Critics. malice and criticism

If I have sent this before, so be it. I just came across the Radulph quote while reading on a bus. After I recovered from a snorting attack, I recalled that I had previously filed it.

Then I found all of this lot. I must have had more spare time, back then.

Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honour of a critic.
— Jan Sibelius (1865 – 1957) (attrib.)

 [Kierkegaard] might be described as a loose-limbed Nordic Pascal (with the mathematical genius left out), born into the Romantic Age in a small country.

— J. B. Priestley, Literature and Western Man, Mercury Books, 1962, 146.

 Kierkegaard is very queer, I think. I read some selections in German last year, and a French translation … a very odd and good book.

— Aldous Huxley, letter to Edward Sackville-West, 1932, Letters of Aldous Huxley, Chatto and Windus, 1969, 356.

 [Macaulay] has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

— Sydney Smith (1771 – 1845)

 Thou should’st be living at this hour,
Milton, and enjoying power.
England hath need of thee and not
Of Leavis and of Eliot.

— Heathcote William Garrod.

 You ought to be roasted alive, not that even well-cooked you would be to my taste.

— J. M. Barrie, to George Bernard Shaw, in response to GBS’s criticism of his plays.

 In his variations on the Paganini theme, Brahms is commenting subtly on physics and dynamics, including light-hearted references to Boyle’s Law and Fletcher’s Trolley.

— Basil Boothroyd (1910 – 1988), quoted by Frank Muir, The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose.

 A good deal of Teilhard is nonsense, but on further reflection I can see it as a dotty, euphoristic kind of nonsense, very greatly preferable to solemn long-faced Germanic nonsense. There is no real harm in it. But what, I wonder, was the origin of the philosophically self-destructive belief that obscurity makes a prima-facie case for profundity? — the origin, I mean, of the comically fallacious syllogism that runs Profound reasoning is difficult to understand; this work is difficult to understand; therefore this work is profound.

— Sir Peter Medawar ( ), Plutos’s Republic, introduction, 21.

 The harm Kant unwittingly did to philosophy was to make obscurity seem respectable. From Kant on, any petty metaphysician might hope to be given credit for profundity if what he said was almost impossible to follow.

— Sir Peter Medawar ( ), Plutos’s Republic, introduction, 22.

 Schopenhauer: A German; very deep; but it was not really noticeable when he sat down.

— Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), Literary Lapses (1910)

 When I am dead, I hope it may be said:

‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.’
— Hilaire Belloc (1870 – 1953), ‘On His Books’ in Stories Essays and Poems, Everyman Library 948, 1957, 413.

 De la Beche is a DIRTY DOG,— THERE IS PLAIN English & there is no mincing the matter. I knew him to be a thorough jobber & a great intriguer & we have proved him to be thoroughly incompetent to carry on the survey … He writes in one style to you and in another to me … I confess that a very little matter would prevent my having further intercourses with De la B. If I can trace to him the origin of those falsehoods he shall smart.

— Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792 – 1871), quoted in Rudwick, The Great Devonian Conspiracy, University of Chicago 1985, 194.

 It would have been more accurate for Leavis to say that there has been no debate between him and me. There has not: nor will there be. For one simple and over-riding reason. I can’t trust him to keep to the ground-rules of academic or intellectual controversy.

— C. P. Snow (1905 – 1980), The Case of Leavis and the Serious Case, 1970.

 Victor Hugo was really a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.

— Anon., quoted by J. B. Priestley, Literature and Western Man, Mercury Books, 1962, 132.

 Born in Warsaw in 1838 and died there in 1861, aged twenty-three. In this brief lifetime she accomplished, perhaps, more than any composer who ever lived, for she provided the piano of absolutely every tasteless sentimental person in the so-called civilized world with a piece of music which that person, however unaccomplished in a dull technical sense, could play. It is probable that if the market stalls and back-street music shops of Britain were to be searched The Maiden’s Prayer would be found to be still selling, and as for the Empire at large, Messrs. Allan of Melbourne reported in 1924, sixty years after the death of the composer, that their house alone was still disposing of 10,000 copies a year.

