A Little Too Scientific?

Started by Inkidu, December 02, 2009, 05:58:43 PM

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Inkidu

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

"A Sonnet--To Science", Edgar Allan Poe.

Sometimes, we look too close.

Discuss if you wish, I just wanted to make a point.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

kckolbe

   From a literary standpoint, maybe, but think of how many possible settings science has made possible.  If you have ever enjoyed a science fiction, then you can appreciate a bit of science.  Besides, as fantasy continues to grow, it is clear that knowledge has not blocked our desire for fantasy.
   I personally don't think reality dull.  Psychology is a science as well, and writing has, for me, become far more enjoyable now that characters are more frequently written with realistic, relatable motivations.
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(From the Penis Game) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Penis
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Buffy: The Vampire Slayer(IC#2)
Intro Thread

Talia

#2
A Ballade of Evolution
By Grant Allen      


In the mud of the Cambrian main
Did our earliest ancestor dive:
From a shapeless albuminous grain
We mortals our being derive.
He could split himself up into five,
Or roll himself round like a ball;


For the fittest will always survive,
While the weakliest go to the wall.
As an active ascidian again
Fresh forms he began to contrive,
Till he grew to a fish with a brain
And brought forth a mammal alive.
With his rivals he next had to strive
To woo him a mate and a thrall;
So the handsomest managed to wive,
While the ugliest went to the wall.
At length as an ape he was fain
The nuts of the forest to rive,
Till he took to the low-lying plain,
And proceeded his fellows to knive.
Thus did cannibal man first arrive
One another to swallow and maul:
And the strongest continued to thrive,
While the weakliest went to the wall.


I agree with kckolbe.
My next door neighbor's son uses his own style of rap to remember history for his tests.

I think poems, music, literature, art or anything that catches the senses, causes the mind to think, awaken, wonder, ponder ideas, questions, even evokes the imagination.


He looks at me and my heart starts skipping beats, my face starts to glow and my eyes start to twinkle.
Imagine what he would do to me if he smiled!

Smile... it's the second best thing to do with your lips.

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Sabby

Quote from: A Welcomed Decoration on December 02, 2009, 07:28:27 PMMy next door neighbor's son uses his own style of rap to remember history for his tests

...

Lil piece of paper, lotsa names written on, yah! Bill with my Rights, suckah, thats my fuckin' Kevlar!

Does he actually present them like that? Or is it just a memory thing?

Lilias

'Human kind cannot bear very much reality.'
~T.S. Eliot, 'Burnt Norton'

Makes sense to me...
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Talia

Quote from: Sabby the lil Xmas Leopard on December 03, 2009, 03:49:33 AM
...

Lil piece of paper, lotsa names written on, yah! Bill with my Rights, suckah, thats my fuckin' Kevlar!

Does he actually present them like that? Or is it just a memory thing?

He does it as a memory thing, but he also listens to that type of music...age thing I guess. Never asked him if he has ever used for a presentation...Ill have to ask him.
He looks at me and my heart starts skipping beats, my face starts to glow and my eyes start to twinkle.
Imagine what he would do to me if he smiled!

Smile... it's the second best thing to do with your lips.

On's & Off's
The Oath of Drake for Group RP's
A&A

Neroon

I remember watching Richard Feynman being interviewed, over twenty years ago and he recited a story about how he had a disagreement with an artist friend about whether science detracted from the value of beauty or not.  Wikiquote has part of it from Feynman's book, What do you care what other people think:

QuoteI have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty. [...] There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

What is missing from the wikiquote, that was present in the interview is the artist's riposte to Feynman's view.  He pulled out a photograph of a topless woman and asked Feynman if he liked her breasts.  Not surprisingly, Feynman agreed.  Then, the artist asked Feynman to imagine them dissected and asked if they were still as beautiful.  Feynman made his point that by understanding the workings, their beauty could then be better appreciated.  The artist then asked Feynman whether he'd rather fondle the dissected or undissected breasts.  Feynman conceded the point.
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

My yeas and nays     Grovelling Apologies     Wiki
Often confused for some guy

Kurzyk

Ode to Spot

Felis Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defences.

