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Edgar Allan Poe, Cosmologist
David Mazzotta writes "Bet you didn't know Edgar Allen Poe pre-discovered the Big Bang and Black Holes. This article at the NYT discusses the concept of pre-discovery, or theorhetical anticipation of eventual scientific discoveries. Most of these come from forward thinking physicists, but occasionally they come from a morbid, alcoholic, poet."
and cum in their pussies...those cunts!
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."
--sig fault--
Run like hell everything is imploding in on itself!
I betcha Poe didn't forecast pr0n by telecommunication...
... and unless there is as good a foundation in his works as Feynman's Quantum Electron Dynamics then I bet he didn't. Stop pulling, anal FUD on slashdot...
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
Not sure what's up with all the NYT articles today, but here's the obligitory link: What Did Poe Know About Cosmology? Nothing. But He Was Right.
...only not nearly as funny.
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 21:19:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Ken
Subject: Ken Curtis and Milburn Stone
This story is entirely fictional. This story in no way implies that Ken
Curtis or Milburn stone were gay. This is merely a fantasy of mine.
A Hot Encounter with Ken Curtis and Milburn Stone
In the late 1960s, I worked at a nice hotel in Wyoming as a
bellhop. In those days, television stars often did promotional tours.
Stars of westerns on television would frequently tour the western rodeo
circuit and do bits on stage during the big evening shows. I was a big fan
of a western set in Dodge City that had two of my heroes as supporting
actors. Ken Curtis played a scruffy, but endearing deputy who constantly
bickered with the curmudgeonly old town doctor played by Milburn Stone.
Milburn Stone was in his 60s, rather short at 5'7, with grayish-black hair
and moustache that twitched a bit. Ken Curtis was in his early 50s, of
average build, with his hair starting to gray and a slightly disheveled
beard and moustache. In my teens, I had my first wet dreams thinking of
these men. At that time, I was terrified of my sexual thoughts about men
and kept them to myself. I spent many a night going to bed with a stiff
erection in my underpants after watching these two sexy older gentlemen on
television that night.
It was to my total shock when I learned that Mr. Curtis and
Mr. Stone would be staying at the hotel I worked at when they visited town
for several days on a promotional tour. I conspired to work all three days
they were in town and even found out when they would check in so I could
carry their bags to their rooms. I was nervous at my overeager attempts to
be near my idols, who also happened to be the object of my sexual
fantasies. I didn't want my parents to think I was acting strangely and it
took all my strength to not mention my heroes were staying at my hotel. I
had lusted after many men, all of whom happened to be middle-aged or older
gentlemen. I didn't think it was odd, it was just what I was attracted to.
The big day arrived and I shower fervently and had a pounding boner when I
tried to get my white underpants on over my teenage penis. I got to the
hotel in my uniform and my palms were sweaty as I awaited a glimpse of my
heroes.
My heart pounded inside my slight 5'8 frame and sweat appeared
underneath my boyish brown hair, cropped close. At 2 p.m., Milburn Stone
strolled in the door as casually and was hardly notice by anyone in the
lobby. I hurried to the desk to get his bags. He was very pleasant to me
as I grabbed his two suitcases and stammered something about following me
to the elevator. I could barely breathe in the elevator as Mr. Stone
hummed to himself.
"Uh..Mr. Stone?" I managed.
"Yes young man?" he replied in that gravelly voice of his.
"I just wanted to say I am such a big fan of yours.um," I croaked.
"Well, thank you very much.what's your name son?"
"D.Davey sir," I stammered.
"You're doing a fine job son, keep up the good work," I almost
feinted when Mr. Stone gave me a wink we had complimented me.
We got out of the elevator and went to his room where I took the
bags inside.
"Now, Davey I want you to unpack my bags and hang my shirts and
trousers in the closet and put my other things in the dresser. My toilet
kit goes in the bathroom."
I couldn't believe my luck. I began unpacking his clothes as
Mr. Stone went in the bathroom. I froze when I heard the old man peeing in
the toilet and had to control myself from not trying to catch a glimpse of
the old man. When he was done, he came out and I took the toiletries in.
"Davey, where did you put my swim trunks and robe?" he asked from
the main room.
"Uh..I put your trunks in the lower drawer sir," I replied and
reentered the room.
Mr. Stone was rummaging in the drawer and emerged with his trunks.
"I'm going to take a dip in the pool until Mr. Curtis arrives
Davey. Now, fetch that robe will you son?" said Mr. Stone as he peeled off
the short sleeve shirt he had on.
I nodded and slowly made my way back to the closet mentally
photographing the sight of Mr. Stone's hairy chest. If I played my cards
right, could I see him change into his trunks? I took my time in
retrieving the robe and came back to see the most beautiful sight I had
ever seen. Mr. Stone's back was to me and he was pulling up his swim
trunks from his ankles. His back had a light covering of gray and black
back hairs and between his legs I caught a brief glimpse of a heavy scrotum
hanging down! I had seen my daddy's scrotum hanging down like that when he
changed at the Y, but this was too much! Mr. Stone's scrotum was easily as
big, if not bigger than daddy's ball sac. My eyes snapped up as Mr. Stone
turned around reached for the rub. I prayed that he hadn't seen my looking
at him change and my eyes fought to look down at the old man's crotch in
the swim trunks. Mr. Stone took his robe and pulled it on and that is when
I realized I had a full pounding erection in my bellhop's khaki trousers.
I suddenly wanted to hide when I felt the almost painful pressure of my
erect teenage penis pushing out my pants towards a famous television actor.
I quickly clasped my hands in front of my crotch.
"Umm..is..is there anything else I can do for you Mr. Stone?" I
asked with a shaky voice.
"Well Davey, I don't think so, but I think you need to take of
something else!" he chortled as I realized he had noticed my boyish lack of
control.
I turned a deep crimson and my head dropped. I couldn't believe
it. I was going to be fired for sure and embarrassed in front of my
parents and the whole world.
"Here you go son," said the old man.
I looked up and saw he was holding a $10 bill out as a tip, which I
gingerly took from his strong-looking hand.
"Now Davey, I want you to show me where the pool is. Then, I want
you to make sure you take Mr. Curtis to his room when he arrives in a short
while. I want you to tell him to join me poolside, understand? Make sure
Mr. Curtis gets that message and tell him we'll have a grand old time
tonight. Got it Davey?"
I nodded and repeated the message to show I was on the spot. We
left his room as I begged my boner to subside, which it did after much
trepidation on my part. I dropped Mr. Stone at the pool and rushed back to
the front desk. Just in time to see Ken Curtis amble in the front doors.
There he was, in the flesh. I couldn't believe my eyes. Here was the
inspiration for my frantic late night masturbations under the sheets.
