Too Much Words.
Destined for War, by Graham Allison
Modern behavioral scientists have explained this at the basic psychological level, noting that people’s fears of loss (or intimations of “decline”) trump our hopes of gain—driving us to take often unreasonable risks to protect what is ours.
In a Flight of Starlings, by Giorgio Parisi
This, after all, is the scientist’s calling: to imagine or to do what no one has done before.
Is this what the scientists these days train to do?
To illustrate this, we can use the model proposed by Ernst Ising in his 1924 doctoral thesis—perhaps the first model invented by physicists to aid an understanding of reality by simplifying its description as much as possible. This model allows spins to orient themselves in just two directions: up or down (as shown in figure 1), with all other orientations forbidden.
Really, Ising model is one of the first such? Woah. Humans are wayy younger than I thought.
Furthermore, having flitted between different problems for almost ten years, I had developed the tools that enabled me to understand what was incomprehensible to many—and had acquired a curiosity for problems in areas unfamiliar to me. I had alighted on the right problem at the right time, at the height of my scientific abilities and curiosity.
The physicist sometimes uses mathematics ungrammatically; not following all the rules of grammar is a license that we grant to poets.
OH MY FUCKING GOD.
“Pausing one”s concentration on a difficult problem—to allow ideas to settle, and to face that problem again with a fresh mind—is no doubt very common. The Italian phrase La notte porta consiglio has counterparts in so many languages: In nocte consilium (“Night is the time for counsel”—or, more colloquially, “Sleep on it”); Die nacht bringt rat (“Night brings advice”); Il est utile de consulter l’oreiller and Antes de hacer nada, consúltado con la almohala (where l’oreiller and almohada both mean “pillow”, so literally “It is useful to consult your pillow”); La note xe la mare d’i pensieri (“Night is the sea of thought”).”
“Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.” So said Richard Feynman (allegedly), one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century and perhaps the most charismatic. This sentence, together with the Dantean imperative that we “were not made to live like brutes, but to seek virtue and knowledge,” sums up pretty well the motivating, subjective passions of scientists.”
Beyond such considerations, however, it is fundamental that scientists find seeking to solve the puzzle fun. When I was discussing potential assignments with my teacher Nicola Cabibbo, he would ask: “Why study this problem if it doesn’t really grab you?” Often among scientists, there is a feeling verging on astonishment that we are being paid to do what we are so passionate about. Or as my dear friend Aurelio Grillo used to say: “Being a physicist is hard, but it’s better than having to work for a living.”
Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture, by Apostolos Doxiadis
…his brilliance as a chess player couldn’t disguise the fact that he was a broken man. And the closer to him I got, the more I realized that the reason for his condition lay in his profound insincerity. Uncle Petros had lied to himself about the most crucial event in his life and this lie had become a cancerous growth that stifled his essence, eating away at the very roots of his psyche. His sin, indeed, had been Pride. And the pride was still there, nowhere more apparent than in his inability to come face to face with himself.
The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry
‘You know, I always thought that was the great benefit of being religious: get the guilt over and done with, and move on to another sin…’
Male pride, she thinks: the most tender, contemptible thing!
I am in charge! I’ll do what I think’s right!’ he said, sounding not at all like her father, but like a boy who couldn’t get his own way
love is not love which alters when it alteration finds!
Logicomix
Russell, while explaining Hilbert’s infinite hotel to his wife Alys: “When poets are in love they recite verses to their beloved … A mathematician in love will hum his own brand of poetry!”
Russell, to Alfred Whitehead: “…every morning I wake up an optimist, but after a day’s work, I despair.” – Well, life of every research student. This tweet, lol
Kafka on the Shore, Murakami
The girl to Hoshino: “The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” – Henri Bregson in Mame mo memelay (or Matter and Memory)
The God of Small Things
[when they lay together in bed]…“their bodies fit like stacked spoons.” What a beauifully written statement. Arundhati Roy seems to be the queen of metaphors. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
Also read Reading Arundhati Roy politically by Aijaz Ahmad
The Plague
I was recently asked If I could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? My two choices were Camus and Feynmann (duh!) What struck me most while reading the book was how slow social development of humans has been, when compared to technological development. It makes sense, since social patterns are emergent behaviour and it would take a lot of effort to change the system enough to observe a change. This book was written in 1947, and the description is probably from that time. It was fun to compare people’s behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic vs. people’s behaviour in the book. Compare that with the rapid development of vaccines, processing of viral genome, etc. that happened during the COVID.
I was recently reading Limits to Growth,
Shoe Dog
Shoe Dog is a must read. It’s exciting, energizing, absolutely fantastic. I planned on reading it slowly, actually ended up reading all of it over a weekend. His life has been a roller coster ride, and he did a fantastic job in turning it into a book. The book is summarised well by something that my grandfather says very often when recalling some of his life’s stories to he: Paise se hi paisa aata hai which basically means it takes money to make money.
Tuesdays with Morrie
I don’t read a lot of self help books since they are not really my type. I think they all say the same things in a different manner, very much inflated in terms of numebr of pages to make it seem necessary, and can be summarised well in some short blog. Some decide to add in some fiction, and the story makes it more readable. I decided to give this one a try since I got it recommended by too many people. The story is heartwarming and the character of Morrie is really interesting in terms of personality and his outlook to life can certainly add a lot of value to mine.
The Summer That Melted Everything
“He existed. hurrah! He existed, and we shall be each moment celebrating him and singing him and through eternity, we shall hold him with our strong hearts. And strong we must be because we cannot stop in the night, for the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. The powerful play goes on, and you, dear Grand, have contributed your beautiful verse.”
Samsa in Love, from Desire by Murakami
The woman: “Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those of us who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try and fix it … But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”
The Little Prince
Well, I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.