— Percy A. Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music, 9th edition, 1955, 64.

 …one, the notoriously unreliable monk Radulph Glaber (the wildness of whose imagination was rivalled only by that of his private life, which gives him a fair claim to have been expelled from more monasteries than any other littérateur of the eleventh century)…

— John Julius Norwich, The Normans in the South, 1016–1130, 1992.

 Andrade is like an inverted Micawber, waiting for something to turn down.

— Sir Henry Tizard (1885 – 1959), recalled by C. Snow (1905 – 1980), Science and Government, 1960.

 The hatchet is buried for the present: but the handle is conveniently near the surface.

— Sir Henry Tizard (1885 – 1959) on Lord Cherwell, recalled by C. Snow (1905 – 1980), Science and Government, 1960.

 I have no doubt of your courage, Sir Robert, though you have of mine; but then consider what different lives we have led, and what a school of courage is that troop of Yeomanry at Tamworth — the Tory fencibles! Who can doubt of your courage who has seen you at their head, marching up Pitt Street through Dundas Square onto Liverpool Lane? … the very horses looking at you as if you were going to take away 3 per cent. of their oats. After such spectacles as these, the account you give of your own courage cannot be doubted …

— Sydney Smith (1771 – 1845), in a letter to Sir Robert Peel, June 20, 1842, quoted in Charles Mackay (ed.), A Thousand and One Gems of English Prose (n.d.), 400

 Mr Henry James has written a book called The Secret of Swedenborg and has kept it.

— William Dean Howells (1837 – 1920).

 In retrospect I think my essay on Teilhard was good of its kind, but I confess that when on the insistence of an American writer friend I read Mark Twain’s ‘Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences’ I bowed my head in the presence of a master of literary criticism.

— Sir Peter Medawar (1915 – 1987), Plutos’s Republic, introduction, 22.

 

Cast your pepper upon the waters

Trust me, this is about surface tension. You need a glass of water, a pepper grinder, and a tiny amount of detergent.

Take the glass of water. Sprinkle pepper all over the top of the water. Put several drops of detergent into the centre of the dish.

What happens to the pepper?

Is the same thing happening over the whole surface of the water, or is it just in the middle?

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Now where was I?

Oh, that's right, I was off finishing a book, and  having done that, I took a break, moved house, and started thinking about an idea that hit me in 1993. It had its roots in a science fiction book I read in about 1960, plus or minus two, and you can read about that book here, and that link takes you to my big blog.

In 1993, I was setting up Sciencescape at the Australian Museum, and in Thinkers' Corner, we posed a puzzle: our civilisation is about to crash, you have one piece of indestructible metal on which to engrave a thousand words about the key ideas of science, things that will help our descendants get science going again, things like there is tiny life all around us, and wash your hands and boil the drinking water.

Not long after that, I came up with the idea of SPLATS, a much more fully developed set of golden rules in science, those key ideas that most scientists agree on, most of the time. Long before Twitter and Tweets, far earlier than X or Bluesky, I set a limit of 160 characters for each idea, though it was permissible to chain them together.

Here are some examples, relating to surface tension:

• Surface tension gives rise to capillary action and this explains why water will soak into a rock, and many other effects, including 'wetting'.

• Surface tension affects many animals, but it usually has a greater effect on small animals which encounter greater pro rata forces on their smaller mass.

• Surface tension effects give rise to the meniscus at a liquid boundary, the curve being shaped by the relative attractions of the molecules for each other.

Now I want to introduce readers to primitive science, the notion of exploring deep effects, using stuff that should be around your home, and as you may have guessed, I will start with surface tension.

Here, we are looking at tiny dew drops on spider webs, and when you get down to it, you may see how this relates to surface tension.

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A closer look at cloth

All of these shots were taken with a clip-on in the first couple of days after I got the first one in the mail.