Almost every night I would lay on my back in just my tight white briefs and
my mind would start to wander. I would see images of Mr. Curtis stripping
me slowly until I was just in my underpants. Then he would grin at my
throbbing predicament pushing out the front panel of the white cotton. His
hand would caress my tight scrotum. At that point, I would usually pull
the waistband down under my scrotum and my pulsing, thick 5 inch teenage
erection would spring up into the blanket. My balls would roll in their
smooth sac as my thick shaft would tent up my blanket. Daddy once saw me
get an erection in the shower and told me that the men in our family didn't
have long penises, but we certainly had thick ones. Mine is fairly stout
and I have a rather large, flared knob. I would get a big thrill when my
penis would push up the sheet and my foreskin would roll back behind the
head and my clear precum would make a wet spot on the sheet. My hand would
grip my peter and start slowly jerking the foreskin up and over the knob
slowly. As my dreams of Mr. Curtis heated up and he began stripping down,
I would roll over and put my pounding boy cock between two pillows and hump
them. I had to be careful not to hump too hard as my headboard would bang
the wall and alert my parents in the next room that their teenage son was
making love to his pillows. Once my teenage boner was firmly planted
between my pillows, my balls nestled tightly against them, with precum
oozing from my slit like crazy, I would think about Mr. Curtis laying down
on top of me and inserting his beautiful erection up my tender young rear
end. My humping would become urgent as I fantasized what that would be
like. Then, I would feel my testicles tighten further and I would quickly
roll over and let my white boy cum spurt onto my smooth belly. I would use
a tissue to wipe up and then snug my briefs back over my deflated penis and
go to bed with a smile.
I shook myself out of my reverie as I was called to take his bags
upstairs. I gleefully grabbed his bags and could hardly contain myself as
he gave me a winning smile. We got to his room and our conversation was
very similar to that I had with Mr. Stone. Mr. Curtis had me unpack his
bags the same as Mr. Stone and I got a particular thrill when I saw that
Mr. Curtis's jockey shorts were the same brand that me and daddy wear. I
took a vicarious chance.
"Gee Mr. Curtis, you wear the same kind of underpants I
do..oh.um.sorry Mr. Curtis I can't believe I said that," I mumbled
sheepishly.
"Well Davey, that's no problem at all. I really like the way
briefs keep everything all nice and snug against your body. You know
Davey, when we are acting we even wear smaller underpants that keep
our..er.privates from showing on television. Bet you didn't know that?"
"No sir, I had no idea. Oh, Mr. Stone told me to give you a
message. He said that you should meet him at the pool and that we'll have
a grand old time tonight after the show," I beamed as I conveyed this
important message.
"Is that so Davey? Why Milburn must have something special planned
for tonight. Why don't you find my swim trunks Davey and I'll go to the
bathroom?"
I grinned like a fool as I rummaged around finding his swim trunks
as he closed the bathroom door. I laid the navy blue trunks on the bed and
nearly passed out when Mr. Curtis returned from the bathroom carrying all
his clothes in front of him. I could see fairly smooth chest and his
strong arms almost caused me to feint. He flashed a grin at my surprise
and I knew without looking that my penis had stirred to a painful erection
in my underpants again. Mr. Curtis asked me to fold his clothes and
dropped them on the bed. I shot a surreptitious glance at his groin,
against my better instincts. I fumbled with the clothes as I saw a
lifelong dream of mine.
My eyes dropped down to the line of black hairs running from his
belly button to the thatch of grayish-black hairs above his penis, which
hung down over his ball sac. I swallowed hard as I saw about 4 inches of
un-circumsized penis hanging lazily over a fat and heavy set of balls.
Mr. Curtis's balls hung low in their sac and jostled between his thighs,
causing his pale shaft to sway back and forth. I could see a rather nicely
shaped knob underneath his thin foreskin and I felt a drop of precum ooze
out into my underpants. I hoped it wouldn't leak through to my khaki
trousers.
I was crushed when he stooped down and pulled his trunks over his
manly balls and beautiful penis, but now I had a picture to go with his
bulge in the swim trunks. I could have died and gone to heaven right
there. I escorted Mr. Curtis to the pool with a throbbing erection in my
briefs. I walked a bit funny trying to hide the obvious bulge by walking
in front of him. When we got to the pool, Mr. Stone was laying out in the
sun and greeted Mr. Curtis warmly. As I turned to leave, Mr. Stone asked
me when I was due off work. Shyly, I said I had to go home for dinner at
7. The two men grinned and asked if I could stay on help them with various
errands that evening. I readily agreed and ran off to call my parents. My
parents trusted me implicitly and said that as long as I was home by
midnight, it was fine with them. I grabbed an early dinner and waited
anxiously in the lobby for the two older actors to return from their show.
My penis begged for release every time I thought of serving these handsome,
older heroes of mine. I almost went to the mensroom to masturbate, but I
held out for a sexual adventure, although that was too good to be true.
When the two men returned, they were all smiles and greeted me with
mischevious grins. I accompanied them to Mr. Stone's room and my heart
beat loudly in my chest. What happens now, I wondered?
When we got inside the room, Mr. Stone poured two drinks from the
in-room bar and offered me a beer. I quietly declined and said I couldn't
take a drink since I was underage. The two older men chortled.
"Davey, I just play a deputy on television, not in real life,"
grinned Mr. Curtis. "Come on, a strapping young man like you can handle
one beer can't he?"
"Well, I have had a few with my friends, but my parents would be
real angry if they found out"
Mr. Stone joined in, "Davey, I want you to know that whatever
happens in this room will never leave this room. And, I mean anything.
You have our word on that"
I nodded and a cold beer was put in my hand. I drank deeply from
it to calm my nerves and felt much better. I knew I was in trouble (or was
it heaven?) when the two men sat down on either side of me on the bed. Two
firm hands gripped my legs as I tried to stand up and the beer removed from
my hand.
"Now, young man, you just relax and let me and Mr. Curtis show you
what to do," said Mr. Stone in a husky voice. "We aren't going to hurt
you, in fact, we think you really want to join us for a little fun. You
see, we are both married, but women don't understand a man's different
needs. When we're on the road, we like to indulge in a little booze and
release some of our built up lust. Do you know what that means Davey?"
I gulped and nodded yes. I felt Mr. Curtis run his strong hand up
the inside of my thigh. His fingers ran lightly over my khaki slacks and
soon they came to the pounding bulge. His fingertips rubbed lightly over
the bulge causing me to groan. A wet spot formed where my precum had oozed
through my underpants and onto my slacks. His hand slid down and cupped my
balls inside my tight briefs. I moaned at his firm touch and found my head
being turned toward Mr. Stone. I was thrilled when I found him planting a
deep kiss on my tender lips. His moustache tickled as his tongue searched
my mouth. I kissed back hard even though I had never kissed anyone before.
We kissed for a moment and then Mr. Stone let go and I gasped for breath.
Mr. Curtis returned the favor from the other side and his long tongue
swirled around mine and tried to reach down my throat. I was in pure
bliss. My late night dreams were becoming a reality.
Before I knew it, I was standing at the side of the bed as
Mr. Curtis removed my uniform shirt and Mr. Stone was slipping off my shoes
and socks. I closed my eyes and shook a little when I felt Mr. Curtis
unbuckle my belt. He undid the button and my zipper shot down as my
throbbing boy boner pushed outward. My slacks were around my ankles and
Mr. Stone eased them off my feet. I was standing before the two older
gentlemen in just my white BVD underpants and I had a pounding 5-inch
erection jutting out the front of my briefs like the prow of a destroyer.
