"Saying what needs to be said about the most sucky parts of physics"   #001 Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters. - Lazarus Long #002 Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures. It depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'Tis of no use to show us more planets and systems. - Ralph Waldo Emerson #003 All knowledge has an ultimate goal. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is, say what you will, nothing but a dismal begging of the question. - Miguel de Unamuno And the question begged is "Why the endless cataloguing?" The answer? "Because...money." #004 Tears are often the telescope by which men see the furthest. - Henry Ward Beecher, 1858 When we stamp collect "new" stars, we passify ourselves. Conversely, when we shed tears, we are saying "this is not good enough". The next non-emotional thought, after the tears, is the thought that matters. #005 The discovery of one star is the promise of another. - Robert Aris Willmott, 1855 The discovery of one star is the promise of another paycheck. - tEmP theorists #006 In engineering if you don't know what you are doing you shouldn't be doing it. In research, if you know what you are doing, then you shouldn't be doing it. If the answer turns out to be exactly what you expected, then you've learned nothing new, although you may have had your confidence increased somewhat. - Richard Hamming Yet we continue particle smashing, with ever more questionable results. #007 All nature is so full that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined. - Gilbert White In other words, wherever you look you will find stuff. So don't just catalog stuff. Work on your theories instead. #008 Any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be "interesting". The problem must be such that it matters what the answer is -- to science generally or to mankind. - Peter B. Medawar (1915-1987) So, does counting exoplanets or measuring galaxy distances matter? Not a chance. Does caring about how $10B/year of public funds are spent matter? Resoundingly yes. Conclusion: Stop funding zombie projects. Projects that repeat the same action hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions and even quadrillions of time. The LHC sends groups of particles around in a circle 31.6 million times per second, which works out to a quadrillion tests in a single year. #009 Aristotle attributed this symphony of the heavens, this music of the spheres to Pythagoras. Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony. If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, as snowy as Pythagoras' was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars. - John Milton The last thing we need is the "music of the wheeling stars" filling our ears. We need to be more creative and less receptive (to the outer emptiness). To ask "What if?" questions. To test assumptions. To try to conceive of new theories. To test the best of these new theories. Ultimately, to refine, tweak or discard theories as test results confirm, negate or yield ambiguous findings. So that, eventually, we simply have sound theories. #010 Astronomers and physicists, dealing habitually with objects and quantities far beyond the reach of the senses, even with the aid of the most powerful aids that ingenuity has been able to devise, tend almost inevitably to fall into the ways of thinking of men dealing with objects and quantities that do not exist at all, e.g., theologians and metaphysicians. Thus their speculations tend almost inevitably to depart from the field of true science, which is that of precise observation, and to become mere soaring in the empyrean. The process works backward, too. That is to say, their reports of what they pretend actually to see are often very unreliable. It is thus no wonder that, of all men of science, they are the most given to flirting with theology. Nor is it remarkable that, in the popular belief, most astronomers end by losing their minds. - H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) It is indicative of the lack of logic in their thinking. tEmP theorists are uninterested in hard work on legitimate problems. They would rather spout like fountains. #011 Astronomy is, not without reason, regarded by mankind as the sublimest of the natural sciences. Its objects so frequently visible, and therefore familiar, being always remote and inaccessible, do not lose their dignity. - Benjamin Silliman Yes, star gazing is a sure fire way to suck money out of people. That, and blinding explosion graphics. #012 Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Yes, millions of twinkling stars should induce a sense of awe in all of us. But cataloguing hundreds of millions of stars in our own galaxy is excessive. Ironically (insightfully?), it is hard to see more than a handful of stars today. Nature is telling us to change our focus. When will a tEmP theorist actually ponder something worth pondering? #013 At least once per year, some group of scientists will become very excited and announce that "The universe is even bigger than they thought!" "There are even more subatomic particles than they thought!" Whatever they announced last year about global warming is wrong. - Dave Barry Trying to be funny, but getting uncomfortably close to the truth. To the point of forgetting to include a punchline. Signs less of a good comic than of an important comic. #014 Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology about microscopes or chemistry about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do. - Edsjer W. Dijkstra In other words, endless star gazing accomplishes nothing. Ergo, the people approving star gazing budgets are abusing research funds. A problem started by the people who asked for money to build telescopes. "Why?" should have been the most firmly studied question. We continue to build these money pits at the rate of several per year. This is like paying construction workers to remove portions of the southern border. Removing what little protection we have will only worsen crimes of