Please forgive me, I’m thinking aloud as I’m whittling my way, tortuously, to some take-home messages to come. Here’s the problem: I finished the sixth version of my memoir a few days ago, and within an hour of putting the last period on the final page I started listing all the relevant ideas and events [...]
Let me state outright: I am not a supporter of “alternative facts” and am equally aghast at the concept of “fake news,” which we are bombarded with at present. Lies are sadly common these days, but I believe politicians, not journalists, are the guilty party. I am a scientist and believe in observed facts. Claims [...]
At dinner the other day, I was talking with a good friend about a variety of subjects from politics to science. I brought up the idea that science has a story-telling aspect about it and I wanted to show that by example in my book. Alaskan Eskimo pipes such as this one were [...]
'Like messengers rising from the depths, they propelled themselves through the water effortlessly.' Many years ago I asked my father after I heard him play the Dvorak cello concerto if he ever got bored playing the same composition so often. “No,” he said, “because every time I play it, I learn something [...]
I went to the Silver Diner in Federal Plaza on Saturday to grab a quick lunch and was overcome with nostalgia thinking of Ricardo and Benjamin who ate there often. The last time Ricardo was a lonely widower and Benjamin told him about his experiments on cactus that ultimately led to cactein in my novel [...]
While some might insist that science is strictly factual, I think most would agree that speculation links discrete scientific data – facts – resulting in a narrative that becomes modified with additional data and knowledge. Speculation is not factual. In that sense, I view science as partly fact and partly story, and propose that reality [...]
