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Showing posts from August, 2019

Art and Science will always fail to collaborate

Ever since I was old enough to notice these things I've seen scientists/engineers and artists trying to bridge the gap between themselves. And it has hardly ever worked. Year after year after year there are articles about the collaboration between art and technology. But it is never a collaboration, not really.  I think the reason is that you need great passion/interest/enthusiasm to become a great engineer/scientist/artist. And that means each person must concentrate on one area.  There are exceptions, Leonardo da Vinci is the best known example, and no others come to my mind. And scientists are happy to investigate and discover and maybe find fame like that. Engineers are just happy creating what they create. They hardly ever become famous, because that is not where their joy comes from. They enjoy the process and the final product. And artists (especially modern artists) need validation from the critics and the richer public (because there is no objective way to measure

I have no choice but to be agnostic

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I was reviewing some calculus (at 60 years old? why? a long story) and it suddenly struck me that the derivative of  y = x-cubed and all the calculus like it is amazing: The 3 comes down in front of the x and the same three is replaced by a power one less powerful. How come it is so simple, clean and elegant? And some people think that maths is a human invention, but the fact that derivatives are useful and complete and accurate in the real physical world proves (to me) that maths is not a human invention. The world follows their laws. And if humans had not invented calculus the physical world would carry on echoing the laws of calculus. For some reason this led me to think about theism and atheism, and that often they use the same arguments, really, in the end, when push comes to shove: Theist: God did it (whatever it is). Atheist: The universe exists because it does. Neither phrase, assertion, is satisfactory to me. So I have no choice but to be agnostic. Currently.

August Light

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It's August and the temperature here in Northern Italy has fallen a bit, now it rarely goes over 33°C during the day, but the heavy sticky sweaty humidity remains.  But early in the morning, from 05:30 to maybe 6:30 there is a slight chill in the air, and in those hours there is the strange spirit to the August light. The atmosphere is strange and interesting. I sit on the balcony drinking tea with the cat nearby. Who knows where he has been during the night? Another mystery.

The Medici Wedding and Bonnie Raitt

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By chance, on my desk, in a corner, these two CDs were next to each other, and it struck me as an interesting final image. I love both CDs.