all sorts. Incurring substantial costs unnecessarily. Similarly, building telescopes we don't need will incur substantial, and recurring, costs unnecessarily. #015 Having probes in space was like having a cataract removed. - Hannes Alfven Today, instead of blurred images, we have billions of duplicate images. Star gazing = atom smashing. Neither furthers science, or life. #016 In the natural sciences, and particularly in chemistry, generalities must come after the detailed knowledge of each fact and not before it. - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac tEmP theories rarely bother with "detailed knowledge of each fact", choosing instead a "collect the whole set" approach. Difficult when there are 100,000,000,000 galaxies, with 100,000,000,000 stars in each galaxy. tEmP theories are the garbage collectors of science. #017 The comforting, if spurious, precision of laboratory results has the same appeal as the lifebelt to the weak swimmer. - anonymous, The Lancet, 1981 #018 Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every star and zero in the history of our species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. - Carl Sagan (1934-1996) And? #019 Men will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences. Science will go on whether we are pessimistic or optimistic. - Linus Pauling This is bad, not good. Zombies keep walking, no matter what the consequences. Money will be wasted on junk science whether we like it or not. #020 Necessity is not the mother of invention. Knowledge and experiment are its parents. It sometimes happens that successful search is made for unknown materials to fill well-recognized and predetermined requirements. It more often happens that the acquirement of knowledge of the previously unknown properties of a material suggests its trial for some new use. These facts strongly indicate the value of knowledge of properties of materials and indicate a way for research. - Willis R. Whitney What Whitney is describing is the routine work once the pipe has been laid. Once you have a telescope, you can catalog stars. But this has nothing to do with invention. Knowledge and experiment are important, yes. More so is the ability to discard nonsense. That is a necessity. #021 Sometimes the public says "What's in it for Numero Uno? Am I going to get better television reception? Am I going to get better Internet reception?" Well, in some sense, yes. All the wonders of quantum physics were learned basically from looking at atom-smasher technology. But let me let you in on a secret: We physicists are not driven to do this because of better color television. That's a spin-off. We do this because we want to understand our role and our place in the universe. - Michio Kaku, on the practical applications of particle physics research with the Large Hadron Collider I wish there was a single word of truth in what he said. tEmP theorists are motivated by the money/power/fame. The 99% are the major losers from particle smashers and "oh look there's another galaxy" cataloguing. #022 Basic research is like shooting an arrow into the air and, where it lands, painting a target. - Homer Adkins #023 Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument. - Humphry Davy, "Elements Of Chemical Philosophy", 1812 Nothing tends to massive new errors a...the application of a new instrument. Instruments are, ultimately, based on theories. Work the theory and the instruments will take care of themselves. #024 Of what use are the great number of petrifactions, of different species, shape and form which are dug up by naturalists? Perhaps the collection of such specimens is sheer vanity and inquisitiveness. - Carolus Linnaeus, 1751 #025 On certain occasions, the eyes of the mind can supply the want of the most powerful telescopes, and lead to astronomical discoveries of the highest importance. - Francois Arago The mind >> the telescope #026 Otto Struve made the remark once that he never looked at the spectrum of a star, any star, where he didn't find something important to work on. - William Wilson Morgan Spring-And-Loop Theory is like that with physics books and TV shows. No matter how wrong they are, they almost always help Spring-And-Loop Theory. When you love a subject, any mention, reference or cause to reflect on it will set you to thinking and often to moving toward your next thought. Back to the quote... The problem with Struve's point is that anyone can find anything to be "worth studying". But star study is not free. Anything that begs the public for money needs to justify the public trust. #027 Our knowledge of stars and interstellar matter must be based primarily on the electromagnetic radiation which reaches us. Nature has thoughtfully provided us with a universe in which radiant energy of almost all wavelengths travels in straight lines over enormous distances with usually rather negligible absorption. - Lyman Spitzer, Jr. Utter nonsense. Modelling is the future, bud. #028 Outside intelligences, exploring the solar system with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris. - Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Dear star gazers, Please have a point. Thank you. Spring-And-Loop Theory. #029 Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem to characterize our age. - Albert Einstein Star gazing is highly perfected, and quite pointless. Smashing particles? Same. Teaching relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory and concepts like dark matter & dark energy? Same, same, same, same, and same. Special Relativity is based on impossible assumptions. General Relativity is built on top of Special Relativity. Therefore one can say General Relativity is perfectly wrong. [More.] #030 Physical scientists probably deserve the reputation they enjoy for incorruptibility and unswerving devotion to pure truth. The reason for this is that it is not worth while to bribe them. - Anthony Standen (1906-1993), "Science Is A Sacred Cow", 1950 Things have changed in the past 66 years, Anthony. Things have definitely changed. Today