I quivered as Mr. Curtis began kissing me deeply while Mr. Stone's hands
ran over my smooth chest and belly. I was so scared as I felt his thick
fingers run lightly under the elastic waistband of my underpants. On the
one hand I was terrified at being naked with a boner in front of these men
and at the same time eager with anticipation at my first experience with
older men. Up until now, I had never done anything except masturbate with
some of my friends after school. We would all play strip poker until each
boy got down to his underpants. Then, if you lost you had to beat off in
front the group until you spurted. If you lost twice, you had to beat off
the next guy who lost after you. Now, I was at the mercy of these hot
older studs.
I felt my underpants being slowly pulled down until my hard peter
sprung forth and throbbed painfully in front of me. My tender balls pulled
tight in my scrotum as my briefs slid to my ankles with my slacks. I
stepped out of them as a firm hand gripped my hard shaft and pulled my
foreskin all the way behind the head. A strand of precum oozed out and
fell to the floor. I moaned as hands touched and rubbed me. Mr. Stone
eased me onto my back and his head sunk to my throbbing boner and engulfed
my knob. His tongue swirled around my tip and his moustache tickled me. I
groaned blissfully as his head began to bob up and down my quivering
erection. I was so afraid I was going to spurt my white stuff that I
grabbed his head with both hands. Mr. Stone eased up and smiled at me.
"Davey, that's a fine, sturdy hard on you have there."
I watched as Mr. Curtis began to strip down and eagerly awaited
what came next. Mr. Stone slid off the bed and my erection slapped against
my smooth belly and precum steadily seeped from my wide slit. Mr. Curtis
stripped down to his underpants and I groaned again as he shucked his
undershorts and revealed the cock of my dreams. Mr. Curtis approached the
side of the bed and I stared blatantly at his manly penis. His penis began
to grow steadily and I noticed the base of the shaft was thick and the
length of the shaft began to curve slightly upward. The vein underneath
was very wide at the base and thinned near the end of his shaft just before
his mushroom. Mr. Curtis's knob was still hidden beneath a long foreskin,
but the mushroom looked large beneath the thin layer of foreskin. His
fleshy foreskin narrowed past the knob into a narrow opening.
As the shaft continued to swell, I reached out and stroked his
penis; rolling back the thick foreskin to reveal a fat reddish-purple
mushroom. It was thick with a wide girth. Mr. Curtis moaned as I stroked
him to a full erection. I was in ecstasy as I masturbated the man who
filled my dreams. When it was fully erect, it was probably 7 or 7 and
inches long and the knob was a bright purple.
I slowly beat Mr. Curtis's meat as I watched Mr. Stone remove his
clothes with meticulous precision. He folded each item neatly as I
visually devoured his mature form. He finished undressing and walked back
to the side of the bed with his short thick cock bobbing back and forth
over his fat testicles. When he reached the side of the bed, I reached for
his cock too. I kept stroking Mr. Curtis's cock that was now fully erect
and oozing precum all over my hand and wrist. I occasionally would let go
and rub his heavy balls and make him moan quietly. I turned to Mr. Stone
and let my fingers encircled his short penis. He was about 5 inches long
at most, but the girth was substantial. The old man moaned in pleasure as
my fingers gently gripped his shaft and eased his thick layers of foreskin
back. As the satin smooth skin rolled back behind his head, the knob burst
through and dripped a long strand of precum from his slit. I used my other
hand to smear it around his short shaft and ran my fingers around his big
mushroom shaped helmet. His helmet was wider than mine and was thicker
than his shaft. His knob was cherry red and the precum made it glossy like
a marble.
"Mr. Stone, can I..?"
"Yes son, just use your mouth and do what comes naturally. Damn
Ken, I told you this boy would be sucking my pole didn't I"
"You bet Mil, and I can't wait to feel my member up that tender
young ass of his"
My brain flinched when I heard that. He was going to screw me like
Daddy screwed Mommy at night. My parent's bedroom was next to mine and
after I had gone to bed I would often hear their bedsprings creaking and
the sounds of flesh slapping together. Mommy would moan and groan about
the size of Daddy's "big cock" and Daddy would grunt like a hog as he
humped Mommy. He would really sock it to her as I could hear her moans and
cries of pleasure until she would cry out "I'm cumming dear!" About 5
minutes after that, Daddy would start telling her it was coming and he had
to "shoot." Then, Daddy would make a strangled sound and I knew he was
shooting his white stuff in her. I would usually cum in my underpants or
beat off to try and cum when Daddy spurted in Mommy. Now, Mr. Curtis
wanted to breed my rear end. I was scared but thrilled too.
I turned to Mr. Stone's erection and opened my mouth as wide as
possible to accommodate his thick mushroom. I swiped the steadily drooling
precum from his opening and gloried in the sweet salty taste. He continued
to groan and put his small strong hand on the back of my head. I lowered
my lips around the plump knob and sucked on the helmet. He urged his hips
forward and his sturdy penis filled my mouth. His mushroom was just long
enough to plug the back of my throat. I could hardly breathe, but I loved
it. I moved my tongue along the bottom of his shaft on the thick vein. I
began to bob my head up and down while firmly holding my lips around his
knob. Mr. Stone began to hump his penis in quick, short thrusts into my
mouth. I couldn't believe my senses. I was sucking cock and it was Doc
Adams'!
After a few minutes, I felt Mr. Curtis suck my hard boner into his
mouth and I was in heaven. I sucked on Mr. Stone's hard on for at least 15
minutes as he quietly urged me to keep up the suction and congratulated me
on doing a good job. I was so excited that he thought I was giving good
head. I worked even harder at pulling the white stuff from his balls. I
reveled in the thick shaft spreading my lips and feeling his thick column
of flesh fill my mouth. I loved the sensation I got when his fat balls
tapped my chin and throat. I pulled back and took a quick glance at his
hair-covered balls. His balls were ample and bigger than mine. The sac
hung loosely towards his upper thighs with a thick layer of gray and black
hairs. His balls were egg shaped and I hefted their weight inside the warm
scrotum.
"Now, don't waste a lot of time there son, you just keep using that
tight mouth of yours and you'll get what's inside my testicles soon
enough," teased Mr. Stone gently.
I gurgled a reply around his heavy shaft and kept sucking. I tried
not to concentrate on my own boner getting tongue action from Mr. Curtis.
However, every time I got close, he seemed to know and backed off and
rubbed his fingers under my balls. I let Mr. Stone's cock plop from my
mouth and licked his scrotum and around his balls as I kept up a steady
pumping of his fat penis with my hand. I loved to lick on his heavy balls
while my hand slid his thick foreskin rapidly back and forth over his knob.
With every retraction, the old man would let out a grunt of pleasure that
indicated he was getting close to his climax. I moved back to his penis
and renewed sucking on it with vigor. I wanted the thick cream I knew
would pour out of his balls. I sucked for another five minutes until I
sensed him tensing his stomach and leg muscles. I used my left hand to
hold his foreskin back at the base of his shaft and then quickly bobbed my
head over the knob and shaft behind his helmet. I rubbed his balls and
pressed them up between his legs.
"Damn son, here it comes..oh....ungh...oh...! Ken, I'm going to
spurt now!" crowed the old man as I kept my lips firmly locked behind his
mushroom while my hand jerked the lower part of this shaft.
I felt him begin to shake and his balls pulled up hard to his body
and a heavy rope of his cream landed on my tongue. Another thick spurt
landed on top of it and I swirled the salty cream around his mushroom.
