I wanna be a full-fledged blogerist

My first day back at Hampshire (after unpacking and sweating and drinking beer all day), I met with Herb Bernstein, the original physics professor. He's really interesting and clearly knows how to make physics fun, which alot of people seem to suck at, even though physics is the most awesome ever. I'm going to be TAing his mechanics class, and he gave me a section from a book he wrote that he's planning on assigning. It's called "Experimentation as Bizarre Behavior," and there were a few points that enlightened me. I give you, quotes:

From my perhaps idiosyncratic emphasis upon experiment as the arbiter of verifiability, and measurement as the characteristic distinguishing experimentation from other human behavior, it becomes clear that Truth cannot be the goal of this endeavor, Rather, science seeks consistency.

I really like this method of dividing between science and religion. It makes any friction between them irrelevant. You can keep your Divine Truth -- we're just looking for patterns. It also cleverly sidesteps the prickly dilemma of defining truth. Leave that to the philosophers.

The emphasis on logic and rationality leads to a conventional suppression of the true motivations for the work.

An explanation for why scientific papers can be so boring!

We are, in effect, making phenomena appear rational for our own intellectual and emotional pleasure.

What is "rational," of course, except that which appeals to our inner sense of logic? Nature doesn't care.

Today, I went to Mt. Holyoke to check out a class on artificial intelligence. Stupid me didn't know that classes didn't start until tomorrow! But the professor got my e-mail and found me staring in confusion at the empty classroom. We had a nice chat and I'm totally psyched for the class. I also met with Jane about Div III stuff, and I'm feeling good about that, too. Tonight is curry and poker night. peace out, friends, RAMEN