Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 59
December 22, 2015
December 19, 2015
Us alone in the big black beyond
The Earth and the surface of the moon as photographed from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (and copyright of NASA, obviously)
Not nothing
There is actually no such thing as "nothing" it seems, no true vacuum, no absence of anything anywhere at all; although we haven't looked everywhere, of course; but nothing will be found nowhere, it seems, so far; and something is happening everywhere, somehow, always, and now.
Us alone
The Earth and the surface of the moon as photographed from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (and copyright of NASA, obviously)
December 18, 2015
Colourful chemistry
Representing molecules and their atoms and ions using letters such as C, H and O to indicate the elements, as we do, gives a falsely complicated view of the world within us, because every chemical species is really just a combination of protons, neutrons and electrons, and all that really matters - all that controls the interactions that let us live, and think - are the varying patterns of negative charge distribution created by the exterior electrons as they are pulled and pushed around by attraction to the atomic nuclei and the repulsion of neighbouring electrons from one another. So a better, or at least more realistic, way to view the chemical world within us and the drugs we use to alter it is the rather beautiful "electron density" representation that uses colour coding to show whether regions are rich in negative charge or deficient in it or somewhere in-between
For example, appropriate for the days of festive excess, here is paracetamol (acetaminophen):
image from wikipedia.org
The red-coded regions of a molecule are most strongly pulled towards the blue-coded regions of others, while these regions push away regions that are similar to themselves; and thus the little molecules and atoms and ions move around and interact and react to make us what we are, we think.
Yes, they make us think.
And very fine and lovely they are too.
For example, appropriate for the days of festive excess, here is paracetamol (acetaminophen):
image from wikipedia.org The red-coded regions of a molecule are most strongly pulled towards the blue-coded regions of others, while these regions push away regions that are similar to themselves; and thus the little molecules and atoms and ions move around and interact and react to make us what we are, we think.
Yes, they make us think.
And very fine and lovely they are too.
19 December 2015
Having been busily engaged on a mission of huge significance (to me) and of no significance whatsoever (to everyone else) I had not been to my favoured coffee joint for quite some time when I stood being attended to by a rather flustered young man struggling with the touch-screen of his till.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I am slow because I am new.'
'That's okay,' I replied, fumbling to extract a plastic card from my wallet, 'I am slow because I am old.'
He looked at me and I looked at him and we smiled at each other.
'You wouldn't call yourself old if you could see my grandad,' he said.
'Well you wouldn't call yourself new if you could see my pal's new son,' I countered, somewhat lamely, I thought.
'Oh for goodness sake will you two get on with it,' came a woman's voice from just behind me.
I turned to face her, feeling a touch of grumpy old man irritation rising, but then I saw that she was smiling.
'And are you old or new then?' I asked her.
'I'm middling,' she said.
And I looked. And she was.
That's all. Just a brief exchange between strangers.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I am slow because I am new.'
'That's okay,' I replied, fumbling to extract a plastic card from my wallet, 'I am slow because I am old.'
He looked at me and I looked at him and we smiled at each other.
'You wouldn't call yourself old if you could see my grandad,' he said.
'Well you wouldn't call yourself new if you could see my pal's new son,' I countered, somewhat lamely, I thought.
'Oh for goodness sake will you two get on with it,' came a woman's voice from just behind me.
I turned to face her, feeling a touch of grumpy old man irritation rising, but then I saw that she was smiling.
'And are you old or new then?' I asked her.
'I'm middling,' she said.
And I looked. And she was.
That's all. Just a brief exchange between strangers.
December 12, 2015
Update
The Earth is still spinning and circling the sun, which is still speeding around in its spiral arm within a huge cluster of stars and other strange bits and pieces that, while unimaginably vast to little me, is all vanishingly tiny within everything there is; and my warm wet heart is still beating, beating, beating, and my muddled mind is still minding, minding, minding, and all thanks to the billions of unimaginably tiny dinking and dancing little vibrating thingamywhatevers inside me... and the clock ticks on...
