🚀 go-pugleaf

Beautiful dead science no longer taught in state schools:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7083453.ece
"There is a deeper problem facing British science. Many state schools
- trying to climb the league tables - now offer only general science
at GCSE, taught along hazily thematic lines, not discrete academic
disciplines. A-level physics is now almost exclusively the preserve of
private schools."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

Beautiful dead science:

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/hutchison/080616
"Like bronze idols that are hollow inside, Einstein built a cluster of
"Potemkin villages," which are false fronts with nothing behind them.
Grigori Potemkin (17391791) was a general-field marshal, Russian
statesman, and favorite of Empress Catherine the Great. He is alleged
to have built facades of non-existent villages along desolate
stretches of the Dnieper River to impress Catherine as she sailed to
the Crimea in 1787. Actors posing as happy peasants stood in front of
these pretty stage sets and waved to the pleased Empress. (...) The
science establishment has a powerful romantic desire to believe in
Einstein. Therefore, they are not only fooled by Einstein's tricks,
they are prepared to defend his Potemkin villages. A Potemkin village
is a pretty picture to fool the gullible romantic. Einstein was
romantically infatuated with pretty pictures. He deliberately sought
theories that were aesthetically beautiful in their harmony, symmetry,
and simplicity. He romantically believed something akin to Keats'
famous poetic summation: "Beauty is truth and truth, beauty."

Beautiful dead science institutionalized (but "no longer getting the
kind of support it needs"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b558kjihQQg&feature=PlayList&p=27DFC0155A909EEF
Silly Walks Applicant: "Well sir, I have a silly walk and I'd like to
obtain a Government grant to help me develop it....I think that with
Government backing I could make it very silly." Silly Walks Director:
"Mr Pudey, the very real problem is one of money. I'm afraid that the
Ministry of Silly Walks is no longer getting the kind of support it
needs. You see there's Defence, Social Security, Health, Housing,
Education, Silly Walks ... they're all supposed to get the same. But
last year, the Government spent less on the Ministry of Silly Walks
than it did on National Defence! Now we get 348,000,000 a year, which
is supposed to be spent on all our available products."

Selling beautiful dead science:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong
with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead,
that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm
looking at one right now.
Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the
Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Beautiful dead science's hymns:

http://slidingscalemusic.com/articles/Physics%20Today/vol58no7p56.pdf
When Isaac Newton wrote
The laws that we all quote,
It's now extremely apparent that he
Neglected to consider -- Relativity.
What focused our attention
On the fourth dimension?
(We'd been doing so well with just three.)
'Twas Mister Einstein's brainchild -- Relativity.
And who would think
And who'd forecast
That bodies shrink
When they go fast?
It makes old Isaac's theory
Look weary.

http://www.haverford.edu/physics/songs/divine.htm
No-one's as dee-vine as Albert Einstein
Not Maxwell, Curie, or Bohr!
He explained the photo-electric effect,
And launched quantum physics with his intellect!
His fame went glo-bell, he won the Nobel --
He should have been given four!
No-one's as dee-vine as Albert Einstein,
Professor with brains galore!
No-one could outshine Professor Einstein --
Egad, could that guy derive!
He gave us special relativity,
That's always made him a hero to me!
Brownian motion, my true devotion,
He mastered back in aught-five!
No-one's as dee-vine as Albert Einstein,
Professor in overdrive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PkLLXhONvQ
We all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity.
Yes we all believe in relativity, 8.033, relativity.
Einstein's postulates imply
That planes are shorter when they fly.
Their clocks are slowed by time dilation
And look warped from aberration.
We all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity.
Yes we all believe in relativity, 8.033, relativity.

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com