Hello, World

I am no expert in the history of science. In fact, while I have been interested in the topic for some time, I’ve read just enough to know how little I know. Funny, that.

I am just starting out on my apprenticeship on this subject and this blog is my diary of my learning. Like scientists, I fully expect to stumble through oversights, assumptions, provide misinformation and make outright errors in my attempt to get my head around the events of the past and their contexts.

However, I am not a scientist, mathematician or engineer of any kind, so there will also be the added complication of my ignorance.

But shall we begin?

The most elegant puzzle is this business we call science.

(For the sake of efficiency, let’s assume that ‘elegant’ ‘puzzle’ and ‘science’ are all overly simple or trite terms for what is in reality complex and difficult. Already I am making errant assumptions.)

This picture in this puzzle, while it interests me greatly, is not what this blog is about. Nor is this blog about which pieces go where, and what they mean. What I am interested in is the work that has gone, so far, into the solving of this most elegant puzzle—the people, objects, places, stories, interactions, problems, mistakes, rivalries, politics and philosophies that over human history have contributed to human understanding of the universe.

So: No expectations of correctness, no subject too difficult to tackle, no stone unturned, no era untouched. At least one post a day. Reviews, links, thoughts, jokes, comics, comments. Anything goes. Understood?

Alright. Turn the crank-- slowly. Let’s fire this thing up.

V.