Wisdom from the 42nd Page

Orality and Literacy

On the forty-second page of “Orality and Literacy” author Walter J. Ong wrote (emphasis added):

for in oral cultures an audience must be brought to respond, often vigorously. But narrators also introduce new elements into old stories (Goody 1977, pp. 29–30). In oral tradition, there will be as many minor variants of a myth as there are repetitions of it, and the number of repetitions can be increased indefinitely. Praise poems of chiefs invite entrepreneurship, as the old formulas and themes have to be made to interact with new and often complicated political situations. But the formulas and themes are reshuffled rather than supplanted with new materials.

Religious practices, and with them cosmologies and deepseated beliefs, also change in oral cultures. Disappointed with the practical results of the cult at a given shrine when cures there are infrequent, vigorous leaders—the 'intellectuals' in oral society, Goody styles them (1977, p. 30)—invent new shrines and with these new conceptual universes. Yet these new universes and the other changes that show a certain originality come into being in an essentially formulaic and thematic noetic economy. They are seldom if ever explicitly touted for their novelty but are presented as fitting the traditions of the ancestors.

(v) Close to the human lifeworld

In the absence of elaborate analytic categories that depend on writing to structure knowledge at a distance from lived experience, oral cultures must conceptualize and verbalize all their knowledge with more or less close reference to the human lifeworld, assimilating the alien, objective world to the more immediate, familiar interaction of human beings. A chirographic (writing) culture and even more a typographic (print) culture can distance and in a way denature even the human, itemizing such things as the names of leaders and political divisions in an abstract, neutral list entirely devoid of a human action context. An oral culture has no vehicle so neutral as a list. In the latter half of the second book, the Iliad presents the famous catalogue of the ships—over four hundred lines—which compiles the names of Grecian leaders and the regions they ruled, but in a total context of human action: the names of persons and places occur as involved in doings (Havelock 1963, pp. 176–80). The normal and very likely the only place in Homeric Greece where this sort of political information could be

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(Routledge, July 2002. Paperback, 232 pages. ISBN: 0415281296; EAN: 9780415281294.)

Empires of Light

On the forty-second page of “Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World” author Jill Jonnes wrote (most emphasis added):

after inventing the battery, over the next decade and a half Faraday's "almost intuitive insight into many of nature's secrets" led him to elucidate on electromagnetic lines of force and the relationship among electric current flow, the magnetic field, and motion through that field. He showed that simply by changing the magnitude of current flow, you caused change in the magnetic field, and that in turn caused current in any conductor in the magnetic field. Faraday would also clarify the electrochemical nature of electricity, determine the specific inductive capacities of many materials, establish a relationship between light and magnetism, and resolve the long debated question of whether the electricity produced by lightning, electrostatics, batteries, and his generator were all the same invisible entity. They were.²⁴ As one biographer writes, "His versatility, originality, intellectual energy and sheer stamina leave us in awe."²⁵

Faraday's own life, work, and stature became an inspiration and model for successive generations of scientists. Believing that Sir Humphry's wealth and titled eminence distracted from his wholehearted pursuit of science, Michael Faraday politely turned down time-consuming titles, opportunities to earn a fortune, and all socializing attendant on honors and wealth. A devout member of the small Sandemanian Christian sect, he lived modestly, quietly, and happily with his beloved wife upstairs at the Royal Institution. But down in the basement laboratory Michael Faraday was a veritable lion, a passionate and brilliant scientist of rare energy able to select and focus on the most meaningful, discerning problems. His scientific output was prodigious and fundamental, influencing peers in many fields. His laboratory notebooks set a standard of beautifully observed detail, organization, and honest record keeping. The charm of his prolific writings—and his readiness to admit his many laboratory failures on the road to experimental success—earned him wide and enduring readership. His three-volume Experimental Researches in Electricity and Magnetism remains a classic.

