Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for literature, how cool is that? The committee took their time and speculation about a surprise was bubbling under the surface. Bob Dylan is as much poet as songwriter, he more or less created an entirely new genre singlehandedly in both fields and now it seems it's not just his fans who are aware of it. Brilliant, well done to Bob and to the Nobel committee. Brilliant.
Malcolm Snook sailor, writer, blogger.
Thursday 13 October 2016
Wednesday 5 October 2016
Inspired and Inspiring
David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz will share the Nobel prize for physics, for work on exotic states of matte. Brilliant, not just them, but the whole thing. I believe the decision was based on the beauty of the maths, which is lovely in itself, but the benefits of the discoveries are mind blowing too.
When I was a school, a very long time ago, we were asked to draw pictures to show what the world would be like in the twenty first century. Most of us drew flying cars and the like, but cars still have four wheels, pneumatic tyres and most of them still have an internal combustion engine. The world really moved on in two areas, most obviously in terms of information technology; most information is available at the push of a button and a few clicks on a mouse, which was simply a cute looking pest back then.
The other area where we've made huge progress is in materials, steel that won't rust, carbon fibre, well, fibreglass before that, kevlar and much more. However, these three guys have moved things forward hugely, to use correctly an oft misused term, they've made a quantum leap. Who would have thought there were more states of matter than gas, liquid and solid? Who'd have thought electricity could flow with no resistance at all?
Brilliant, for them and for all of us, very well done guys.
Malcolm Snook
When I was a school, a very long time ago, we were asked to draw pictures to show what the world would be like in the twenty first century. Most of us drew flying cars and the like, but cars still have four wheels, pneumatic tyres and most of them still have an internal combustion engine. The world really moved on in two areas, most obviously in terms of information technology; most information is available at the push of a button and a few clicks on a mouse, which was simply a cute looking pest back then.
The other area where we've made huge progress is in materials, steel that won't rust, carbon fibre, well, fibreglass before that, kevlar and much more. However, these three guys have moved things forward hugely, to use correctly an oft misused term, they've made a quantum leap. Who would have thought there were more states of matter than gas, liquid and solid? Who'd have thought electricity could flow with no resistance at all?
Brilliant, for them and for all of us, very well done guys.
Malcolm Snook
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