Think about the meaning of 'opposed to'. And 'against'.
59 The symbols have the following meanings: 0 = Sun, 3 = Moon, § = Mercury.
60 On TV news we are repeatedly told about scientists who are proving' a theory. Either the people making the programme were trained in media studies and have no idea of how science works, or they were trained in media studies and don't care how science works, or they're still wedded to the old- fashioned meaning of the verb 'prove', which means to test. As in the phrase 'the exception proves the rule', which made perfect sense when it was first stated -the exception casts doubt on the rule by 'testing' it and finding it inadequate -and makes no sense at all when it is used today to justify ignoring awkward exceptions.
61 In this, he is acting exactly like a scientist. Especially if it's very expensive apparatus.
62 Gait analysts do put horses on treadmills. However, the closest parallel to Phocian's experiment is the widespread use of soot-covered cylinders to record insect movements.
63 There have been many others. One of our favourites is Sir George Cayley, the early nineteenth-century aeronautical pioneer. He did sterling work on wing design, invented the light-tension wheel (effectively the modern bicycle wheel) as a light wheel for aircraft, and would almost certainly have achieved powered flight if only anyone had got around to inventing the internal combustion engine. He didn't go mad, but he did experiment with an engine that ran on gunpowder.
64 We're in danger of heading into postmodernism here, which is a very bad idea when discussing an ancient Greek, and even more so when he's fictitious.
Suffice it to say that science also involves stringent reality-checks, and therefore is not a purely social activity.
65 Some current controversies, all 'respectable' -that is, with serious evidence for both sides -include: Is new variant CJD related to BSE (mad cow disease)? Has the human sperm count fallen? Was the Moon formed by a Mars-sized body hitting the Earth? Will the universe ever stop expanding? How are birds related to dinosaurs? Is quantum mechanics really random? Was there ever life on Mars? Is the triple-alpha process evidence that our universe is special? And is there anything that does not contain nuts?
66 Yes, in some cases, it is claimed, werewolves and vampires have their roots in rare human medical conditions. Now try angels and unicorns ...
67 Cartesian, again, because of Descartes, whose cogito ergo sum and mind-is-different-stuff-from-matter still influence pop philosophy.
68 Though Ian has a friend, an engineer named Len Reynolds, whose cat managed to type 'FOR' into his computer by walking on the keyboard. Three more letters, 'MAT', and the cat would have wiped his hard disc.
69 The superstition is common in the Black Country, in places like Wombourne and Wednesbury. Though that's not why it's called the Black Country. The thing about your Black Country is, it's black. At least, it was black, with industrial grime and pollution, when it got its name. Some bits no doubt still are.
70 Schrodinger pointed out that quantum mechanics often gives silly answers like 'the cat is half alive and half dead'. His intention was to dramatise the gap between a quantum-level description of reality and the world we actually live in, but most physicists missed the point and derived complicated explanations of why cats really are like that. And why the universe needs conscious observers to ensure that it continues to exist. Only recently did they twig what Schrodinger was on about, and come up with the concept of 'decoherence', which shows that superpositions of quantum states rapidly change into single states unless they are protected from interaction with the surrounding environment. And the universe doesn't need us to make it hold together, sorry. See The Science of Discworld, with a cameo appearance of Nanny Ogg's cat Greebo.
71 Discworld runs this far more sensibly. Heroes will have adventures.
72 Recall that Yossarian is a pilot in Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
73 We use this word because it's standard in science fiction, but UK English would require 'alternative'.
74 Named after the physicist Enrico Fermi. See Evolving the Alien by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart.
75 It then comes as quite a jolt when we discover that the animal is a chihuahua.
76 The 'Shema' prayer, which orthodox Jews must say at least three times a day, includes 'And these words, which I command you this day. shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk upon the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.'
77 Of course it ceases to be laughable if, despite its bizarre appearance, it happens to be true. And we've already agreed that all religions are true, for a given value of 'true'.
78 Revelation xxi.16 gives it as 12,000 furlongs in length, breadth and height, or a cube 1,500 miles on a side. Noticeably smaller than the Moon.