Tuesday 27 January 2015

A TENTH OF SECOND (ANTONIO VEGA) AND PHYSICS.

Rather than ConScienceLiterature, we open a new section which should be called “Music with Science”.

If someone had sung me “ Physics is a pleasure” in the summer of 1995´ I would have  given a hard punch on his mouth. At that time I was studying the subject Mechanics and Thermology for the September exams.



One moment in a diary,
one tenth of a second more.
It flies,  jumping from page to page,
one billion instants to talk about.
A gust of cold wind
makes a mill twist.
It keeps on rolling around its axis
describing one more trajectory.
Nothing better than imagining,
physics is a pleasure.
Nothing better than formulating,
listening and hearing at the same time.
Measure the angle between you and me,
It´s the solution to something very common here.
Now do not stop talking,
we are coordinates of a pair.
Unknown that we still have to isolate.
Look for a book that says “how”,
then another with the tittle “ if”,
a third one named “nothing”,
it is the shape of an endless circle.
Nothing better than stirring
time with coffee.
Nothing better than composing
with no guitar or paper.
Parallels are following me.
Space and time are playing chess.
Now do not stop talking.

We all know that a song is not like a poem, but I like the lines “parallels are following me” and “space and time are playing chess”. There is another cover of this song posted below sung by Miguel Ríos and Antonio Vega. And in this one, Antonio Vega looks very young and healthy, he looks like an apprentice bullfighter.
I like to see pictures of people when they were young and at their best moment before getting ruined. For instance, the rocker Silvio or even Belén Esteban.



There are many other covers of this song, among them, one sung by Bumbury that reminds me of my brother, because my brother sings like Bumbury very well. My brother would also sing like Guns and Roses and Camilo Sesto, and there were some proving that but they have disappeared mysteriously. Once, my brother let me play the harmonica while he was singing and we played an unforgettable blues

Sunday 11 January 2015

BOUVARD AND PÈCUCHET ( GUSTAVE FLAUBERT) AND MULTIPLE PROPORTIONS LAW

In order to understand chemistry they procured Regnault's course of lectures, and were, in the first place, informed that "simple bodies are perhaps compound." They are divided into metalloids and metals--a difference in which, the author observes, there is "nothing absolute." So with acids and bases, "a body being able to behave in the manner of acids or of bases, according to circumstances."
The notation appeared to them irregular. The multiple proportions perplexed Pécuchet.
"Since one molecule of _a_, I suppose, is combined with several particles of _b_, it seems to me that this molecule ought to be divided into as many particles; but, if it is divided, it ceases to be unity, the primordial molecule. In short, I do not understand." 
"No more do I," said Bouvard.


The best thing is the ending.  They seem secondary students when they blurt out “I don’t get it” in class, implying that science, or even the teacher, are to blame for the mistake.  Bouvard and Pècuchet go through the whole novel like this, science after science.