I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents:
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counter-balance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array,
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend
I none-the-less consider you a true and valued friend.

Commander Data

Oniya

Quote from: A Welcomed Decoration on December 03, 2009, 10:07:15 AM
He does it as a memory thing, but he also listens to that type of music...age thing I guess. Never asked him if he has ever used for a presentation...Ill have to ask him.

You know, that was the original theory behind the original Schoolhouse Rock.  The writer's kid could remember lyrics to the Rolling Stones, but not his math facts.  After a little work, they came up with 'Three is a Magic Number', and the rest was - pardon the pun - history.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
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I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Talia

Quote from: Oniya on December 03, 2009, 06:50:28 PM
You know, that was the original theory behind the original Schoolhouse Rock.  The writer's kid could remember lyrics to the Rolling Stones, but not his math facts.  After a little work, they came up with 'Three is a Magic Number', and the rest was - pardon the pun - history.

Never knew that, very interesting piece of information. You are the book of knowledge and numbers..if my memory is correct!

My kinda gal! Thanks, Oniya.
He looks at me and my heart starts skipping beats, my face starts to glow and my eyes start to twinkle.
Imagine what he would do to me if he smiled!

Smile... it's the second best thing to do with your lips.

On's & Off's
The Oath of Drake for Group RP's
A&A

Beguile's Mistress

The combination of science and fantasy, both beautiful in their own right, leads to something just as beautiful and on occasion allows appreciation to transcend into something emotional.  To look at the flower and find it beautiful brings joy.  To look at a flower's parts and find them beautiful brings joy.  Both depend on what you look for and what you look at.  To look at a flower, whether an unassuming daisy or a glorious rose, and understand how it works, how it goes together, how it reproduces and works its magic on the bees, how the pleasing scent it graces us with is made, to count its numbers, is a wonder to me that I have trouble explaining even to myself.


Talia

Sonnet-To Science (1829)

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
  Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
  Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
  Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
  Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
  And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
  Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Poem by Edgar Allan Poe
He looks at me and my heart starts skipping beats, my face starts to glow and my eyes start to twinkle.
Imagine what he would do to me if he smiled!

Smile... it's the second best thing to do with your lips.

On's & Off's
The Oath of Drake for Group RP's
A&A

Inkidu

Quote from: A Welcomed Decoration on December 06, 2009, 01:34:57 AM
Sonnet-To Science (1829)

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
  Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
  Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
  Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
  Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
  And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
  Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Repetition is the better part of redundancy? 
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Talia

SONNETS FROM SPACE
By George Motisher


We sit, in love and gazing at the stars
That fill the violet evening sky with sparks.
What flies up there, besides our thoughts, or larks
That sing life’s glory or its scars?
Is there a being on a quest from Mars,
And launching out in meteoric arcs?
What answers would he seek when he embarks
Across the void between his world and ours?

We love each other, sitting two as one,
And mostly, life is full with soothing sun,
You hold me as we face the starry sky,
To contemplate what comes and goes; and why.
But sometimes, through my heart, cold winds have blown,
And even when you’re here, I feel alone.

II

We fear the silent darkness of the night,
Afraid the stars that slowly roll about
Might suddenly grow dim, and flicker out.
And so we hold each other ’til the light;
Asleep, or rocking madly in delight
Of one another’s moans and shrieks and shouts,
That fill the silence, blocking most our doubts
About eternal love, or guiding light.

Our music roars and echoes through the dark,
Like wine-dark viol, silver cymbal spark.
We exhale love songs in each other’s souls,
A manic chorus easing worldly roles,
Love’s noise explodes, then blazes in our eyes,
And hides the deathly silence of the skies.

III

Between the galaxies so far apart,
Among the stars and planets of the night,
There’s emptiness to give our souls a fright,
To leave us with a vacuum of the heart.
Although we call in space with words and art,
We try to beam our thoughts to cast a light,
And send our love to make the blackness bright;
The unmapped darkness still leers from our chart.