When people get their first hand lens, they examine their hands, fingerprints and fingernails, and then they look at their hair. With clip-ons, the first time they set their device down on their lap while they move something, they see the detail in cloth.

Two views of one piece of cloth, probably satin.

You will need some different types of clothes (or a ragbag of clean scrap material), and an embiggener. Shirts and blouses are usually woven cloth, t-shirts are typically knitted, and I know little more than that. There are some interesting images to be gathered, though. What you do from there is up to you. Discover something!

Three other cloth samples, but how many types of fibre can you see?

Now look at the fibres in cloth samples, to see if they can both be distinguished in the fabric, or not. Here are two shots of cotton polyester at x15 and x60, then three of pure merino, at x15, then at x30 and x60. This exploration began when I wondered if you could see the different fibres in composite cloth like cotton polyester cloth. I think I can do that!

But can you tell merino from cotton polyester without labelling or a microscope? I don’t think I can do that!

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Looking at coins

 

This is one of the fun ones, but I suppose I would say that, because I was once an amateur numismatist, working in the Commonwealth Treasury Department, and used to answer all the odd public enquiries about money and other things. You will need a range of coins of different ages.

The best fun comes with pre-decimal coins (earlier than 1966), so ask your grandparents if they have any. There are fine details hidden away on coins, like the abbreviated Latin details around the sovereign’s head, but there are also mint marks and designers’ initials.

On the pre-decimal coins, look for the abbreviated Latin description around the sovereign’s head, but there are also mint marks and designers’ initials.

A 1951 sixpence, minted in London. In 1966, the sixpence became the new five-cent coin.

Some 1951 Australian coins have PL on them, telling us they were minted in London (nobody knows what it means, but “it is traditional”, and the L is probably for Londinium, the name the Roman invaders gave to London). 

Pennies and halfpennies have KG near the kangaroo, but it doesn’t mean KanGaroo, it reminds us that George Kruger Grey designed it (and also the shilling coin, which later became 10 cents).

A 1942 penny: the dots each side of .PENNY. tell you where it was minted.

The head of King George V was done by Bertram MacKennal, so there is a BM under the neck. Herbert Paget (HP) did King George VI. I can’t recall who did Queen Elizabeth II, but there were four or five different queen heads, I think.

An old florin (two shillings, which became the 20 cents), minted in San Francisco. 

Most of the decimal “silver” was designed by Stuart Devlin (SD), and if you look at coins minted during World Wars I and II, you will find many foreign mint marks like S (San Francisco), D (Denver), I (for India, meaning Calcutta).

Spot the designer’s initials on the Australian 10 cent coin, between the lyrebird’s tail and foot.

Of course, if you can’t get any of those older coins, there are still plenty of other surprises, like gashes, scratches and other marks.

Now take a look at this image below: do you know where it came from? I came across the shot in my files, and even though it was one I had personally taken with a clip-on. I had to check where it came from. It is an Australian coin, but foreign coins have secrets as well.

Let the hunt begin! Clearly there are many more puzzles like the ones suggested here for you to explore!

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Looking at stomates

 

In the diagram above, the stoma or stomate is in the lower surface of of the leaf: stoma is a Greek word, with the plural stomata. In English, we say stomate and stomates, but whatever name we use, it’s time to look at these pores.

The lower surfaces of most leaves are covered in stomates, and while they require a good microscope to see them well, we can take a cast of a leaf surface and look at that, using either a clip-on or even a hand lens!

The cast is usually called ‘a peel’, and last century, peels were made with stuff called collodion. Now, there’s a simpler way. All you need is some clear nail polish, some sticky tape and a glass slide. Choose a leaf: it seems that most leaves work, but not Camellia, and leaves without hairs on their lower surface are best (use the hairy ones for Looking at leaves!).

Using a small amount of clear nail polish, paint a thin strip on the lower surface, about 1 cm wide and 3 cm long (accurate measures aren’t really important).

The tape, loaded with nail polish, is ready to go on the microscope slide.