any and all supposed findings by astronomers should be highly questioned. #031 Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. - G.K. Chesterton A pretty idiotic quote, on several levels. "Boasts of the distance of its stars" is a negative, not a positive. It changes the focus from quality to quantity. As to poetry appearing "menacing", G.K. is simply off his gourd on this one. Religion is menacing at every distance because it encourages people to feel instead of think. Back to the quote... tEmP theorists today are braggarts. Headlines shout "We've found dark matter!", "This finding confirms relativity", "Unification is just around the corner!" Physics today, without a leg to stand on, is defiantly ridiculous. #032 That hemisphere of the moon which faces us is better known than the earth itself; its vast desert plains have been surveyed to within a few acres; its mountains and craters have been measured to within a few yards; while on the earth's surface there are 30,000,000 square kilometres (sixty times the extent of France), upon which the foot of man has never trod, which the eye of man has never seen. - Camille Flammarion More talk of quantity, not quality. #033 Astronomies change while the stars abide. - Harry Emerson Fosdick Baseless theories come and go. Money paid to astronomer charlatans endures. #034 The first thing to realize about parallel universes is that they are not parallel. It is also important to realize that they are not, strictly speaking, universes either, but it is easiest if you don't try to realize it until a little later, after you've realized that everything you've realized up to that moment is not true. - Douglas Adams That way, once you've fully realized how wrong everything that is rolling around in your head is, you will be as stuck in your beliefs as tEmP theorists are in theirs. You will have become a tEmP theorist. And can begin submitting publications to Nature and Science immediately. #035 The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons. - Edwin Powell, "Hubble: The Realm Of The Nebulae", 1936 This is as false today as it was true in 1936. The history of astronomy today is a history of wasting money. This is also the future of astronomy. #036 The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. - Lawrence Bragg tEmP theorists don't do "new ways of thinking". Hammers can only be hammers. Lies keep bring big profits to a select priesthood. #037 The philosophical study of nature rises above the requirements of mere delineation, and does not consist in the sterile accumulation of isolated facts. - Alexander von Humboldt, "Views Of Nature', 1850 #038 The techniques have galloped ahead of the concepts. - James Black The field of astronomy continues to progress. Lasers sent from a telescope allow the telescope to compensate for atmospheric effects, leading to photos as good as those from space. Arrays of radio telescopes working together act like one enormous radio telescope. And all of that leads to nothing useful. Back to the quote... A good theory is based on good assumptions. A bad theory is based on bad assumptions. tEmP theories have the worst assumptions of any scientific field and so you can't build with them. Other than castles in the air. #039 The truth is that the scientific value of Polar exploration is greatly exaggerated. The thing that takes men on such hazardous trips is really not any thirst for knowledge, but simply a yearning for adventure. A Polar explorer always talks grandly of sacrificing his fingers and toes to science. It is an amiable pretention, but there is no need to take it seriously. - H.L. Mencken The same is true for space exploration, star gazing and particle smashing. #040 The weakness of biological balance studies has aptly been illustrated by comparison with the working of a slot machine. A penny brings forth one package of chewing gum; two pennies bring forth two. Interpreted according to the reasoning of balance physiology, the first observation is an indication of the conversion of copper into gum; the second constitutes proof. - Rudolf Schoenheimer And the third, fourth, fifth... tenth... hundredth... thousandth... millionth... and billionth observations? More of the same. Yawn. Very expensive yawns. #041 Scientists close in on the true mass of the Milky Way Who cares? This won't fix tEmP theorists' broken model of gravity. Without fixing that model, the final numbers will be wrong. #042 The word "dis-aster" means "bad star". - Kenneth Franklin And what a disaster star gazing has become. #043 There can be no thought of finishing, for aiming at the stars, both literally and figuratively, is the work of generations, but no matter how much progress one makes there is always the thrill of just beginning. - Robert Goddard The technical term for this sort of thinking? Circle jerk. #044 There is no such thing as a 'scientific mind'. Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidy-uppers; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics. - Peter Medawar, "The Art Of The Soluble: Creativity And Originality In Science", 1967 It is a good point that there are all types of scientists. It is a less valid point that there is "no such thing as a 'scientific mind'". There are sound principles behind good science. The more any person follows those principles, the more scientific they are. Ultimately, if the same set of known principles are followed and applied by two people, they are of the same mind and equally 'scientifically minded'. This is all very childish and diverting, of course. What is really being said here is "heh, anyone can say pretty much whatever they want about sciency stuff. Just their opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion." Leading to more dilution. More dilution equals an uninterrupted flow of money to useless projects. #045 To most people the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why they would be at a loss to reply until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. We persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts. - George