More cream oozed into my mouth for about 5 more seconds and then I let his
penis plop out of my mouth. I used my tongue to lick off the remaining
white fluid from his helmet as Mr. Stone breathed deeply and lay back on
the bed with his hairy chest heaving and a peaceful grin on his face. I
swallowed the white stuff in my mouth and licked my fingers clean. I knelt
on the bed and licked his rapidly shrinking cock and balls clean.
Mr. Curtis used his index finger to swab a line of thick white cum that had
seeped from the corner of my lip and glistening on my chin. He eased the
cum-covered finger into my mouth and I slurped the jism from his strong
finger.
Mr. Stone groaned and raised himself up on his elbows.
"Ken, you better get that boy sucking on your pecker. He's got
some talent."
I felt so proud. I had little experience, but I tried hard and got
him to shoot his sperm into me. Now, I wanted to try a bigger cock like
Mr. Curtis's. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared a bit wide-eyed at
Mr. Curtis's peter. It was definitely bigger than Mr. Stone's and I
licked my lips nervously.
"Um.Mr. Curtis. Are you really going to screw me?"
"Not yet Davey, first I want to feel the inside of that sweet mouth
and your tender throat. Then, I'll make love to you if you want me to,
ok?" he grinned.
I squealed a bit and got on all fours facing the end of the bed. I
spread my lips wide to accommodate Mr. Curtis's thick mushroom. I used my
slender fingers to grasp his shaft and pull the remaining foreskin back
behind his knob. My lips stretched, but just barely got over the shiny
knob that glistened with precum. I tasted very sweet precum oozing onto my
tongue immediately. Mr. Curtis let out a strangled groan and I took that
as a sign of approval. I swallowed more of his shaft into my mouth and
throat. His mature penis instinctively pushed deeper and deeper. I
flinched slightly when I felt Mr. Stone's hands on my rear end. I sucked
harder on the pulsing shaft of meat in my mouth as it sunk in where
Mr. Curtis's 7-inch peter was going to end up. And boy, I could hardly
wait. Mr. Curtis began to slowly hump his hips forward and filling my
throat with his stout erection. I gagged a bit, but held on like a
trooper.
Mr. Stone began to rub a stubby index finger around my hole and I
could feel him reach between my legs and gather precum from my steadily
leaking penis. He rubbed the precum into my opening and began to insert
his finger into my back door. I moaned in a little bit of pain, but warm
pleasure was what began to grow inside me.
"Milburn, tell me this young man's tender boy hole is ready for me
to give him a ride!" crowed Mr. Curtis.
"Ken, I've never seen such a succulent young rear end. You are
going to be in heaven."
My mouth clung to the thick shaft of Mr. Curtis's boner, but he
pulled it out of my mouth with a loud, wet plop. I looked at the
saliva-covered shaft as Mr. Curtis gripped his cock and stroked it slowly a
few times. I was mesmerized as the thin foreskin covered his mushroom and
then grinned as the thick tip popped through the sleeve of skin. My heart
pounded like a hammer in my chest as Mr. Curtis leaned down and kissed me
gently on the lips. His tongue probed deep inside my mouth and swirled
around my inexperienced tongue.
Mr. Stone eased me onto my back and centered me on the bed. He
instructed me to grab behind my knees and I readily complied. I watched in
fascination as Mr. Curtis crawled onto the bed and got between my legs.
His 7-inch erection swayed back and forth between his legs with the
foreskin reclaiming his thick glans. His lime-sized testicles jostled in
his hairy ball sac. Mr. Curtis swiped the precum from his tip and pressed
his index finger into my rear end. I moaned at the intrusion and the sight
of Mr. Stone leaning in to suck Mr. Curtis's boner into his mouth.
Mr. Stone bobbed a few times and then withdrew, leaving Mr. Curtis's cock
covered in saliva. Mr. Curtis then gripped his shaft and pulled the
foreskin all the way back until it was bunched up behind his purple knob.
I was very tense but Mr. Stone quietly told me to relax and just let
Mr. Curtis do the work. Mr. Curtis looked down as he lined up his knob
with my tender opening. His thick knob dilated my opening and I cringed as
it stretched my sphincter muscle. I relaxed in spite of the pain and
gasped as Mr. Curtis's fat mushroom punched past the muscle and two inches
of shaft quickly followed. I thanked the Good Lord for precum as it
lubricated my rear end. Mr. Curtis pushed almost half his manly hard on
into my tunnel and then just held steady. His shaft spread my insides and
I felt a burning sensation and some pain. He told me to relax and just let
his thick column of flesh rest inside me. I looked at where his hairy
belly met my smooth belly and saw my boy boner throbbing in rapid time with
my heart. My precum flowed steadily out and was forming a sticky pool on
my belly. I wanted to cum so bad it hurt, but my mind was preoccupied with
Mr. Curtis taking my virgin ass. Mr. Curtis nodded at me and I cried out
quietly as he steadily plunged the remaining three inches of cock into me.
I reveled in feeling his whole shaft filling my tunnel and my body writhed
in pleasure and a little pain. I could feel his fat balls pressed against
my soft cheeks and felt my own scrotum pressed firmly by Mr. Curtis's
belly. My rear end began to accommodate the hefty erection and felt
Mr. Curtis begin to slowly fuck me. The bed began to squeak and the
headboard began to make a rhythmic thumping against the wall. Mr. Curtis's
strong arms pinned me to the mattress and Mr. Stone watched us with
unmitigated glee. After a few minutes, Mr. Curtis was steadily pounding
into my tender hole. The sound of skin slapping skin filled the room. He
was pulling almost all 7 inches out back to the mushroom and then slipping
it quickly into my tight chute. I marveled at the sensation of 7 inches of
cock filling my tunnel. The feel of his fat knob plunging deep, followed
by the slap of his scrotum against my cheeks drove me wild. I swear I
could feel the loose foreskin slipping back and forth inside me with each
up and down stroke. My boy peter pulsed with excitement and drooled precum
all over my belly. I had never precum so much. Several times I thought I
was going to spurt, but Mr. Curtis would slow down and gently screw me with
his thick cock. The bed squeaked and creaked with fury as he began to
pound me again. The headboard sounded loud smacking the wall as Mr. Stone
urged Mr. Curtis to keep plowing my boy butt. Soon, Mr. Curtis began to
drip beads of sweat onto me and I knew I couldn't hold back my orgasm much
longer. His fucking became urgent and grunts and moans emerged from his
throat. I had been trying to keep quiet, but my moans became louder. I
told Mr. Stone that I was going to spurt my white stuff and he gave me a
winning grin. The old man slipped his small strong hand between Mr. Curtis
and I and found my boner. Mr. Stone began masturbating me with short rapid
strokes. He tugged my foreskin over my knob repeatedly until my body
thrust hard up into Mr. Curtis and I felt my jism surge through my shaft.