Leave the nail polish to dry for about 10 minutes, and then lay a strip of clear sticky tape over the nail polish. When you lift the tape off, the polish will come with it, and there will be a perfect cast of the leaf surface on the lower side. When you attach the tape to a glass slide, you are ready.
  

Above, you can see two views of a peel from the lower surface of a bay leaf, at x100 and x400 (the inset).

Stomates let carbon dioxide in and oxygen out. They also let water vapour escape, so plants need to control their stomates, which are very tiny, about 0.05 mm (1/20 mm) across, so you won’t see them with the naked eye. Still, once you know what you are looking for, you can see them with a good hand lens, but only as closely-packed dots.

Sometimes research is just trying out ideas, and that was the case when I tried looking for stomates on fishbone fern. They are indeed there, but another form of scientific research involves reading ‘the literature’, the things other scientists have seen, noticed or discovered. That revealed that other people had already seen fern stomates. I found it has clear stomates on the under-side.
 
Another literature search told me that the very best plant for this exercise is Tradescantia pallida, a garden favourite with purple leaves, and one that grows easily from cuttings. Here on the left is what you can see of Tradescantia pallida with a clip-on at x15 and x65 (in the inset). Then I reached for a microscope, and the results are on the right. The same ‘peel’ is now seen through a high-end monocular microscope, at x40, x100 and x400. This is better!

 

Once you see this, the clip-on and hand lens views will make sense. Each stomate looks like two fat sausages (or lips) lying side by side: when they curve around, the stomatal pore opens and gases go in and out. The stomate is made up of two guard cells: these are the ‘lips’ of the ‘mouth’, but in Tradescantia pallida, there are two other cells, one at each end, making a rectangle.
 

It turns out that you can see the stomates on the plant’s actual leaf with a clip-on, if you know what you are doing! The shot above is not a peel: it is the actual plant that is under a clip-on. The first shot is with no digital zoom, the second is with full zoom. Look for the pale squares. This view is looking at the leaf itself, with reflected light. The stomates are the pale square shapes. The stomates are very visible at x60, but you can even see them with a hand lens offering x10, if you know what you are looking for.
 

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Looking at leaves

 

Almost all the flowering plants have leaves. A few have phyllodes or cladodes, types of stem that work like leaves. Apart from that, there is a huge amount of variation to look for. They also have a few things in common. Most of the photosynthesis in a plant, the work of food-making, happens in the leaves.

The pictures above show a member of the pea family called Bossiaea (pronounced ‘bossier’). They are hard to find where I live, and these are the best shots I have. Notice how the leaves are reduced to little scales, poking out from the sides of the flattened stem, which is called a cladode.
 
Leaves also have openings called stomates, which we will come to later. Most leaves are green because of the chlorophyll in them. Chlorophyll is the molecule plants use to capture the sun’s energy to drive photosynthesis. Some leaves are coloured because they contain other pigments that hide the chlorophyll.

Old leaves get their colours because plants break down the chemicals in the leaves and try to take back as much goodness as possible before the leaves fall off. The autumn colours are leftovers. Most leaves have different upper and lower surfaces, but try to find a top or a bottom on a gum leaf!

Most leaves are free to wave around in the breeze, catching as much sunlight as possible, but gum leaves hang down vertically, which is why the two sides are identical.
 

Image credit: based on a Wikipedia Commons image, Leaf Tissue Structure by Zephyris.

You would never see the picture above under the microscope: it is built up from different views under high-powered microscopes. Ignore the names, but note that there are openings into the leaf, and air spaces inside. The chloroplasts inside the cells are the places where photosynthesis happens.

She-oak 'needles' are really stems that have the leaves stuck onto them. At each 'joint', there are leaf tips sticking out. Some leaves have hairs on them

Blady grass is found in many parts of the world, and its leaves can cut your skin because they have silica hairs, which are like spikes of glass.

There are other leaves that are furry. 

And then there are the stomates... 

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