Santayana #046 Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star Biggest puzzle from afar How unlike the other ones Brighter than a billion suns Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star How I wonder what you are. - George Gamow It blows my mind how many scientists do this sort of thing. "Let's come up with a childish rhyme about some scientific subject so that people will become enraptured for no reason." This twaddle if more understandable when you learn that: Gamow humorously decided to add the name of his physicist friend Hans Bethe to this paper in order to create the whimsical author list of Alpher, Bethe, Gamow (a play on the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma). - Source #047 We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy. - Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) A Professor of Mathematics, Mr. Newcomb was self-taught in astronomy. He was also skeptical we'd ever fly. This is where we laugh at him, right? Thing is, he is right about astronomy. There ain't much to it. Yes there is a near infinite of stuff. But it all works in the very simplest of ways. #048 What Starlight Teaches Us About Space (Pretty Much Everything) A 1,500 word article. Where we learn pretty much everything. So why is there a new billion dollar telescope every other year? #049 When radio astronomers grew weary at their electronic listening posts; when their eyes grew dim with looking at unrevealing dials and studying uneventful graphs, they could step outside their concrete cells and renew their dull spirits in communion with the giant mechanism they commanded, the silent, sensing instrument in which the smallest packets of energy, the smallest waves of matter, were detected in their headlong, eternal flight across the universe. It was the stethoscope with which they took the pulse of the all and noted the birth and death of stars, the probe which, here on an insignificant planet of an undistinguishable star on the edge of its galaxy, they explored the infinite. - James E. Gunn, "The Listeners", 1968 Drivel. Gunning Fog: 29.3 Translation: the average person needs 29 years of schooling to understand what kind of drugs Mr. Gunn has been smoking. #050 With all reserve we advance the view that a supernova represents the transition of an ordinary star into a neutron star consisting mainly of neutrons. Such a star may possess a very small radius and an extremely high density. As neutrons can be packed much more closely than ordinary nuclei and electrons, the gravitational packing energy in a cold neutron star may become very large, and under certain conditions may far exceed the ordinary nuclear packing fractions. - Fritz Zwicky "A dead star is more dense than a live star." You're half way to knowing everything you need to know about stars. #051 Cosmology is a rapidly advancing field. - Stephen William Hawking (1942-2018) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Cosmology -- like the rest of tEmP theories -- is static, cold and dark. #052 It is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success. - Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) Star gazing, like particle smashing, does not require brains. The guards in the asylum don't have to be talented. 18.8, by the way. #053 Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honor to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value. - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) #054 I think it quite likely that we are the only civilization within several hundred light years; otherwise we would have heard radio waves. - Stephen William Hawking (1942-2018) Which is why astronomers today can't stop talking about exoplanets. How many we have found. How many we think there are. How close they are. How big they are. How small they are. How round they are. Because...no reason whatsoever. Except star gazing is so lucrative. #055 Work is not a curse, but drudgery is. - Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) Imagine how boring working at a telescope is... #056 "The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an infrared space observatory with an $8.8 billion budget, will be transported to South America to launch atop an Ariane 5 rocket, presumably in Spring 2019." Imagine how many saps think this latest telescope is really going to be something special! #057 You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. - Alan Wilson Watts (1915-1973) Telescopes get ordered by people who haven't found themselves. Telescopes get paid for by working people who don't know themselves. Telescopes produce non-results accepted by people who have stopped trying to understand themselves. #058 A leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. - Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Luckily this guy never became something influential. Like a writer. Imagine the harm if this guy had become a writer! #059 It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other. - Plato (427-347 BC) A meaningless sentence, of course, but let's give credit to the translator. Without the translator, we might not have been given "at all events". I know I would never have thought to add those three words. Being a rational person that is. So let's really give the translator her due. #060 Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. - Carl Edward Sagan (1934-1996) And so we realize that. If we don't want to work for a living. We are going to have to invent a field like star gazing. #061 Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. - Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) #062 Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. - Edsger W. Dijkstra Computer science is about teaching inanimate objects to do stuff for us. Astronomy is about teaching a gullible public how to pay for stuff for us. #063 Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded. Sad, indeed, is it to see how men occupy themselves with trivialities, and are indifferent to the grandest phenomena. Care not to understand the