I cried out loud as Mr. Stone yanked back my foreskin and short stroked my
shaft as white boy cum sprang from my slit and hit Mr. Curtis's belly. I
shot at least 5 spurts onto his hairy belly, which promptly dripped off
onto my precum- covered belly and on my penis. I clung to Mr. Curtis's
strong arms and back as my climax finished and my body shivered in
post-coital bliss. The feeling of cumming with a hard mature cock in my
rear end was beyond ecstasy. I came so hard and yet still had the pleasure
of being fucked afterward. Mr. Stone withdrew his hand, which was covered
in white cum and had me lick it off his fingers. Mr. Curtis resumed
drilling me with his fat 7 inches of cock. I looked up when Mr. Curtis
began to mutter something about blowing his load. His thrusts became
frantic and faster than lightning. Suddenly, he leaned back and his
erection popped from my hole causing me to cry out in pain and loss. He
clutched his shiny cock and began beating off frantically. He used his
whole hand to work his loose foreskin rapidly back and forth. He let out a
guttural roar as his mushroom swelled up and ejected a huge spurt of thick,
white, ropy cum. The strand of cum landed on my neck and chin. One, two,
three, four, five thick ropes of his white jism flew out onto my chest and
belly. His next shot landed on my cum-soaked belly and the final two
streamers of white cum oozed through the foreskin and his fingers and
covered my deflated peter. He collapsed on top of me and kissed my madly
on the mouth. The sounds of heavy breathing and sighs of bliss filled the
room. My first night with Mr. Curtis and Mr. Stone was one for the books.
I appreciate any comments you might have. Send to
hagenf1@yahoo.com. Mention the theme of this story as I have submitted
several. Again, this is totally fictional and fantasy.
OMG BIG PENIS ATE MY SOUP
"All things that are, are fire." -- Heracleitus
Do you think this meant he understood atomic energy?
Or was this just the rap he used to score chicks?
The opposite of progress is congress
Einstein initially pooh-poohed the idea, and it wasn't widely accepted until the 1930's...
Nice... Nice move, NYT. Leave it to someone in the Arts section to write an article discussing physics and science predictions.
Pooh-Poohed?!
Likewise, black holes are just an educated guess at what might be at the centre of galaxies or left behind in the wake of supernovae. For all we know, the absence of light in these areas may well be merely extremely dense clouds of cosmic dust rather than pinpoints of near-infinite gravitational power.
In this light, it's preposterous to say Poe or anyone else has "discovered" these constructs, though it's not all that surprising an imaginative artist such as Poe may have dreamt them up. After all, pretty much all cosmology and astronomy at this point has no more substance to back it up than The Cask of Amontillado.
Since the article requires registration and I am tired of typing in "asdasdasd" today, forgive me if this comes across as offtopic or irrelevant.
However, it seems to me that the imagining of something amazing hardly equates to the "discovery" of such a thing.
For example: the guy who dreamed up the concept of a flying car is irrelevant compared to the engineer who actually realizes such a thing.
I guess my point is simply that any fool can dream up wild things while under the influence.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
He ripped me off! I WAS THE ONE who thought up black holes first! The fucking cocksucker stole my idea! I swear to god, it first popped into my head after seeing the gaping anus of the goatse.cx man. "Surely there could be no hole larger."
that read this post and mis-read "cosmotologist"
quoth the raven " use the mousse.."
This seems to mean that the entire species acts as a single huge brain, if you like. There needn't be a supernatural explanation for this. It could just be that culture as a whole processes information, the results of this processing turning up in random people's ideas in strange ways. Weird wild stuff...
My site: Free Nature Pictures
"Bet you didn't know Edgar Allen Poe pre-discovered the Big Bang and Black Holes"
No I had no idea! But now I know.. And yes its Saturday night and yes 11pm down here in New Orleans and here I am rading about Edgar Allen Poe.. I should be crowned as king of all nerds to be reading about this while there is lots of "big banging" going on down few blocks from here on French Quater and Bourbon St
It is well known in the field that Mr Poe discovered a black hole,or as he termed it a "pit", but in his autobiography he talks about being strapped under a big "pendulum".
Not a big "bang".
Fffft. Whatever one of those is.
If I remember correctly, Lagrange (or maybe Laplace - some french guy before 1800) first had the idea of objects so massive that even light could not escape from them. Definitely not Poe.
While being imaginative is a necessary prequisite to do science, the hard (and crucial) part of doing science is to obtain quantitative results that can withstand the tests of experiments and that predict new and useful phenomena and that hopefully, will be useful to humanity. In all these respects, Poe does not qualify as a scientist. He may have the ideas first, yes, but ideas are not sufficient.
I love technology as much as the next guy, but nothing beats unleashing a nice big steamy load deep into a hot tight pussy - especially when it's your wife's!
HP Lovecraft predicted the existence of horribly betentacled monstrosities from outside the space we know long before they were first discovered lukring unspeakably behind bricked off rooms in the basement of DARPA.
Lovecraft was also an early adopter of continental drift, and it is early adoption, not invention, that we are talking about. The Big Bang did not achieve general acceptance until the 1960s, it is true, however, others besides Poe had proposed similar theories (something about a Cosmic Seed, I recall) before Poe.
In statistical terms - writers are drunken cranks. They are more likely to adopt fringe beliefs before the rest of the population. Some of those fringe beliefs will turn out to be true. The writer will seem prophetic. It's of little significance.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
In a hundred years nobody will remember you, but I'm pretty sure Poe will still have an important place in the American literature
The Raven.
The Raven
John Mitchel, in 1783, had the idea that a star could be so heavy that the light itself could not escape its gravitational field. I think this precludes mr. Poe by some decades.
http://saveie6.com/
...pre-Socratic philosophers did the same thing. Leucippus for example, was the first one to put forward the concept of atomism, and that was ~400 BCE.
He is now believed to have died of rabies, contracted from one of his pets months earlier. In fact, the records from the hospital where he died actually said that he had abstained from alcohol for the previous 6 months.
Find out more about this theory.
I think of Poe as more of an opium fiend.
Never more, never more.
Here's a link to the "poem" in question: Eureka. It's appears to me to be simply nine pages of unreadable drivel.
However I did find a rather interesting quote from Poe: "Great intellects guess well."
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
Yes, but where are you going to run to?
My site: Free Nature Pictures
I thought is said Poe discovered bling-bling. But Poe is not black.
I read that EA Poe piece a long time ago and was amazed. However, there is one thing he got very wrong. He thought that if all things move away from each other, we could trace back the trajectory and locate the center of the universe. Elementary geometry (and a couple minutes of thinking) tells you that's not true. Think about marks on a balloon: inflate the balloon, all the marks move away from eachother with a relative speed proportional to their distance. None of them is at the center (or all of them are).
Bet you didn't know Edgar Allen Poe pre-discovered the Big Bang and Black Holes.
I predict that they will break open quarks and find even smaller things inside. Presto. In 200 years, I will be a famous founding father of physics!
I wish I knew enough about Poe to write some witty joke about the sounds a modem makes and his story "The Telltale Heart" Alas.. no.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Science is about the quality of the argument and evidence for a particular hypothesis. Being right for the wrong reasons counts for very little.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Also Kanaad had detailed explaination about atoms and related theories.
Hmmm... Ok.. Chivas on the rocks.
Yeah, and an infinite number of monkeys banging on an infinite number of typewriters would eventually "pre-discover" the entire works of Shakespeare, too.
People think different things, sometimes for the most bizzare and illogical reasons. To claim that a person pre-discovered something because what they had in their head turned out to be true is absurd.
