Scientific Rigour

I am an English Student, not a scientist.

Yet I have to tip my hat to the scientific community. This week scientists in Italy and Switzerland may have disproved the theory of relativity with measurements of neutrinos moving at a rate faster than the speed of light. The excitement of such a discovery and its ramifications for the foundation of human conceptions of reality (especially causaulity) is obvious throughout the various news sites carrying the story.

What is also obvious, is a healthy scepticism that these results are correct. I have read numerous interviews of scientists that all express both admiration for the experiment and disbelief that it is correct. Rather than shooting the idea down out of hand, these scientists insist that every single variable must be rigorously checked. These scientists are not heretics: their tentative conclusions and own disbelief creates a healthy system of checks and balances.

Surely the scientific community must be proud of this solid pillar of peer-review. These people dream and experiment yet do so knowing that they themselves are human and therefore make mistakes. Regardless of whether one believes in the power of scientific discourse, their scientific rigour must be admired.

It is a testament to some of the heights of contemporary thought.

-The English Student

Bound

It is a simple gesture, yet getting something bound is quite momentous.

This morning I will do this and irrevocably join months of work together. It is the final connection and the final task that I need to complete this project. Any feelings of incoherency within the actual prose will now become deeply embedded with the final project, any feelings of coherency will be mimicked at a physical level.

I do not anticipate a massive climax when I have bound this project. If anything, I expect a dour affair and at least some kind of hassle at the bindery. Yet it these projects are ones of small victories and the small victory of binding is a summary of those other small victories.

I march towards it now. Knowing that when bound I will probably never look at it again. For when bound, I can never change it again. I have given all that I can and while the physical project does not summarise all of the work that I have done, the binding pulls it together and seals the period.

To the bindery.

-The English Student

Dedication

Someone has decided to dedicate something to me.

This has upset me quite a bit. I do not mean to use "upset" in a necessarily negative context as it it obviously an honour, yet I certainly feel knocked by it. While I have offered the person different types of help, it was hardly a favour or anything out of the normal dynamic of our relationship. I gave her plenty of reasons why there was no need for such a dedication, all of which she combated in her wonderfully direct manner: "Bullshit".

Dedications are unusual things and I wonder why they never seemed like a big deal to me until I either had to write one or in a case like this where I am the subject of one. In this manner it really must be a completely personal thing that foregrounds an achievement and grounds it in the author's real life.

I am also glad that after some initial resistance, I relented to let her go through with this dedication. I severely struggle with taking compliments or viewing my actions as beneficial to my friends. This dedication implies that at times, with some generous and caring people I have made a strong connection.

I suppose that the realisation of all of this in one moment is reason enough to get upset.

-The English Student

Human Documentaries

I have finally begun to watch the famous BBC documentary Planet Earth.

I know that I am way behind the trend on this yet I always find that I end up watching television shows long after they have finished. Perhaps I am just allowing the cream of television to rise and perhaps I am just lazy. Regardless, friends have begun touting this amazing documentary and I have finally gotten into it. Clearly it is brilliant. Yet I am not entirely sure what the real focus of the documentary is.

There have been several occasions during the show when I have flinched at the use of over anthropomorphic allusions. There are some overt comparisons between some of the animals and humans and the tone of the episodes frequently changes to set up an idea of 'good animal' and 'bad animal'. Are the arctic wolves the evil foil to the good musk oxen? I think not, yet the damning music and chase scenes imply otherwise.

The show is obviously attempting to create a human connection to these animals without diminishing their idiosyncratic, animalistic nature. It seems that one of the only ways out of this conundrum is an appeal to balance. While this appeal is not made too directly, the episodes seem to imply that nature is balanced and that the death of an animal helps the life of another. As other television shows like All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace have demonstrated however, this sense of balance is a human conception based on systems and network theories.

Planet Earth is magnificent. Yet it is quite obviously more about the rhetoric humanity uses to describe the environment.

-The English Student