Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Saturday, July 15, 2023

The Dark Matter of Love

Physicists know what dark matter
does but not what it is. (So it's like
love.) It exerts gravity like mass--
a bunch of matter. It's probably
made of particles because what isn't?

Otherwise, the scientists know nothing,
call it "dark matter" for now, and watch
it work, doing their galactic math. I

love her. I don't know what love's
made of, but I know the force it exerts
on me, and what I do for her
because of it. For me, that's good
enough, and of course I assume
that particles are involved.

hans ostrom

Gravity Tune

Scientists, that crew,
which and who change their
minds based on evidence (a wild
concept), have heard the thrumming
waves of gravity rolling
through the universe. This
music isn't new. Our
hearing it is. Hey, maybe it

runs the tune to which God
boogies--or maybe not:
I'll await the evidence. Meantime,
it's somehow fine to know some
among us have heard paced pulses
that mass pulls through space.


hans ostrom 2023

Monday, October 3, 2016

Particular Thief

"With more data, suspected new particle vanishes." Science News, 3 September 2016, p. 13


If scientists had long suspected
the particle, why didn't they take
more precautions? They left more
data in plain sight. The particle
vanished, taking data with it.

This wasn't a case of quantum
hiding, a small physics joke,
or a Schrödinger shuffle. No.
This was theft. Obviously,

the particle thought more data
would reveal too much about
its identity. What exactly
was it trying to keep secret?
Perhaps crimes against
other particles. Maybe a particularly
unsavory past. Hard to say.



hans ostrom 2016


Friday, February 6, 2015

"Hiram Speaks of the Alleged Ghost"


Yes, I can confirm there was a ghost in that house.
We knew so the first week. Pop called
Uncle Zipp and Aunt Peach over, they
located it, grabbed it, threw it
in a steel box, and released it into the woods
a hundred miles away. Mother said,

"I'm not cleaning up after a spirit."
Pop: ". . . the rude sonofabitch."
Sally, my sister, the budding scientist,
said, "There's no such thing as a ghost,"
but didn't object to the transport
of nothing to elsewhere.

If anyone had asked me, and they didn't,
I would have said, "What's wrong with a
ghost? Let's see how it goes."
I still like to hike in those woods.


hans ostrom 2015






Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Organoids

I enjoy how science hunts down philosophy
like a big cat on a plain:

the clever bastards now make
organoids--
yes, that's right, brains
in vats, the old
thought-experiment.

Yes, of course, maybe
it's a case of brains in vats
imagining
they're making brains in vats;
and of

other brains in vats imagining
they're reading and writing
about same. Alas, not likely.
Occam's Razor slices a leak
in vats of that sort.

I do hope there is a neo-funk-
rock-digital-punk-post-sexual
band out there now named
"The Organoids." That,

by the way, is something my
brain thought, some meager
morsel a big cat might snack on.


hans ostrom 2013

Friday, September 5, 2008

Dancers at Last Call







Dancers at Last Call


Where Zeno's paradox, Jesus's orthodox, and science's
anti-dox intersect stands my belief--nervously, like
a solitary traveler waiting for a bus that's more
rumored than scheduled. Science transforms mystery
into temporary knowledge, but mystery's infinite
at least, so we'll always not know. Incarnate, God
transmitted some counterintuitive news:
word, light, love, and peace are the way,
not war, invention, industry, and empire.
Who knew? The human response to the bulletin
was to hang the incarnation out to dry. Sigh.

Nonetheless, the wisdom haunts us, hounds us
down the positively positivist ages. By means
of knowing, we can never cross Zeno's line
of mystery. By means of belief, we hope we can
cross over, but hope lives in later. Faith
and science each need the other like two
dancers in a bar when Last Call comes. They
clutch one another, shuffle, and try to think
of something to say. The bartender, Zeno,
will count the tips and lock the door
behind them when they leave and get
slapped with cold wind and dark early
hours of tomorrow outside.

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

This and That

Is there a large American media-outlet that can still practice worthy journalism? I doubt it. The NYT--either by choice or through incompetence--promulgated Bush's nonsense about about why we should invade and occupy Iraq. Tonight, CNN characterized Scott McClellan's "revelations" (Bush was more interested in propaganda than truth!) as a "bombshell." I can't wait for tomorrow's report concerning the fact that rain comes from clouds. . . .

. . . .Has anyone explored the possibilities of lunar power? Before I concede that I'm a lunatic, here's what I mean: the gravitational competition between Earth and Moon yanks the oceans around, creating huge forces of water that are not unlike the forces of water in dams. Why couldn't some smart engineers come up with a design for under-water turbines, strategically placed at, say, the Tacoma Narrows?

. . . .I'll need to be convinced that Obama can beat McCain. I know he beat Clinton, but McCain's campaign may be even more competent than hers--imagine that. And so far, I can't name one state that "voted" for Bush that won't vote for McCain.

. . . .I do wish someone would ask McCain and Obama who their favorite poets and novelists are. I realize there are four or five million more pressing issues out there, but I think the answers would serve as an ink-blot test.

. . . . .Tomorrow I'm going to hear a lecture by an expert in Science, Technology, and Society; by a biologist; and by an archaeologist who specializes in Holy Land digs. The topic is "Creation and Science." The Jesuits perceive no tension between humankind's science and God's creation, nor do I. For the sake of argument, let us assume that something, some force, created what is. Scientists study what is, or at least what they think is. What's the problem? I do not subscribe to the "intelligent design" "theory" because it is anthropomorphic. What we deem "intelligent" must seem moronic to any entity more intelligent than we are, including God. There's a good chance we are, at best, the rubes of the galaxy, if not of this sector of the universe. After all, we have fouled our nest. Not even birds do that.