Bloggtittelen er blitt brutalt overfalt av bokstavrim, med det resultat at metaforbruken halter. Viten er ikke noe endelig mål i det fjerne, men snarere noe man plukker opp underveis. Jeg vil vise funn jeg snubler over. Foreløpig kun som små stubber, med mulighet for senere utbroderinger. Som et slags manifest velger jeg, i all beskjedenhet, å la Erwin Schrödingers unnskyldning skissere rammene for bloggen. Kommentarer er alltid velkomne.
- Harald

tirsdag 27. november 2007

Presisjon

Edvard (3) forlanger presisjon:

- Hørte du traktoren, Edvard?

- Nei, jeg hørte lyden fra traktoren


lørdag 24. november 2007

En liten bok om et stort spørsmål: Origins of Life - Freeman Dyson


Flertallsformen i tittelen er vallgt med omhu: Har livet på jorden slik vi kjenner det oppstått i flere trinn? Hva kom først: metabolisme i form av primitive 'celler' eller replikasjon av RNA?
Freeman Dyson gir i 'Origins of Life' et innblikk i disse spørsmålene over knappe 90 sider.


Les mer:
Doron Lancet: Life's Origin: What is the Real Question?
samt flere foredrag fra KITCP symposiet 2007.

Celleprogrammering

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151526

Schrödingers unnskyldning


A scientist is supposed to have a complete and thorough knowledge, at first hand, of some subjects, and therefore, is usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master. This is regarded as a matter of noblesse oblige. For the present purpose I beg to renounce the noblesse, if any, and to be freed of the ensuing obligation. My excuse is as follows. We have inherited from our forefathers the keen longing for unified all-embracing knowledge. The very name given to the highest institutions of learning reminds us that from antiquity and throughout many centuries the universal aspect has been the only one to be given full credit. But the spread, both in width and depth of the multifarious branches of knowledge during the last hundred odd years has confronted us with a queer dilemma. We feel clearly that we are only now beginning to acquire reliable material for welding together the sum-total of all that is known into a whole; but, on the other hand, it has become next to impossible for a single mind fully to command more than a small specialized portion of it. I can see no other escape from this dilemma (lest our true aim be lost forever) than that some of us should venture to embark on a synthesis of facts and theories, albeit with second-hand and incomplete knowledge of some of them, and at the risk of making fools of ourselves. So much for my apology.
(Erwin Schrödinger i forordet til What is Life?)