In the 1830s, with Sir Humphry Davy dead in 1829 at the young age of fifty-two, Faraday truly took over running of the Royal Institution. One of his first acts was to inaugurate the Friday evening discourses, as well as special Christmas lectures for children. Faraday,

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(Random House Trade, October 2004. Paperback, 464 pages. ISBN: 0375758844; EAN: 9780375758843.)

Time Machines

On the forty-second page of “Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction (2nd Edition)” author Paul J. Nahin wrote (some emphasis added):

After Midnight (Peck) dances at a nineteenth-century masquerade party, he, too, suddenly sees his partner as she will be in his time: "[She] was lowering her mask. I opened my mouth to scream... It was a skull turned brown by time and stained by the graveyard years. I looked around me, and everybody in the fading ballroom was like her... skulls stared at me because all of these people were dead, long dead. And I had no business being here." And the time travelers in "Ghost Ship" (Simons) call all they encounter in the past ghosts (the ship in the title is the particular temporal target of the story, the Titanic.)

Even the "mere" communication across time can result in horror, and no writer has better captured the essence of that experience that have Ambrose Bierce and H. P. Lovecraft. Bierce's "John Bartine's Watch" is the story of a Tory traitor who was executed by the American rebels, only to reappear in a ghastly manner, across a hundred years, in the body of his great-grandsom. Lovecraft's weird, macabre tale "The Shadow Out of Time" tells about Professor N. Wingate Peaslee of Miskatonic University and of his astonishing discovery that his mind has been among grotesque creatures that inhabited Earth 150 million years ago. These stories by Bierce and Lovecraft are time travel horrors in the marvelously disgusting (I use these particular words in admiration, by the way!) tradition of Poe. When Wells' brilliant work The Time Machine appeared in serial form in 1895 in the New Review, the Review of Reviews called the author "a man of genius" but then ended its notice—see Parrinder (1972)—with "he has an imagination as gruesome as that of Poe." Indeed, Poe himself experimented with time travel via exchanges of personal identity [see his 1844 "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" in Franklin (1966)], but as I have already indicated, that is not a time travel mechanism of scientific interest in this book.

This potential for literary horror almost certainly explains why more than one writer has speculated that Jack the Ripper (whose identity is still uknown) may have been (and perhaps still is) a time traveler—see "A Toy for Juliette" (Bloch) and "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World" (Ellison). A time traveler, by definition, can strike at literally any time, and to imagine Jack suddenly materializing behind you while you walk on a dark, foggy London street is a bit unnverving.⁴ The 1979 movie Time After Time played with this idea: Jack fled to modern-day San Francisco after stealing a time machine, with H. G. Wells himself in hot pursuit.

Another concern is that a trip into the past would require careful planning and not just a little crafy caution. As the opening line of L. P. Hartley's 1954 novel The Go-Between says, "This past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." And to be different may possibly invite unpleasant attention, as

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(Springer, April 2001. Hardcover, 628 pages. ISBN: 0387985719; EAN: 9780387985718.)

A Many-Colored Glass

On the forty-second page of “A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe” author Freeman J. Dyson wrote (hyperlink & emphasis added):

That was the end of my pitch. After that, the debate continued with statements and questions from the audience which I do not remember. No vote was taken to determine who won. The purpose of the debate was not to win but to educate. Bill Joy and I remain friends.

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(University of Virginia Press, August 2007. Hardcover, 162 pages. ISBN: 0813926637; EAN: 9780813926636.)

Summer for the Gods

On this day in 1925 Dayton, TN football coach John Scopes was put on trial for teaching the theory of evolution (at the behest of the ACLU) while substituting in a biology class.

