This is what I was thinking ... David J. Walker This is what I was thinking ... A series of short pieces on a variety of subjects. David J Walker Published by David J Walker Copyright © David J Walker, 2011 Also available in hard copy, printed by Salmat, 123 Hayward Avenue, Torrensville SA 5031 Australia ISBN 978-0-9872405-1-4 Preface Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. – attributed to Calvin Coolidge (1872 – 1933) Some years ago there was some dissatisfaction expressed by some of my department’s postgraduate students in relation to the lack of interaction with members of the academic staff. There were, of course, one-on-one meetings between supervisor and student, but these tended to be formal and very much work-focussed. The department rarely got together informally other than at times such as Christmas and the first Tuesday in November and these were not always times of unrestrained joy for many. To deal with this I took on the task of getting a weekly morning tea up and running; a time when people could meet and chat and the department could develop a more collegial feel with all the benefits that would flow from that. I started by organising for some biscuits to be on hand and sending out a simple announcement. This was timed for 11am on Fridays on the basis that even hard- working academics and students would appreciate that 11am was a traditional time for morning tea and Friday was a good day to recognise this. Uptake was slow. People simply were not used to stopping their work and there were many a Friday where I sat alone, waiting … However, after a few weeks a few attended and then a few more and there was an early memorable occasion after a couple of months when one of the academics brought some visitors to the function and they were exposed to an enthusiastic group of academics and students, all chatting, joking and generally looking enthusiastic about life. It made a very good impression. As time went by numbers grew and fell and I took to ‘spicing up’ the email to try and attract their attention. I figured that they were starting to ignore the Friday email and decided that an amusing or catchy message might help. I tried writing messages where each word began with a different letter of the alphabet (in order): A Big Chance Dawns Every Friday, Graduates Hurry In Joining Ken, Lots Mingle Noisily etc. Others were written (as had been done by one particular French author) using only words that did not contain the letter ‘e’ (which is difficult initially but can work, as this bit of writing shows) or even messages that started with a one letter word followed by a two letter word etc. These were the most difficult and it was very hard to get past about the sixth word and still retain some semblance of sense. The messages worked – to an extent – but in October 2005 I was running out of variations so started putting together a short piece on something I had been reading, or thinking about. I cannot remember why, but I started with a quote, initially from the book that had generated the idea, but eventually also taking in a quote book that my wife had been given, and the Internet, and then worked up a few paragraphs to explain it or to develop an idea based on it. These were well received (by some) and ignored by others (who told me proudly they never read them) but they were addictive (to me) and I persisted. Now six years, and 243 messages later, I have decided to put them together. They are neither universally educational nor humorous but are simply on topics about which I had been thinking or reading. There is a bit of a focus on thinking and philosophy and I went through a short phase when I decided to launch a few rounds at ‘Dubya’. Other than that, they are a mixed bag. Initially people thought I had lifted them from the Internet and were surprised to hear I wrote them myself (scholarship is not dead!). Because they were sent out on Fridays many assumed they had been cobbled together between 8:30 and 9:30 on the morning and while the very early ones had been in their previous form this collection were generally written weeks in advance and took up many an evening. Writing them was something that just got out of hand, but they were enormous fun. I would occasionally launch a missile and wait for the responses, and was generally not disappointed. Along the way I got to know my readers and what they liked and disliked and tried to respond appropriately. There were some people from whom I drew enormous strength and I hope that I have conveyed to them my appreciation for their encouragement and support along the way (in particular AW, AP, AS, AZ, BB, DO, JW, NA, NJ, PV, SJ and TD). The topics sometimes got the conversation going at morning tea but to be honest most attendees were more interested in the tea, biscuits and cake (on special occasions) and many sank without trace. Until now, that is. Here, they have floated back to the surface and are presented mostly as they were delivered. Some have been adjusted slightly to correct typos but most appear as they did on a Friday some years ago. David J Walker November 2011 for Adrienne ... On teachers One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil - Zarathustra (as quoted to Freud by Carl Jung). When Carl Jung went to work with Sigmund Freud it seemed to Freud an ideal opportunity to have a junior who would carry on the great work that he had started. The only problem with Jung was that he had some different ideas, but Freud was fairly sure he would be able to overcome these - he was the senior of the two after all. It was not to be ... Jung stuck to his ideas, rejected Freud's explanations for a large number of psychological problems and eventually moved on, unable to work with someone who was so intent on remaining the teacher. (Friday 21st October, 2005) 1 On chemistry ... one must distrust the almost-the-same ..., the practically identical, the approximate, the or-even, all surrogates, and all patchwork. The differences can be small, but they can lead to radically different consequences ... – Primo Levi (1975) Trained in chemistry, Primo Levi was given the task of purifying benzene in wartime Europe. He found an established procedure that called for distillation followed by a final treatment using sodium to remove the last traces of impurity. Sodium was not available but potassium was and, being a good student of the periodic table of elements, he knew that the two were very similar. Unfortunately for him, very similar was not similar enough and a final cleanup of the equipment with water led to an explosion that filled the room with flames. A tiny speck of sodium left in the flask would not have reacted so fiercely with the water and ignited the benzene fumes in the room. Potassium though was another matter. (Friday 28th October, 2005) 2 On eminence It is somewhat cynically said that the eminence of a scientist is measured by the length of time that he holds up progress in his field. – James Lovelock (2000) At first it appears an odd way to rank scientists but perhaps the idea has merit. Lovelock cites the case of Louis Pasteur and his pronouncements on the forms of life possible in an oxygen-poor environment but there are more eminent scientists to consider. Arthur Eddington, for example, held back work on black holes for 30 years due to his supreme authority in matters astronomical. Isaac Newton is credited with a number of fundamental breakthroughs. If his ideas hold sway today one can only imagine how they were viewed in his own place and time, Cambridge in the 1600s. So entrenched was his theory and beliefs that no one dared question his authority and he is credited with holding back developments in England for two hundred years. Meanwhile on continental Europe great advances in mathematics were being made by foreign mortals who feared him less. But who is the most eminent? According to the scientist and philosopher Sir James Jeans this honour goes to Aristotle. “Aristotle’s pronouncement that a circular motion was natural to all bodies, because the circle was the perfect geometrical figure, seems to have stifled curiosity fairly thoroughly for nearly two thousand years ...” (Friday 4th November, 2005) 3 On giants If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. – Isaac Newton (1676) Newton is widely quoted for this magnanimous sounding acknowledgement that he used in a letter to the natural philosopher Robert Hooke. The background to it, however, is far more interesting. Newton and Hooke were anything but friends, and both seemed to have a history of making and keeping enemies for life. Newton was so upset by Hooke, who had claimed credit for some of his key discoveries, that he deliberately delayed publication of the final book of his three part Principia until after Hooke’s death, and also edited it to remove all mention of Hooke.