AdamSmith

P.S. Isn't there a Hindu creation myth about the earth resting on the back of a sacred monkey?

"All the way down!"

An illusion owing to its actually being cube-shaped.

Actually, the counter-intuitive reality of relativity and quantum mechanics would seem to suggest somewhat the opposite...? Likewise the fact that non-Euclidean geometry turns out to describe space-time more accurately than the conventional 'common-sense' Euclidean version. 'If the idea is not at first absurd, then there is no hope for it.' -- Einstein

'suspended' Works for me.

The Divine Afflatus!

...Freud published a short piece on the Family Romance in Otto Rank's The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1908) – the study later appearing separately in print both in German and in English.[2] Freud had anticipated the theme in the 1890s, in a private reflection on Conrad Ferdinand Meyer.[3] In his article, Freud argued for the widespread existence among neurotics of a fable in which the present-day parents were imposters, replacing a real and more aristocratic pair; but also that in repudiating the parents of today, the child is merely "turning away from the father whom he knows today to the father in whom he believed in the earliest years of his childhood".[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_romance

RIP

I think I already posted this, but it is interesting enough (to me) to warrant re-posting... Los Alamos From Below: Reminiscences 1943-1945, by Richard Feynman WHEN I say "Los Alamos From Below"' I mean that, although in my field at the present time I'm a slightly famous man, at that time I was not anybody famous at all. I didn't even have a degree when I started to work with the Manhattan Project. Many of the other people who tell you about Los Alamos - people in higher echelons - worried about some big decisions. I worried about no big decisions. I was always flittering about underneath. So I want you to just imagine this young graduate student that hasn't got his degree yet but is working on his thesis, and I'll start by saying how I got into the project, and then what happened to me. I was working in my room at Princeton one day when Bob Wilson came in and said that he had been funded to do a job that was a secret, and he wasn't supposed to tell anybody, but he was going to tell me because he knew that as soon as I knew what he was going to do, I'd see that I had to go along with it. So he told me about the problem of separating different isotopes of uranium to ultimately make a bomb. He had a process for separating the isotopes of uranium (different from the one which was ultimately used) that he wanted to try to develop. He told me about it, and he said, “There's a meeting --.” I said I didn't want to do it. He said, “All right, there's a meeting at three o'clock. I'll see you there." I said, “It's all right that you told me the secret because I'm not going to tell anybody, but I'm not going to do it." So I went back to work on my thesis - for about three minutes. Then I began to pace the floor and think about this thing. The Germans had Hitler and the possibility of developing an atomic bomb was obvious, and the possibility that they would develop it before we did was very much of a fright. So I decided to go to the meeting at three o'clock. By four o'clock I already had a desk in a room and was trying to calculate whether this particular method was limited by the total amount of current that you get in an ion beam, and so on. I won't go into the details. But I had a desk, and I had paper, and I was working as hard as I could and as fast as I could, so the fellows who were building the apparatus could do the experiment right there. It was like those moving pictures where you see a piece of equipment go bruuuuup, bruuuuup, bruuuuup. Every time I'd look up, the thing was getting bigger. What was happening, of course, was that all the boys had decided to work on this and to stop their research in science. All science stopped during the war except the little bit that was done at Los Alamos. And that was not much science; it was mostly engineering. All the equipment from different research projects was being put together to make the new apparatus to do the experiment - to try to separate the isotopes of uranium. I stopped my own work for the same reason, though I did take a six-week vacation after a while and finished writing my thesis. And I did get my degree just before I got to Los Alamos - so I wasn't quite as far down the scale as I led you to believe... http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/34/3/FeynmanLosAlamos.htm

Woops.

"If it's a pill, take it!" Sutherland, Dancer from the Dance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancer_from_the_Dance

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/opinions/al-franken-must-resign-opinion-perry/index.html Franken needs his day in court. To document what he actually did -- and didn't -- do. But this current reveal of harassment is just staggering to me. For 25 years I was boss/manager of many young men and women, all (most ) of whom I physically lusted over. But I kept that impulse, a natural human one, strictly bottled up deep inside. Just inconceivable -- or, rather, not -- how many bosses it turns out now could not do so. I think Franken should resign right now. I am no Pollyanna. The unique politics of the day need it.

Transcript CONFIDENTIAL November 4, 1943 Professor R. T. Birge Chairman, Department of Physics University of California Berkeley, California Dear Professor Birge: In these war times it is not always easy to think constructively about the peace that is to follow, even in such relatively small things as the welfare of our department. I would like to make one suggestion to you which concerns that, and about which I have myself a very sure and strong conviction. As you know, we have quite a number of physicists here, and I have run into a few who are young and whose qualities I had not known before. Of these there is one who is in every way so outstanding and so clearly recognized as such, that I think it appropriate to call his name to your attention, with the urgent request that you consider him for a position in the department at the earliest time that that is possible. You may remember the name because he once applied for a fellowship in Berkeley: it is Richard Feynman. He is by all odds the most brilliant young physicist here, and everyone knows this. He is a man of thoroughly engaging character and personality, extremely clear, extremely normal in all respects, and an excellent teacher with a warm feeling for physics in all its aspects. He has the best possible relations both with the theoretical people of whom he is one, and with the experimental people with whom he works in very close harmony. The reason for telling you about him now is that his excellence is so well known, both at Princeton where he worked before he came here, and to a not inconsiderable number of "big shots" on this project, that he has already been offered a position for the post war period, and will most certainly be offered others. I feel that he would be a great strength for our department, tending to tie together its teaching, its research and its experimental and theoretical aspects. I may give you two quotations from men with whom he has worked. Bethe has said that he would rather lose any two other men than Feyman from this present job, and Wigner said, "He is a second Dirac, only this time human." Of course, there are several people here whose recommendation you might want; in the first instance Professors Brode and McMillan. I hope you will not mind my calling this matter to your attention, but I feel that if we can follow the suggestion I have made, all of us will be very happy and proud about it in the future. I cannot too strongly emphasize Feynman's remarkable personal qualities which have been generally recognized by officers, scientists and laity in this community. With every good wish, Robert Oppenheimer RO:pd CC to Dr. Lawrence [Emphases once again supplied by yr umble Redactor AS.]

Minor subject-matter diversion (actually not even really ), specially to bring @BiBottomBoy into the Spirit of Things here...

Half-measures were never my thing.

"Weird" is this site's middle name, don't you know!