day, Churchill entered a men's room in the House of Commons and noticed Attlee at a urinal. Without saying anything, Churchill chose a urinal at the opposite side of the room. When Attlee took notice of Churchill, he said, "Feeling a bit standoffish today, Winston?" Churchill, who may have been waiting for this moment for years, replied: "That's right, Clement. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it."

Marcus Grothe, Viva la Repartee

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Works Cited

By some miraculous insight Plato seems to have foreseen, on the basis of what must have been very sparse evidence indeed at that time that: on the one hand, mathematics must be studied and understood for its own sake, and one must not demand completely accurate applicability to the objects of physical experience; on the other hand, the workings of the actual external world can ultimately be understood only in the terms of precise mathematics--which means in terms of Plato's ideal world 'accessible via the intellect'!

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It is a striking fact that all the established departures from the Newtonian picture have been, in some fundamental way, associated with the behaviour of light... It is reasonable to speculate that Newton himself would have been ready to accept that deep problems for his picture of the world lay hidden in the mysterious behaviour of light.

Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Works Cited

["]But, Warren, please remember how it is:
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon."

It hit the moon.
Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man