Nomenclature

Now, as Mandelbrot points

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Now, as Mandelbrot points out, … Nature has played a joke on the mathematicians. The 19th-century mathematicians may not have been lacking in imagination, but Nature was not. The same pathological structures that the mathematicians invented to break loose from 19th-century naturalism turn out to be inherent in familiar objects all around us. Freeman Dyson

One [idea] was that

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One [idea] was that the Universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion, and that the present expansion is a relic of the violence of this explosion. This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory even before detailed examination showed that it leads to serious difficulties. Fred Hoyle

Let us make an

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Let us make an arbitrary decision (by a show of hands if necessary) to define the base of every stratigraphical unit in a selected section. This may be called the Principle of the Golden Spike. Then stratigraphical nomenclature can be forgotten and we can get on with the real work of stratigraphy, which is correlation … Read more

Laplace considers astronomy a

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Laplace considers astronomy a science of observation, because we can only observe the movements of the planets; we cannot reach them, indeed, to alter their course and to experiment with them. On earth, said Laplace, we make phenomena vary by experiments; in the sky, we carefully define all the phenomena presented to us by celestial … Read more

Reagents are regarded as

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Reagents are regarded as acting by virtue of a constitutional affinity either for electrons or for nuclei… the terms electrophilic (electron-seeking) and nucleophilic (nucleus-seeking) are suggested… and the organic molecule, in the activation necessary for reaction, is therefore required to develop at the seat of attack either a high or low electron density as the … Read more