On the forty-second page of the Pulitzer Prize winning “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion” historian Edward J. Larson wrote (emphasis added):

history would seem enough to condem Darwinism," Bryan thundered, drawing heavily on evidence from Leuba, Kellogg, and Kidd.²⁹ A second speech against Darwinism, "The Bible and Its Enemies," joined Bryan's repertoire later that year. The Commoner broke out of the starting blocks so fast that the back cover of the 1921 pamphlet containing the "Enemies" speech already referred to "Mr. Bryan and his crusade against evolution."³⁰

In addition to stressing the dangers of Darwinism, both speeches denounced the theory as unscientific and unconvincing. "Science to be truly science is classified knowledge," Bryan maintained, adopting an antiquated definition of science. "Tested by this definition, Darwinism is not science at all; it is guesses strung together."³¹ He entertained his audiences with exaggerated accounts of seemingly far-fetched evolutionary explanations for human organs—such as the eye, which supposedly began as a light-sensitive freckle. "The increased heat irritated the skin—so the evolutionsts guess, and a nerve came there and out of the nerve came the eye! Can you beat it?" Bryan asked rhetorically. "Is it not easier to believe in a God who can make an eye?"³² As the horistian Ronald L. Numbers noted, "Bryan was far from alone in balking at the evolutionary origin of the eye. Christian apologists had long regarded the intricate design of the eye as 'a cure for atheism,' and Darwin himself had readily conceded his vulnerability on this point."³³ Yet Bryan possessed an uncanny ability to exploit any such weakness in his opponent's arguments, at least with respect to winning over a popular audience—the only one that mattered to him. "The scientist cannot compel acceptance of any argument he advances, except as, judged on its merits, is convincing," the Commoner maintained in defiance of scientific authority. "Man is infinitely more than science; science, as well as the Sabbath, was made for man."³⁴

This sort of thinking predisposed Bryan to his later course of seeking a legislative judgment on teaching evolution and accepting a trial by jury to enforce any resulting restriction. Indeed, Bryan's mode of operation and optimistic temperament required offering readily political solutions to outstanding social problems—such as a silver-based currency to promote domestic prosperity or arbitration treaties to secure international peace—and his followers, especially those who called him their Perless Leader, expected an agenda for action. The Menace of Darwinism speech, however, included only a vauge call for "real neu[trality]

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(Basic Books, October 2006. Paperback, 336 pages. ISBN: 046507510X; EAN: 9780465075102.)

Energy Victory

On the forty-second page of “Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil” author Robert Zubrin wrote (hyperlinks & emphasis added):

The WML acts to spread and strengthen Wahhabism through both establishment of new institutions and movements, and the takeover of old ones, as well as through general preaching, publications, and propaganda. The initial personnel for its construction came from bringing together Saudi-Wahhabi clerics with the refugee leaders of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. This latter Salafist organization had been founded in Cairo in 1928 by the religious scholar Hassan al Banna, himself the student of the Wahhabi preacher and paid Saudi royal family operative Rashid Rida. The Muslim Brotherhood grew into a powerful movement, guilty of innumerable acts of terror and murder directed against Egypt's large Coptic Christian minority, Shiites, and secular Sunni Muslims. Unfortunately, the brothers' pious devotions did not stop there, but also included prolific assassination of government ministers, first of the British puppet government of King Farouk, and then those of the secular national socialist dictator Gamel Abdul Nasser. When Nasser responded to this threat by expelling the brotherhood from Egypt, the Saudis welcomed them with open arms.¹³

Leading Muslim brothers, including Sheikh Omar Abdul Raman (later convicted for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing), future Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdullah Azam, and Muhammad Qutb, were given not only sanctuary, but cushy teaching positions at Saudi universities. Thus brought comfortably into the fold, the brothers quite reasonably dropped their previous nitpicking objections to the irreligious hedonistic personal behavior (such as alcoholism) of the Saudi royals, and buckled down to the task of assisting the MWL team in its sacred mission of bringing all Islam to embrace Wahhabism. As part of the MWL brain trust, the brothers poured out an endless stream of fanatical books and pamphlets for Saudi government publication and worldwide distribution, and helped shape the minds of hundreds of thousands of promising young scholars brought to Arabia from around the world to receive their instruction. This latter activity proved quite productive. From their positions teaching Islamic studies at King Abdul Aziz University in

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(Prometheus Books, November 2007. Hardcover, 336 pages. ISBN: 1591025915; EAN: 9781591025917.)

