Size Matters: A brief look at the Milky Way Galaxy
Here's something that will give your brain a nice seismic jolt. The size of our own galaxy. Because light is so fast, speeding though space at 670 million miles per hour, a single light year is...
View ArticleThe Universe is Flat and Other Improbables
Apparently, the Earth is round, but the universe is flat. On June 30, 2001, a Delta II rocket launched the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe or WMAP. What sounds like a horrible medical procedure...
View ArticleThe Artistry of the Atom
"... the nature of the perpetual things consist of small particles infinite in number... the particles are so small as to be imperceptible to us, and take all kinds of shapes and all kinds of forms and...
View ArticleShakespeare Quickie
I heard this from Peter Saccio, a Professor at Dartmouth College. A study of Skakespear's plays from the first printed folio revealed that he had a vocabulary of 27,000 words. In contrast, the King...
View ArticleHans Bethe and the Twinkle
If you've ever heard of Hans Bethe, raise your virtual hand. Because he is the great unknown in the general public, but a source of admiration in the world of nuclear physics. To put it on my level,...
View ArticleThe Little Theater That Could. The Journey of a play: A Man for All Seasons...
A young woman with a bright wedge of marmalade-colored hair nervously puffed on a cigarette and then kissed her boyfriend goodbye. She quickly passed by me and whispered confidentially, “I don’t know...
View ArticleFinding the Perfect Sir Thomas.
Robert Bolt found his ideal More in Paul Scofield, an actor of extraordinary intelligence noteworthy for his stage presence, distinctive voice and for the unmannered intensity of his delivery. He was...
View ArticleThoughts on EndPoint and Other Poems by John Updike.
John Updike’s prose was so rich and intimate that I never felt compelled to pry into his life beyond the printed page. But his final book, Endpoint and Other Poems is an invitation to see him beyond...
View ArticleSense and Sensibility. John Updike In Football Season
In late November 1961, a 29-year-old John Updike finished the draft of his short story, In Football Season. Since we share equally aquiline noses, this story has always been among my favorites. It is...
View ArticleSome thoughts on paradox
Writing about paradox is like experiencing an Escher drawing. Every idea is undermined by the plausibility and inevitability of its opposite. The word itself usually finds itself in the domain of...
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