"Some modern travellers still pretend to find Acephalous people in America."
Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia; or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences, 1753
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For Shame, Science, For Shame Deep in the wee hours of this morning, I caught "Killer Waves" on the Discovery Science Channel. Despite the tired narrative arc of Discovery Channel shows—unique situation, partial explanation; complication, partial retraction; similarly unique situation, partially retracted retraction; final explanation, lingering-dread-of-the-unknown—I found "Killer Waves" oddly satisfying for the first 45 minutes. I'd learned: Unique Situation: Upwards of 10 ships per week are lost, possibly to "rogue waves" which tower 50 meters tall and punch holes through ships. Partial Explanation: Sailors tell tall-tales about tall waves. Complication: Scientists observe a rogue wave slamming into the Drauper oil platform on 1 January 1995. Partial Retraction: Sailors are not all liars. Turns out the warm Agulhas current running southwest off the South African coast mixes with cold water moving northeast creating swell conditions conducive to the production of rogue waves. Similarly Unique Situation: Happens twice in a week off the coast of Antarctica, but there are no currents like those off the South African coast. Partially Retracted Retraction: Currents alone cannot account for what happened off Antarctic coast. Final Explanation: Waves caused by math. Lingering-Dread-of-the-Unknown: The non-linear Schrödinger equation will strike again. I'm sure you can tell where dissatisfaction set in. Here is the actual explanation, from the transcript of a very similar show (presumably its narrator spoke with a British accent): The physics of the non-linear Schrödinger equation we can see in this simple example. In the beginning it doesn't seen like there's anything happening and we could all just give up and go drink a beer if we wanted. On the other hand we could keep moving forward and maybe something will happen. What we'll see is this central wave here's going to start to grow. It's growing because it's robbing energy from its two, two nearest neighbours so here it's starting to come up, you see it's growing, it's stealing energy from the nearest neighbours and these waves are starting to drop. See how this is coming down here. Look at that decrease and now in its full glory it's a very large wave, it has two smaller waves on each side and two rather deep holes in the sea around the peak. So what happens, you see, is that waves rob energy from other waves, use this stolen energy to grow, and form (in fully glory) very large waves surrounded by deep holes. And that, my friends, is how a rogue wave is formed. (By the by, here be the rest of this post. Insomnia is a brutal beast I tell you.)
The hotspot isn't working. "This site" on the poster should lead you here. Stupid ... something or other.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 08:06 PM
That was easy. Try the postscript (a reply to a review, apparently attached to the book in some edition according to Amazon books).
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 08:07 PM
How'd you find that? I have three different editions and didn't see it, and nothing turned up in Google. What wizard work are you performing here?
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 08:20 PM
Who knows what evil icebergs lurk in the hearts of databases? The freelance librarian knows!
In this case, the original quote really wasn't "become at least unstable" -- it's actually "become at last unstable". That made your Google search not work. But I wasn't fooled, because I know that to find any source text through Google, you really only need to search on about eight words or so. Copying and searching more than that increases your chances of not finding anything due to a misquotation.
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 08:36 PM
You know, I broke it up, but must've ended up with "least" in every single chunk. Bah. Tells you what kind of day it's been. (That and The Fun With Photoshop, I should say.)
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 09:39 PM
'Gads, I seem to've forgotten my manners: Thank you, Rich, for finding the source of this very useful quotation.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 10:07 PM
You chose a picture of an iceberg with a face on purpose, didn't you? Admit it! Great stuff. Sorry Rich figured it out so quick.
Posted by: Jamie | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 10:17 PM
That I did, Jamie, that I did. However, since the hotspots aren't working, I'll add that I borrowed the photo from these astute eyes, to whom credit would've been given, had I more mad technical skillz.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Monday, 04 June 2007 at 10:20 PM
You've probably noticed it already, but the fuller quotation rather strikingly parallels the Lincoln quote that Kugelmass parsed a little while ago in its "Big-time either good or bad stuff coming down" argument, rather than Second Internationalist-style revolutionary fatalism. So this may be the right iceberg, but not the one you thought you were looking for.
Posted by: JPool | Tuesday, 05 June 2007 at 05:30 PM
You've probably noticed it already, but the fuller quotation rather strikingly parallels the Lincoln quote that Kugelmass parsed a little while ago in its "Big-time either good or bad stuff coming down" argument, rather than Second Internationalist-style revolutionary fatalism. So this may be the right iceberg, but not the one you thought you were looking for.
Posted by: JPool | Tuesday, 05 June 2007 at 05:30 PM
For further detail...I have a New American Library version of the book (1960...with a foreword by Erich Fromm) and the quote indeed does come from the postscript. It's a letter to the editor of The Boston Transcript dated March 30, 1888. The last paragraph continues:
"All thoughtful men agree that the present aspect of society is portentious of great changes. The only question is, whether they will be for the better or the worse. Those who believe in man's essential nobleness lean to the former view, those who believe in his essential baseness to the latter. For my part, I hold to the former opinion. Looking Backward was written in the belief that the Golden Age lies before us and not behind us, and is not far away. Our children will surely see it, and we, too, who are already men and women, if we deserve it by our faith and our works."
Utopian, to say the least...
Posted by: The Necromancer | Wednesday, 06 June 2007 at 10:52 AM
Well, the novel as described certainly seems utopian, in the Thomas Moore sense, but the attitude of the author, as expressed here, is not utopian, but is something like millenarial, in what seems like the Christian socialist tradition. The "if we deserve it by our faith and our works" line is telling.
Posted by: JPool | Thursday, 07 June 2007 at 02:13 PM
Yup, it's definitely "social gospel"/proto-progressive. The novel is a blend of this and other more standard utopian themes. Collectivist too -- In Bellamy's future, no one needs an umbrella...
Posted by: The Necromancer | Friday, 08 June 2007 at 05:26 AM