architecture of the heavens. Are deeply interested in some contemptible controversy about the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots! - Herbert Spencer We need science to see poetry everywhere? I'm thinking hard drugs are needed. At a minimum. #064 Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. - Henry Van Dyke Yes, gazing at stars can be enjoyable. No, people should not be paid to do it. #065 Pegasus and Andromeda faced me brilliantly when I lifted my shade, so I went down and had a friendly reunion with the constellations. I get a wonderful peace and the most exquisite pleasure from my friendship with the stars. - Ellen Glasgow I like nurturing young trees. I don't need to be paid to do this. Because I'm not an astronomer weirdo. #066 Asked how he became a star, Johnny Carson once replied, "I started in a gaseous state and then I cooled." Johnny Carson. As funny as astronomy is interesting. #067 Cosmology is the hardest of all sciences. We sit on this tiny planet in the middle of this vast Universe. We can't go anywhere and do any experiments. All we can do is pick up the light that happens to fall on us and deduce some things about the Universe. - Marcus Chown Marcus Chown is a science writer, journalist and broadcaster, currently cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine. - wiki No one knows better how to hock products than journalist. Cosmology is the easiest of all sciences. We pick up the light that happens to fall on us. And make lousy guesses about the Universe. #068 The history of cosmology is the history of us being completely wrong. - Marcus Chown #069 A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream. - William Faulkner (1897-1962) Star gazers lack a moral conscience. #070 Observations always involve theory. - Edwin Powell Hubble But when theory and fact don't line up? Quelle nightmare. Unless you have a talent for baloney peddling. #071 Observations are meaningless without a theory to interpret them. - Raymond A. Lyttleton Without a simple model. Based on basic assumptions. One can't begin to have a theory more advanced than kindergarten level. #072 Having probes in space was like having a cataract removed. - Hannes Alfven True enough. But the diagnosis was "constipation". Star gazing is the laxative of sciences. #073 Either we have seen the birth of the universe, or we have seen a pile of pigeon droppings. - Arno Penzias #074 If I would remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist. - Enrico Fermi Stars. Particles. Endless measurements of either. Who cares? Only those who profit. America is a land of quantity. Materiality. Things. Most of us can't afford top quality. Quantity is the only realistic option for most. 100 billion stars in just our own galaxy. Quantity! 100 billion galaxies? QUANTITY!!! #075 In science there is only physics. All the rest is stamp collecting. - Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) Rutherford was the ultimate stamp collector. #076 I looked at the stars. They were silent, and powerful beyond all effort. They were stars being stars and therefore brilliantly alive. How puny are words about stars. - Hugh Prather How puny are words about rocks. #077 The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth. - Harry Emerson Fosdick Says a pastor. Star gazing is the perfect science business because it resolves absolutely nothing. And never will. #078 The fragmentation of rational knowledge in the post-modern world has produced a focus on information that is unaware of its history. - Marcus Breen #079 Bad decisions will yield bad results, even if improved mechanisms were to insure that they are efficiently achieved. - Lord Carrington, Chairman, United Nations Foundation Bad assumptions yield bad actions. Star gazing is devoid of assumptions. When in doubt, put things in little boxes. Counting from one to a billion would be more productive. #080 It's not that they waste money. It's that they waste ALL the money. - Marvin Minksy, on NASA When we buy food, we invest our money. Clothes, shelter, transportation? All investments. Star gazing and particle smashing? Less than juvenile. #081 I am a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh in astrophysics, so must of the stuff I do is create code that no one cares about. - Cameron McBride Trying for humor. But saying much more. Doctor McBride ended up with a PhD in stuff no one cares about. #082 I think chemistry is being frittered away by the hairsplitting of the organic chemists; we have new compounds discovered which scarcely differ from the known ones and when discovered are valueless -- very illustrative perhaps of their refinements in analysis, but very little aiding the progress of true science. - Michael Faraday This from a man who died 150 years ago. #083 The natural philosophers are mostly gone. We modern scientists are adding too many decimals. - Martin H. Fischer Star gazing is a totally corrupt field. #084 The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. - Isaac Asimov There is no money in wisdom. Wisdom, like Truth, is liberating. Freeing. Quelle nightmare. #085 Aimless extension of knowledge, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency. - Isaac Asimov Me too.     COASALT Introduction The Speed Of Light   Black Holes   Einstein's Equation   The Ether   Gravity 222 Answers   The Atom   Quantum World   Neutrino   Black Holes Revisited The Comedy Of Science   et=mc3   Comparing Physics Theories Diffuse Interstellar Bands   Einstein's Ether Talk   No Strong Force The Electron   Relativity   Unification   Assumptions   Modeling   The Greatest Story     My Theory   Physics Quotes & Thoughts Big Bang   Dark Matter/Dark Energy   Dogma   Forget The Fields   Math Sucks   Particle Physics   Peer Review   Standard Model   Star Gazing   String Theory   tEmP Theories/Theorists   The Control System   Trolls       Spring-And-Loop Theory by Floyd Maxwell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Other subjects   Site Map   Contact   Quotes provided by: Click here to access the 40k Quote Archive)