A holograph of itself All [physical properties of matter] derive from the different patterns of the interaction of electrons and photons within the fields of the positively charged atomic nuclei, stabilized in a particular morphology by the interaction of the levels themselves. Matter is a holograph of itself in its own internal radiation. Matter versus Materials: A Historical View physics
Reality just seems to go on crunching I once met a fellow who thought that if you used General Relativity to compute a low-velocity problem, like an artillery shell, General Relativity would give you the wrong answer—not just a slow answer, but an experimentally wrong answer—because at low velocities, artillery shells are governed by Newtonian mechanics, not General Relativity. This is exactly how physics does not work. Reality just seems to go on crunching through General Relativity, even when it only makes a difference at the fourteenth decimal place, which a human would regard as a huge waste of computing power. Physics does it with brute force. No one has ever caught physics simplifying its calculations—or if someone did catch it, the Matrix Lords erased the memory afterward. Eliezer Yudkowsky, Rationality: From AI to Zombies physics
Corpuscles of nothing and atoms of something The structure of matter devolved ultimately into the intimate coexistence of something like corpuscles of nothing and atoms of something, segregating through the accidents of history to yield regions differing in density intimately interwoven on different scales. The experience of the world as well as human perception and analysis of any part of it is a matter of the angular scale of resolution and of the time necessary for making comparison between the different parts. Without such variations and without time to compare remembrances of them, nothing can be experiences. Cyril Stanley Smith, The Tiling Patterns of Sebastien Truchet and the Topology of Structural Hierarchy physicsperception
I know all about entropy Adell: I know as much as you do. Lupov: Then you know everything's got to run down someday. Isaac Asimov, The Last Question timedeathphysics
The Iridium System Several Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) networks were proposed, but only one got off the ground: the Iridium system. The original Iridium proposal called for a "constellation" of 77 satellites, which gave the plan its name: the element iridium has atomic number 77, meaning that an iridium atom has 77 orbiting electrons. Before the satellites were launched, the constellation was scaled back to 66 active satellites, but no one wanted to change the name to Dysprosium. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape physicscommunicationaerospacecosmos
Fermi Estimates and Dyson Designs An Article by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com A Fermi estimate is a quick-and-dirty solution to an arbitrary scientific or engineering analysis problem. Fermi estimation uses widely known numbers, readily observable phenomenology, basic physics equations, and a bunch of approximation techniques to arrive at rough answers that tend to be correct within an order of magnitude or so. The term is named for Enrico Fermi, who was famously good at this sort of thing. …It struck me that there is counterpart to this kind of thinking on the synthesis side, where you use similar techniques to arrive at a very rough design for a complex engineered artifact. I call such a design approach Dyson design, after the physicist Freeman Dyson, who was one of the best practitioners of it (not to be confused with inventor James Dyson, whose designs, ironically, are not Dyson designs). designphysics
The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson A Poetry Collection by Emily Dickinson www.goodreads.com The brain is wider than the skyThe brain within its grooveWhat if I say I shall not wait?The CaspianWe outgrow love+3 More
The brain is wider than the sky The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue, The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do. The brain is just the weight of God, For, lift them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do, As syllable from sound. The Art of Looking Sidewaysthe speed of God wordsthinkingcognition
The brain within its groove The brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, T'were easier for you To put the water back When floods have slit the hills, And scooped a turnpike for themselves, And blotted out the mills! insanitymind
What if I say I shall not wait? What if I say I shall not wait? What if I burst the fleshly gate And pass, escaped, to thee? waitingdeath
The Caspian The Caspian has its realms of sand, Its other realm of sea; Without the sterile perquisite No Caspian could be. beautybalance
We outgrow love We outgrow love like other things And put it in the drawer, Till it an antique fashion shows Like costumes grandsires wore. lovemelancholy
I died for beauty I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth, — the two are one; We brethren are," he said. beautytruth
The morning after death The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,— The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity. death
Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. timedeath