Given the number of different thing that people think, as well as the number of discoveries made by science, and there's bound to be a collision sooner or later.
What the NYT article did not discuss, and I wish it had, was what % of Poe's predictions/discoveries proved correct (so far?). Maybe he threa a lot of spaghetti at the wall and some stuck; or perhaps he was quite prescient overall.
It's interesting to look at the authors whose ideas turned out to be valid. Some might still turn out true (H.G. Wells?). Of course in retrospect, we tend to forget the 100's of authors who were merely nuts.
Once as I was tired and stuff
Cuz I was reading lots a old books and stuff
I started to sleep but then I heard a tapping,
Kinda like a tapping at my door.
"Mr. Dude it 'Tis!", I grumbled, "Mr. Dude is hitting my door!
Wraaaaiiiiight! Never More!
I was hit in the head by a minivan earlier that year, and I still can't memorize anything. I became considerably better in Physics, Math(I'm the only sophomore in Precal at my school), and most importantly coding (that was the last of my 5 years of crap w/ basic).
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Not sure. Any more useful info would be nice.
You clearly don't have a cursory knowledge of physics or you wouldn't post such claptrap. Yeah, all of astronomy is conjecture....uh huh.
In fact he predicted Poe would predict black holes!!! No, seriously its almost as if you could predict anything from a convoluted sentance.... no really!
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
No really.... you ought to learn everything from first principles.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
The person you qouteth is that of Red,"( most of all I miss my friend, Andy Dufrieme)".. rehabilitated... let me tell you about rehabitualtion...
they come from a morbid, alcoholic, poet
/. posts come from otherwise intelligent people that think they know about American literature.
/. reader submit a story and state commonplace assumptions that have no basis in fact and, in truth, came from this slander of a dead man.
And sometimes
Living in Richmond, VA, a city where Poe lived for a large part of his life, I have more than a passing familarity with Poe. I've also done a LOT of research on Poe for a screenplay (a new film production company focusing on digital film production is not only interested in this script, but is seriously negotiating for this script).
One of my former teachers is on the board for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond and I have had long conversations and interviews with the current and former heads of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum.
In short, Poe was NOT an alcoholic (believe me, after years of working in treatment programs, I KNOW alcoholics), and there is little or no evidence he used opium, in any form.
There is strong evidence he may have been diabetic, in which case he could have what amounts to an allergic reaction to alcohol (I'm not an M.D., so I don't know all the details here.) He was also a critic and could write scathing reviews of other writers. True, he was found in a bar, went into a coma, and died a few days later. What many people don't know is that he was found in a bar on election day! I don't rember the exact law, or if the bar was a polling place, but for legal reasons, no alcohol was being served in the bar due to it being election day.
Diabetes would explain problems Poe had if he drunk and it would also explain his death -- a diabetic coma.
As for being morbid -- some of his writing was morbid. I suggest reading something like "The Poetic Principle" if you want background on this. Poe had quite a sharp sense of humor (and quite a sharp ego, as well) and was totally enticed by beauty. While I would call a number of his works morbid, I have not found enough in research to say he was morbid.
One last point: I mentioned he was a scathing critic. When he died, one of the writers he had severly criticized (I'm sorry -- I should remember his name off the top of my head, but I can't remember it) feigned friendship with Poe and asked to write the obit and handle other similar details. He used the chance to lambast and destroy Poe's reputation with slander and libel. The effectiveness of his slander can still be seen today, 153 years after Poe's death, when we see an intelligent
The line you draw at the edge of your skin which separates you from the rest of the universe is purely imaginary. You are more a part of it than you think, in fact, in some sense, "you" are a figment of your own imagination.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Everyone already knows everything, it's just a matter of remembering, and then deciphering whether what we remembered is fact or fiction. The deciphering part is where the science and maths come into play.
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
Did he make any other guesses about how the universe works? I would guess that he said a lot of stuff, and happened to get lucky on two or three counts. This doesn't really mean anything. Not to mention, today's scientists still can't conclusively prove anything about the origin of the universe.
It's probably safe to say Pythagoras helped all future philosophers (he pre-dated Socrates and Plato) with the idea of pre-discovery. He was also the main force in creating the precursor to what we now think of as scientific thought.
Pythagoras was the first to really grasp that the mind could understand perfections and processes that existed in purity only outside the realm of our senses. There was a certain divinity of number (not his phrase, although some scholars have called it that) to his teachings.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
It's a term used in logic, and it's appropriate for the situation. Or would you have prefered a *scientific* techincal term? That makes sense - lots of scientific dribble for the masses to read and try to understand.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
It seems to me that a simpler answer is given by a simple converging power series. Some infinite series converge! Light from stars that are farther and farther away are dimmer according to the inverse square law. Just add them up for any portion of the sky and you get a finite number, no? Why make it more complicated than that?
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the raven, "Inflation during the first 10e-25 second of the universe's existence."
...I can sit in my underwear at midnight and learn once and for all what the hell "Quaff" means.
I love the Internet and I love "The Raven".
Vincent Price's reading was my favorite until the Simpson's Halloween special with guest voice, James Earl Jones.
Now, back to quaffing more tequila!
Another intereseting story along the same lines is the fact that Cleopatra was a nymphomaniac and once had a horse lowered down on her, and how well that played out in history class when we were discussing her love affair with Rome's Marc Antony.
Remeber the film "Refer Madness"? The one produced by DuPont in an effort to get marijuana made illegal before the senators and representatives realized that it was the same thing as hemp. The same plant grown by George Washington on his farm, and tended to by slaves, and the same one that the US made the film "Grow Hemp for Victory" about during World War II in an effort to get farmers to grow the plant. The US has expnded a great deal of money and effort in an attempt to remove that film from existance but it recently resurfaced. Hemp was made illegal to protect DuPont's recently discovered method of making paper from wood pulp. This is an inferior paper because it turns to dust within about 300 years. We are furtunate that most of the research at the Vatican, including the first copy of the King James Bible, was published on hemp. So was the Declaration of Independance! Why are we not taught the truth.
The bottom line here is that we are adults! If the government and others would treat us as such then we wouldn't view them with such scepticism. Poe, although he was not an astronomer, was an avid reader of astronomy books and spent many an evening staring up at the stars. Why should we look at any of his conclusions as anything less than possible. After all this world is full of people that are not formally trained in an area of expertise making some very insightful discoveries and observations. Yet we are trained to dismiss these things out of hand. This dismissal is often times unjustified.
Remember Gene Roddenbery? He came up with a transporter because the model shots of shuttlecraft landing would have been too expensive to shoot every week. That transporter was accepted into science fiction as just that fiction; yet slashdot is full of article about how one discovery or another is getting us one step closer to that reality. I don't know that transporters will ever be reality but if they do finally invent it we should give the credit to Gene for making us all dream that it could one day become.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
In his book Flatland, Abbott laid out a basic idea that looks an awful lot like the theory of relativity. Not to mention being a mind bending book any way.
Anyone read 'Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light' by Leonard Shlain? That book highlights some similar occurrences to this throughout history, showing parallels between Salvador Dali to Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci to Isaac Newton, and dozens more, examining and comparing pieces of art to scientific discoveries and theories, then going into lots of detail and explaining each side of the equation.
