Table of Contents for Science Label

The Arts: Music When I was telling about my learning to appreciate great music, I referred to that experience as an investment. Over the years (and there have been many) that investment has paid off, as my love for, and even dependence on, that music has grown steadily. There were times when I would be mentally exhausted after hours of study and focusing my mind on a mathematical problem, throw myself flat on my bed and listen to a Brahms symphony. It was the mental equivalent of getting a long, cool drink of spring water, sprawled in a shady, breezy grove after hours of work in the hot sun. It seemed that there was almost always a need to match or heal a specific mood, and there is considerable variety of moods. A Beethoven symphony expressed that pent up, repressed energy that often needed to be released; or I might sit at the piano and pound away at one of his sonatas. Somewhere among the movements of his sonatas, symphonies, or concertos I could experience profound c

My Piano

May 18, 2022

My Piano Throughout the years I have retained a close association with the piano. As I mentioned earlier, I realized early on that I would never be a performer, but I continued to play for the sheer fun of it. This fun gradually grew into a dependence, both psychologically and physically. After practicing the exercises faithfully several days in a row, if a day came when I couldn't spend some time at the keyboard, my fingers would (figuratively) itch to play. They would twitch or make little motions in the air as if trying to find some keys to press. An initial requirement for a pianist is to develop fingers that are both strong and extremely agile, and then learn to coordinate their motions with the complex notation of musical scores. So, in that sense, he could be accurately called an athlete. The psychological fulfillment that comes from playing also is almost beyond description. No matter what mood I found myself in, ther

SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS

February 28, 2022

SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS For many years I was under the impression that if someone’s knowledge had acquired recognition – in the form of university tenure, awards, publications, a position of authority, or respect of his peers – then that knowledge was beyond question, and I could accept that person’s teachings as “gospel”. That trust in expert knowledge was rapidly dissipated when I entered into a career as a NASA research scientist. Within the first few months of my employment, I was called into a presentation on helicopter aerodynamics to be given by the head of the chemistry department of a large eastern university. He proceeded to inform us with a straight face that helicopter lift was actually due to an agitation of air similar to the water motion induced by the agitator in a clothes washer, while he displayed a series of equations to support his theory. Apparently, he did not realize that the theory of helicopter aero

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