Skip to main content

A somewhat lyrical story of physics (Part I)

Intellect awoke, after slumbering through dark ages,
to fathom secrets of the universe.
An avalanche sprung by mathematical insights,
set a path for the future bright. 
The product of an object’s mass with its acceleration,
was a Force, exclaimed Newton!
This extraordinary recognition would become deified,
as it stood unequivocally verified. 
From that simple yet powerful and potent equation,
dawned numerous universal revelations.
When spoken in the language of calculus it symbolized,
that the laws of motion were crystallized.
Claims of Kepler and Galileo, of Copernicus and Tycho 
could be annulled, or compelled to follow. 
Wills ordaining motion of heavens were computable,
by  laws of Newtonian Gravitation universal. 
All passages of seasons, of comets, too of eclipses,
were merely algebraic exercises.
Symbols and experiments could reveal all truths,
science advanced in physics' youth! 
Through demonstrations of Otto van and of Boyle,
were chiseled laws of an ideal-gas, by toil. 
Arcane and murky domains of yesteryear's  alchemists,
formed a ken of serious physical-chemists. 
Endless thence on many fronts did  knowledge abound, 
yet,  surprises were hidden to be found.
Newtonian hunches about light’s corpuscular sway,
were felled by Young’s models of waves. 
Too by capitalistic enterprise science grew to be monetized,
easily thence to bear, weapons that colonized. 
We were drawn like moths to nature's secrets bright,
asking: what is heat; what is light?
One spiraled into a tower that we call thermodynamics
while the other grew to become, optics.
 
(part II continues here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mentor to nurture, or for glory and fame?

Pursuit of scientific research as a passionate, driven, ambitious and innate curious desire to follow a sequence of deductive or inductive steps for deciphering the working of a specific system (or the universe!) has unequivocally brought our civilization to where we find ourselves today. Outside academic settings, this pursuit is mostly perceived as, in fact is actively communicated, at large, by the scientific community itself, to be a dispassionate, logical and objective set of irrefutable arguments combined with pure intellectual rationale leading from cause to effect, relying, of course, on the verifiable repeatability of specific experimental, or symbolic, or algorithmic steps. This is true. It is the method of scientific inquiry. However, the pursuit itself is driven by passion, ambition, and desire - very human emotions. Thus, the actions of the people engaged in the science, or in other words, the act of the pursuit itself can be irrational, unbalanced, manic and some times...

American entrepreneurship

It was around lunchtime, on a weekday, and we're nearly three-four weeks into the Fall semester. In this country, that meant most everyone in a higher-ed institution as my own is busy and about, usually just trying get in and out of various venues that provide the ability, to quickly grab or carry-away a bite for lunch. Campus stores, given the so-called administrative-financial pressures have gone the same route as most commercial stores around the country, by installing machines so that the customers can check themselves out. Such ideas apparently impact efficiency - which itself is usually only vaguely defined - but I digress. Anyhow, this is not a recent or altogether strange situation and all the thousands of denizens occupying campus, had made their peace with this arrangement (in-fact many rely on these efficient, self-checkout counters to keep up with the busyness of academic, campus life). The darned things do work - or at least they do most of the time... It was there at ...