:)
The book shows through the course of history how artists have stumbled upon and understood in art what scientists later theorized and proved in science. It helps shed a light on not only the parallels between art and science but explain the inner workings of each, and treads through history looking at different art movements and explaining where they're coming from as wellExtremely interesting and compelling read, fairly heady at times, but overall quite good and DEFINITELY worth checking out if this subject interests you.
DIDDLING
Edgar Allan Poe, 1850
Hey, diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
SINCE the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a great man in a great way- I may say, indeed, in the very greatest of ways.
Diddling- or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle- is sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining- not the thing, diddling, in itself- but man, as an animal that diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the affront of the picked chicken.
Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken, which was clearly "a biped without feathers," was not, according to his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked chickens to get over that.
What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man diddles. To diddle is his destiny. "Man was made to mourn," says the poet. But not so:- he was made to diddle. This is his aim- his object- his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's "done."
Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin.
Minuteness:- Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a small scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper at sight. Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation, he then, at once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes what we term "financier." This latter word conveys the diddling idea in every respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may thus be regarded as a banker in petto- a "financial operation," as a diddle at Brobdignag. The one is to the other, as Homer to "Flaccus"- as a Mastodon to a mouse- as the tail of a comet to that of a pig.
Interest:- Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to diddle for the mere sake of the diddle. He has an object in view- his pocket- and yours. He regards always the main chance. He looks to Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to yourself.
Perseverance:- Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about it. He steadily pursues his end, and
Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto.
so he never lets go of his game.
Ingenuity:- Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he not Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he would be a maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.
Audacity:- Your diddler is audacious.- He is a bold man. He carries the war into Africa. He conquers all by assault. He would not fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence Dick Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less blarney, Daniel O'Connell; with a pound or two more brains Charles the Twelfth.
Nonchalance:- Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a flurry. He is never put out- unless put out of doors. He is cool- cool as a cucumber. He is calm- "calm as a smile from Lady Bury." He is easy- easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient Baiae.
Originality:- Your diddler is original- conscientiously so. His thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another. A stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am sure, upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.
Impertinence.- Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets his arms a-kimbo. He thrusts. his hands in his trowsers' pockets. He sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your dinner, he drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your nose, he kicks your poodle, and he kisses your wife.
Grin:- Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this nobody sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is done- when his allotted labors are accomplished- at night in his own closet, and altogether for his own private entertainment. He goes home. He locks his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle. He gets into bed. He places his head upon the pillow. All this done, and your diddler grins. This is no hypothesis. It is a matter of course. I reason a priori, and a diddle would be no diddle without a grin.
The origin of the diddle is referrable to the infancy of the Human Race. Perhaps the first diddler was Adam. At all events, we can trace the science back to a very remote period of antiquity. The moderns, however, have brought it to a perfection never dreamed of by our thick-headed progenitors. Without pausing to speak of the "old saws," therefore, I shall content myself with a compendious account of some of the more "modern instances."
A very good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses. At length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She is accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble individual at the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her views, and upon inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted to hear a sum named at least twenty per cent. lower than her expectations. She hastens to make the purchase, gets a bill and receipt, leaves her address, with a request that the article be sent home as speedily as possible, and retires amid a profusion of bows from the shopkeeper. The night arrives and no sofa. A servant is sent to make inquiry about the delay. The whole transaction is denied. No sofa has been sold- no money received- except by the diddler, who played shop-keeper for the nonce.
Our cabinet warehouses are left entirely unattended, and thus afford every facility for a trick of this kind. Visiters enter, look at furniture, and depart unheeded and unseen. Should any one wish to purchase, or to inquire the price of an article, a bell is at hand, and this is considered amply sufficient.
Again, quite a respectable diddle is this. A well-dressed individual enters a shop, makes a purchase to the value of a dollar; finds, much to his vexation, that he has left his pocket-book in another coat pocket; and so says to the shopkeeper-
"My dear sir, never mind; just oblige me, will you, by sending the bundle home? But stay! I really believe that I have nothing less than a five dollar bill, even there. However, you can send four dollars in change with the bundle, you know."
"Very good, sir," replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. "I know fellows," he says to himself, "who would just have put the goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and pay the dollar as they came by in the afternoon."
A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:
"Ah! This is my bundle, I see- I thought you had been home with it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you the five dollars- I left instructions with her to that effect. The change you might as well give to me- I shall want some silver for the Post Office. Very good! One, two, is this a good quarter?- three, four- quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you met me, and be sure now and do not loiter on the way."
The boy doesn't loiter at all- but he is a very long time in getting back from his errand- for no lady of the precise name of Mrs. Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however, that he has not been such a fool as to leave the goods without the money, and re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air, feels sensibly hurt and indignant when his master asks him what has become of the change.
A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship, which is about to sail, is presented by an official looking person with an unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to get off so easily, and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon him all at once, he discharges the claim forthwith. In about fifteen minutes, another and less reasonable bill is handed him by one who soon makes it evident that the first collector was a diddler, and the original collection a diddle.
And here, too, is a somewhat similar thing. A steamboat is casting loose from the wharf. A traveller, portmanteau in hand, is discovered running toward the wharf, at full speed. Suddenly, he makes a dead halt, stoops, and picks up something from the ground in a very agitated manner. It is a pocket-book, and- "Has any gentleman lost a pocketbook?" he cries. No one can say that he has exactly lost a pocket-book; but a great excitement ensues, when the treasure trove is found to be of value. The boat, however, must not be detained.
"Time and tide wait for no man," says the captain.
"For God's sake, stay only a few minutes," says the finder of the book- "the true claimant will presently appear."
"Can't wait!" replies the man in authority; "cast off there, d'ye hear?"
"What am I to do?" asks the finder, in great tribulation. "I am about to leave the country for some years, and I cannot conscientiously retain this large amount in my possession. I beg your pardon, sir," [here he addresses a gentleman on shore,] "but you have the air of an honest man. Will you confer upon me the favor of taking charge of this pocket-book- I know I can trust you- and of advertising it? The notes, you see, amount to a very considerable sum. The owner will, no doubt, insist upon rewarding you for your trouble-
"Me!- no, you!- it was you who found the book."
"Well, if you must have it so- I will take a small reward- just to satisfy your scruples. Let me see- why these notes are all hundreds- bless my soul! a hundred is too much to take- fifty would be quite enough, I am sure-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"But then I have no change for a hundred, and upon the whole, you had better-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"Never mind!" cries the gentleman on shore, who has been examining his own pocket-book for the last minute or so- "never mind! I can fix it- here is a fifty on the Bank of North America- throw the book."
And the over-conscientious finder takes the fifty with marked reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while the steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour after her departure, the "large amount" is seen to be a "counterfeit presentment," and the whole thing a capital diddle.
A bold diddle is this. A camp-meeting, or something similar, is to be held at a certain spot which is accessible only by means of a free bridge. A diddler stations himself upon this bridge, respectfully informs all passers by of the new county law, which establishes a toll of one cent for foot passengers, two for horses and donkeys, and so forth, and so forth. Some grumble but all submit, and the diddler goes home a wealthier man by some fifty or sixty dollars well earned. This taking a toll from a great crowd of people is an excessively troublesome thing.
