Article View: sci.physics
Article #4481Re: Some physics questions
From: SCOTT I CHASE
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1992 18:54
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1992 18:54
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2075 bytes
In article <1992Nov7.192950.23136@galois.mit.edu>, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes... >In article <1detccINNkst@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes: >> >>Here's where I prove I slept through biology (and that I >>have the balls to take on the ideas of people like Lewis Thomas): >> >>Before the sperm enters the egg, it isn't you, and after >>it enters the egg, it's not a single cell, it's two cells, >>or something entirely different. Right or wrong? > >I'm sure Lewis Thomas wasn't identifying unduly with his dad's sperm. >As far as I can tell, he's referring to the continuity of life and the >fact that you can in theory trace all our cells back to single-celled >ancestors. Then the "so long ago" makes sense and the "I" is a grand >exaggeration. No. Though it obviously is a joke, Thomas was referring to his own early childhood as a fertilized egg. The quote if from one of the essays in _The Youngest Science_, in which he discusses the remarkable sophistication of single-celled organisms in being able to biochemically distinguish self from non-self. -Scott -------------------- Scott I. Chase "It is not a simple life to be a single cell, SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV although I have no right to say so, having been a single cell so long ago myself that I have no memory at all of that stage of my life." - Lewis Thomas
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ukma!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!overload.lbl.gov!dog.ee.lbl.gov!csa2.lbl.gov!sichase From: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.bio Subject: Re: Some physics questions Date: 9 Nov 1992 10:54 PST Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA Lines: 33 Distribution: na Message-ID: <9NOV199210541904@csa2.lbl.gov> References: <1992Nov6.175022.13136@galois.mit.edu> <6NOV199212364099@csa1.lbl.gov> <1detccINNkst@chnews.intel.com> <1992Nov7.192950.23136@galois.mit.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.197 News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41