Roswell

Today, July 7th, marks the 61st anniversary of the "Roswell UFO incident" that put Roswell, New Mexico on the map. On the forty-second page of “Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe” former deputy assistant secretary of defense Karl T. Pflock wrote (hyperlinks & emphasis added):

something went down just north of Roswell." When the "flare" faded, the unknown had dropped off the radars, and Kaufmann told me, "We knew it was down."³

The "Campers"

According to the late Jim Ragsdale, he and a married lady friend, "Trudy Truelove," also deceased, saw the mysterious bogey fall from the sky.⁴ In the first version of his story, Ragsdale claimed he and Truelove were taking advantage of the rare three-day weekend as well as the absence of Truelove's husband, an enlisted man stationed at Roswell AAF. They were lounging "buck naked" and drinking beer in the bed of Ragsdale's pickup truck at a remote spot about forty road miles north of Roswell. Their trysting place was a location he said he knew about because of his work as part of a team surveying the route for a soon to be constructed El Paso Natural Gas Company pipeline.⁵

In a 1993 interview with Schmitt, Ragsdale said, "On a night during July, 1947, ... during a severe lightning storm ... [we] observed a bright flash and what appeared to be a bright light source moving toward the southeast."⁶ Randle and Schmitt reported that Ragsdale, while unsure of the exact date, was certain this event took place during the long Fourth of July weekend.⁷

Ragsdale and Truelove watched and heard the object roar overhead and apparently strike the ground "a mile or two" from their location.⁸ "Later, at sunrise, driving in that direction, ... [we] came upon a ravine near a bluff that was covered with pieces of unusual wreckage, remains of a damaged craft and a number of smaller bodied beings outside the craft." Ragsdale collected some of the strange debris, which by his description was similar to that found by Mack Brazel. He began putting the material in his vehicle, but Truelove, frightened and anxious to leave, threw it out almost as fast as he loaded it.⁹

According to Ragsdale, the lady seems to have had good reason to be concerned. He claimed "a military convoy arrived and secured the scene. As a result of the convoy's appearance we quickly fled the area."¹⁰

Farmer and Son, Corporal, and Nuns

Randle and Schmitt suggest William Woody and his father, on their farm south of Roswell, observed the same object seen by the campers rather than that seen by Wilmots on July 2. According to them, the younger Woody reports seeing a flaming object "coming from the northwest and going down about due north of Roswell," that is, exactly opposite the direction and track reported by the Wilmots, but consistent with Ragsdale's alleged recollections.¹¹ Moreover, they assert, Woody's description of the object he and his father saw much more closely matches what Ragsdale claimed to have seen—a flaming something streaking across the sky—than it does the Wilmot UFO.¹²

Then there is the account of E. L. Pyles who, as an army air forces corporal in 1947, was assigned to a radio-range facility some miles southwest of Roswell AAF. According to Randle and Schmitt, on a night "early in July of 1947," Pyles was at the

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(Prometheus Books, June 2001. Hardcover, 345 pages. ISBN: 1573928941; EAN: 9781573928946.)

The Enzyme Factor

On the forty-second page of “The Enzyme Factor” Dr. Hiromi Shinya wrote (emphasis added):

It is better because it requires you to chew well. Chewing stimulates the secretion of saliva. Digestive enzymes found in saliva, when mixed with food while chewing, improve digestion and absorption because the breakdown of food progresses smoothly. However, porridge is soft to begin with, so it gets swallowed without being chewed well. Porridge does not digest well because not enough enzymes have been mixed in, whereas normal food that is chewed well also digests well.

I have even served regular sushi for lunch to patients three days after they have had stomach surgery. But then, I instruct them to properly "chew each mouthful 70 times." Chewing well is very important, and just for sick people. In order to carry out the digestion and absorption process smoothly, I advise people, even thouse without any gastrointestinal problems, to consciously chew 30–50 times per mouthful at every meal.