There’s so much emptiness, it goes beyond
Our dreams, our hopes, our hearts so overfull;
Few lights reflect across the endless pond
Of space, so infinite, and past our pull.
Though love, I’ve heard, can last eternally,
Can it fill up a bleak infinity?

IV

So permanent you seem; you light my sky,
You guide me in my orbiting through space,
I wait your dawning in this dismal place
Of darkness where we all must live and die.
When faced with night and asking how and why,
Your glow bestirs a humor and a grace,
I spin, then, at an optimistic pace,
In love with living. Your warmth makes me fly.

But solar flares and sunspots leave no doubt
That someday, light and fire could fizzle out,
And in the darkness that your light restrains,
In drift around the ember that remains;
My dizzy planet, fading in the night,
Will spin around a star with no more light.

V

Where is heaven, is it out beyond
The cosmos that we view and we explore,
With paltry instruments and little more
Than zealous theory, rapt religious bond?
I think sometimes that we are overfond
Of Ptolemeic notions, and a core
Belief that all our motions truly soar,
That magic circles us; we wave the wand.

Perhaps there is no heaven out past space;
That love is only in this earthly place,
And we should live like flowers on a rise,
And let the breezes sweep us to the skies;
That maybe heaven’s love’s not from afar,
Past distant stars; but just from where we are.

VI

The universe spins out, chaotically,
The stars, so brilliant white, disperse themselves
‘Mongst gasping branches, shifting sandy shelves
Of oceans that may rise spasmodically,
Or disappear in glacial memory.
Among the atoms, starlight’s photon elves,
Will crash protons to quarks as starlight delves
And breaks existence unrelentingly.

If hopes should take us heavenward, I fear
That chaos there will bring us back to earth
And make eternity a jape, a jeer;
The universe, ironic house of mirth.
But still I’ll hope – as all things fall apart
That in the chaos, we’ll find love and art.

VII

Where are those strings that hold us in our place?
Are they dimensions of our seeking heart,
The twanging notes of some canonic art?
An unexplained arpeggio out in space
Might be what brings a cadence to the race.
Vibrations change, have changed right from the start,
And can’t be placed by writings of Decartes
Or Heisenberg; the measures move apace.

“There are no Gods,” some physisists have mused;
Still, with religion, science is infused.
As long as mystery surrounds the stars,
We all pontificate, debate in bars,
And hope for music of eternal peace,
A universal chord that will not cease.

Sorry, Inkidu.....
He looks at me and my heart starts skipping beats, my face starts to glow and my eyes start to twinkle.
Imagine what he would do to me if he smiled!

Smile... it's the second best thing to do with your lips.

On's & Off's
The Oath of Drake for Group RP's
A&A

Acinonyx

Science and art go really well together, if you ask me (especially since the invention of fluorescence microscopy).

Well... as long as the art is done by artists. If you have heard some of the pop-songs scientific companies have brought out in praise of pipettes (epMotion - google it!) and suchlike, it's a bit cringe-inducing at times. However, there have been awesome science-raps as well.

In short - an artist with a good understanding of science can bring forth wonderful things.
I am in full support of that symbiosis!!!

MHaji

I think Feynman said it best... there's something dubious about seeing poetry in Jupiter being a God or a personification, but not in Jupiter being an incredibly gorgeous planet that dwarfs the Earth. You can say that appreciating the beauty of the planet doesn't require science... but without astronomers and telescopes, how would we have gotten those gorgeous pictures?

Acinonyx's point about fluorescence microscopy is dead-on. Without fluorescence microscopy, a fruit fly egg's pretty boring to most people. But light up the nerves so you can see what's there, and it becomes amazing:

Picture here.
Ons and offs, in song form.

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AUCUUCUACGAACGUGAAGCUGACACUCAUAUUAGUCCCAUGAUGGAA

Talia




Nice picture  :D

I know some one who's published in the area of fruit flies....so seeing it presented that way was more interesting for sure! Better than the long read.....
He looks at me and my heart starts skipping beats, my face starts to glow and my eyes start to twinkle.
Imagine what he would do to me if he smiled!

Smile... it's the second best thing to do with your lips.

On's & Off's
The Oath of Drake for Group RP's
A&A