Day 70

Carey, J.

He [Owen Gingrich] reveals that the famous aristocratic Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe stole his idea of a compromise universe, in which the planets circle the sun and the sun circles the earth, from an obscure Polish stargazer called Paul Wittich. Wittich, who never published anything, should also, it seems, have the credit for inventing logarithms. He worked out the theory of logarithms on a spare page in his copy of Copernicus’s book, and showed it to his Scottish pupil John Craig in 1576. Craig then transcribed the explanation into his own copy, and took it back to Edinburgh where he showed it to fellow Scot John Napier, and Napier’s treatise on logarithms, published in 1614, assured his reputation as their originator.

‘For him, the earth moved’ review of The Book that Nobody Read: in Pursuit of the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus (Heinemann, 2004) in The Sunday Times (London), Culture Section, p. 50.

Day 69

Camus, A. (1913-)

And here are the trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes - how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that the world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanisms and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multi-coloured universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know.

The Myth of Sisyphus (Hamish Hamilton, London 1965) p. 22. Translated by J O’Brien.

Day 68

Monod, J.

The ancient covenant is in pieces; man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance. Neither his destiny nor his duty have been written down. The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose.

Chance and Necessity: An essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology translated by A. Wainhouse(Collins, Fontana Books, 1974) p. 167. Checked: The actual title is `National Philosophy'; surely a mistake?

Day 67

A—

Sometimes we almost wanted to tell them that if they had a bit of consideration for us they’d speak out without forcing us to spend hours tearing information word by word out of them. But you might as well talk to the wall. To all the questions we asked them they’d only say ‘I don’t know’. ... So of course, we have to go through with it. But they scream too much. At the beginning that made me laugh. But afterwards I was a bit shaken. Nowadays as soon as I hear someone shouting I can tell you exactly at what stage of the questioning we’ve got to. The chap who’s had two blows of the fist and a belt of the baton behind his ear has a certain way of speaking, of shouting and of saying that he’s innocent. After he’s been left two hours strung up by the wrists he has another kind of voice. After the bath still another. And so on. But above all it’s after the electricity that it becomes really too much. You’d say that the chap was going to die any minute. Of course there are some that don’t scream; those are the tough ones. ... with those tough ones, the first thing we do is to make them squeal; and sooner or later we manage it. That’s already a victory. ... But they don’t make things easy for us. Now I’ve come so as I hear their screams even when I’m at home. ... Doctor, I’m fed up with this job. And if you manage to cure me, I’ll ask to be transferred back to France. If they refuse, I’ll resign.

Psychiatric case study of a French policeman in Algiers, reported by F. Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (Penguin Books, 1963) p. 213—214.

Day 66

Miller, R.B.

Michel Foucalt opens his study of the human sciences by citing a taxonomy that Borges found in an old Chinese encyclopaedia, which divided all animals into the following categories: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) those that from a long way off look like flies.

All taxonomies have an inherent and self-evident validity to those who subscribe to them, and the Chinese encyclopaedist is no exception.

‘Social Science and the challenge of global environmental change’ International Social Science Journal: Global Environmental Change 130 November 1991 p. 609—617.

Day 65

Denning, Lord

If the [Birmingham Six] win [their appeal against conviction] it will mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they were guilty of violence and threats, that the confessions were involuntary and were improperly admitted in evidence and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean that the home secretary would either have to recommend they be pardoned or he would have to remit the case to the Court of Appeal. This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: it cannot be right that these actions should go further.

Lord Denning in his capacity as Master of the Roles. Cited by R. Bennett in ‘Criminal Justice’ London Review of Books 24 June 1993 p. 3.

Day 64

Chomsky, N.

What can one say about a country where a museum of science in a great city can feature an exhibit in which people fire machine guns from a helicopter at Vietnamese huts, with a light flashing when a hit is scored? What can one say about a country where such an idea can even be considered?

American Power and the New Mandarins (Pelican Books, London 1969) p. 17.

Day 63

Gurdjieff, G.

[Man] is attached to everything in his life; attached to his imagination, attached to his stupidity, attached even to his suffering - possibly to his suffering more than anything else.

Quoted by Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous.

Day 62

Agassiz, J. L. R. (1807—1873)

It has been charged upon the views here advanced that they tend to the support of slavery. ... Is that a fair objection to a philosophical investigation?

‘The Diversity of Origin of the Human Races’ Christian Examiner (1850) 49 113. Cited by S.J. Gould in The Mismeasure of Man (Pelican Books 1984) p. 45 and in ‘Flaws in a Victorian Veil’ in The Panda’s Thumb (WW Norton, New York, 1980) p. 171.

Day 61

Adams, D.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...whilst all the dolphins had done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reasons.

The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (Pan Books, London 1979) p. 119.