The other mistake often seen with hospital food is milk. The main nutrients found in milk are protein, fat, glucose, calcium and vitamis. Milk is very popular because it contains a lot of calcium and is supposed to prevent osteoporosis.

But the truth is, there is no other food that is as difficult to digest as milk. Since milk is a smooth liquid substance, there are some people who drink it like water when they are thirsty, but that is a big mistake. Casein, which accounts for approximately 80% of the protein found in milk, immediately clumps together once it enters the stomach, making digestion very difficult. Furthermore, that component is homogenized in the milk sold in stores. Homogenization means equalizing the fact content in milk by stirring it. The reason homogenization is bad is that when milk is stirred, air gets mixed in, turning the milk's fat component into an oxidized fatty substance—fat in an advanced state of oxidation. In other words, homogenized milk produces free radicals and exerts a very negative influence on the body.

The milk containing oxidized fat then gets pasteurized at high temperatures over 212°F. Enzymes are sensitive to heat, and begin to be destroyed at temperatures 200°F. In other worlds, milk sold in stores not

(My Grandpa would probably love this book...)

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The Mystery of the Tunguska Fireball

One hundred years ago today—on June 30, 1908—a meteoroid or comment fragment exploded over the remote Tunguska region of Russia, unleashing an amount of energy estimated to be 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the conclusion of World War II. This was the largest known impact event in modern times. Scientists (and governments) are now working on asteroid deflection strategies in case of a future Tunguska-like event.

On the forty-second page of “The Mystery of the Tunguska Fireball” author Surendra Verma wrote (emphasis added):

Figure 6: The forest of 'telegraph poles' as seen by Kulik. (Photo by I.M. Suslov, Moscow, 1928.)

There was another remarkable feature: within the central blasted area was a ring of upright trees, completely stripped of foliage. The fact that they had remained upright while all trees outside the ring had been flattened, Kulik thought, marked some kind of node or region of rest where air waves cancelled each other.

There was also the evidence of fire; some of the trees were charred, but this evidence of burning was unusual: in a forest fire, trees are usually burnt on the lower part of their trunks, but these had been burnt uniformly and continuously. Kulik believed that a great rush of hot air produced by the change of kinetic energy into heat energy when the meteorite crashed into the Earth blew the trees down and scorched them.

In some areas Kulik also found forest growth about twenty years old. 'From our observation point no sign of

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Reed's Sextant Simplified

On the forty-second page of “Reed's Sextant Simplified” author Dag Pike wrote (emphasis added):

Chapter Seven

Sextant Telescopes & Other Accessories

In the past good quality sextants would come supplied with a number of telescopes, each one designed to allow the best observations to be made in the easiest manner under specific conditions. The more expensive the instrument, the more superior would be the telescopes provided in order to allow observations in marginal conditions. Now with improved telescope technology most modern sextants come with just one telescope. Alternative telescopes are available with many modern sextants as an option but these are generally only required for specific observation tasks. Here we will look at both the old and the modern approach to sextant telescopes so that all types of sextant currently in use are covered.

No attempt will be made to go into the theory of the construction of the different kinds of telescopes, but we will look more at the various practical points that arise for the navigator who wants to get the best out of his sextant and to be able to optimise the viewing of both heavenly bodies and shore objects.

In any telescope the end farthest from the observer, which is generally the larger end, is called the object glass, and the end towards the observer, the smaller end is called the eye piece. With the older type of sextant telescope the lenses in this eye piece are fixed in a separate tube which is generally called the "draw" of the telescope which slides in an outer tube. This movement of the eye piece in or out allows the telescope to be focused for different eyes. On modern telescopes this focusing arrangement is generally by means of a screw adjustment on the eye piece similar to that found on binoculars. The screw adjustment allows for finer focusing and is also less likely to be unwittingly adjusted by eye pressure. With the draw tube system, when the telescope has been focused and the objects have been made to appear well defined and distinct to an individual observer, it is often the practice to make a

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