A neat diddle is this. A friend holds one of the diddler's promises to pay, filled up and signed in due form, upon the ordinary blanks printed in red ink. The diddler purchases one or two dozen of these blanks, and every day dips one of them in his soup, makes his dog jump for it, and finally gives it to him as a bonne bouche. The note arriving at maturity, the diddler, with the diddler's dog, calls upon the friend, and the promise to pay is made the topic of discussion. The friend produces it from his escritoire, and is in the act of reaching it to the diddler, when up jumps the diddler's dog and devours it forthwith. The diddler is not only surprised but vexed and incensed at the absurd behavior of his dog, and expresses his entire readiness to cancel the obligation at any moment when the evidence of the obligation shall be forthcoming.
A very mean diddle is this. A lady is insulted in the street by a diddler's accomplice. The diddler himself flies to her assistance, and, giving his friend a comfortable thrashing, insists upon attending the lady to her own door. He bows, with his hand upon his heart, and most respectfully bids her adieu. She entreats him, as her deliverer, to walk in and be introduced to her big brother and her papa. With a sigh, he declines to do so. "Is there no way, then, sir," she murmurs, "in which I may be permitted to testify my gratitude?"
"Why, yes, madam, there is. Will you be kind enough to lend me a couple of shillings?"
In the first excitement of the moment the lady decides upon fainting outright. Upon second thought, however, she opens her purse-strings and delivers the specie. Now this, I say, is a diddle minute- for one entire moiety of the sum borrowed has to be paid to the gentleman who had the trouble of performing the insult, and who had then to stand still and be thrashed for performing it.
Rather a small but still a scientific diddle is this. The diddler approaches the bar of a tavern, and demands a couple of twists of tobacco. These are handed to him, when, having slightly examined them, he says:
"I don't much like this tobacco. Here, take it back, and give me a glass of brandy and water in its place." The brandy and water is furnished and imbibed, and the diddler makes his way to the door. But the voice of the tavern-keeper arrests him.
"I believe, sir, you have forgotten to pay for your brandy and water."
"Pay for my brandy and water!- didn't I give you the tobacco for the brandy and water? What more would you have?"
"But, sir, if you please, I don't remember that you paid me for the tobacco."
"What do you mean by that, you scoundrel?- Didn't I give you back your tobacco? Isn't that your tobacco lying there? Do you expect me to pay for what I did not take?"
"But, sir," says the publican, now rather at a loss what to say, "but sir-"
"But me no buts, sir," interrupts the diddler, apparently in very high dudgeon, and slamming the door after him, as he makes his escape.- "But me no buts, sir, and none of your tricks upon travellers."
Here again is a very clever diddle, of which the simplicity is not its least recommendation. A purse, or pocket-book, being really lost, the loser inserts in one of the daily papers of a large city a fully descriptive advertisement.
Whereupon our diddler copies the facts of this advertisement, with a change of heading, of general phraseology and address. The original, for instance, is long, and verbose, is headed "A Pocket-Book Lost!" and requires the treasure, when found, to be left at No. 1 Tom Street. The copy is brief, and being headed with "Lost" only, indicates No. 2 Dick, or No. 3 Harry Street, as the locality at which the owner may be seen. Moreover, it is inserted in at least five or six of the daily papers of the day, while in point of time, it makes its appearance only a few hours after the original. Should it be read by the loser of the purse, he would hardly suspect it to have any reference to his own misfortune. But, of course, the chances are five or six to one, that the finder will repair to the address given by the diddler, rather than to that pointed out by the rightful proprietor. The former pays the reward, pockets the treasure and decamps.
Quite an analogous diddle is this. A lady of ton has dropped, some where in the street, a diamond ring of very unusual value. For its recovery, she offers some forty or fifty dollars reward- giving, in her advertisement, a very minute description of the gem, and of its settings, and declaring that, on its restoration at No. so and so, in such and such Avenue, the reward would be paid instanter, without a single question being asked. During the lady's absence from home, a day or two afterwards, a ring is heard at the door of No. so and so, in such and such Avenue; a servant appears; the lady of the house is asked for and is declared to be out, at which astounding information, the visitor expresses the most poignant regret. His business is of importance and concerns the lady herself. In fact, he had the good fortune to find her diamond ring. But perhaps it would be as well that he should call again. "By no means!" says the servant; and "By no means!" says the lady's sister and the lady's sister-in-law, who are summoned forthwith. The ring is clamorously identified, the reward is paid, and the finder nearly thrust out of doors. The lady returns and expresses some little dissatisfaction with her sister and sister-in-law, because they happen to have paid forty or fifty dollars for a fac-simile of her diamond ring- a fac-simile made out of real pinch-beck and unquestionable paste.
But as there is really no end to diddling, so there would be none to this essay, were I even to hint at half the variations, or inflections, of which this science is susceptible. I must bring this paper, perforce, to a conclusion, and this I cannot do better than by a summary notice of a very decent, but rather elaborate diddle, of which our own city was made the theatre, not very long ago, and which was subsequently repeated with success, in other still more verdant localities of the Union. A middle-aged gentleman arrives in town from parts unknown. He is remarkably precise, cautious, staid, and deliberate in his demeanor. His dress is scrupulously neat, but plain, unostentatious. He wears a white cravat, an ample waistcoat, made with an eye to comfort alone; thick-soled cosy-looking shoes, and pantaloons without straps. He has the whole air, in fact, of your well-to-do, sober-sided, exact, and respectable "man of business," Par excellence- one of the stern and outwardly hard, internally soft, sort of people that we see in the crack high comedies- fellows whose words are so many bonds, and who are noted for giving away guineas, in charity, with the one hand, while, in the way of mere bargain, they exact the uttermost fraction of a farthing with the other.
He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house. He dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits are methodical- and then he would prefer getting into a private and respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however, are no object- only he must insist upon settling his bill on the first of every month, (it is now the second) and begs his landlady, when he finally obtains one to his mind, not on any account to forget his instructions upon this point- but to send in a bill, and receipt, precisely at ten o'clock, on the first day of every month, and under no circumstances to put it off to the second.
These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show," he says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind"- an observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this, in the principal business six-pennies of the city- the pennies are eschewed as not "respectable"- and as demanding payment for all advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a point of his faith that work should never be paid for until done.
"WANTED- The advertisers, being about to commence extensive business operations in this city, will require the services of three or four intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal salary will be paid. The very best recommendations, not so much for capacity, as for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the duties to be performed involve high responsibilities, and large amounts of money must necessarily pass through the hands of those engaged, it is deemed advisable to demand a deposit of fifty dollars from each clerk employed. No person need apply, therefore, who is not prepared to leave this sum in the possession of the advertisers, and who cannot furnish the most satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young gentlemen piously inclined will be preferred. Application should be made between the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P. M., of Messrs.
"Bogs, Hogs Logs, Frogs & Co.,
"No. 110 Dog Street"
By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has brought to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company, some fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined. But our man of business is in no hurry to conclude a contract with any- no man of business is ever precipitate- and it is not until the most rigid catechism in respect to the piety of each young gentleman's inclination, that his services are engaged and his fifty dollars receipted for, just by way of proper precaution, on the part of the respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the morning of the first day of the next month, the landlady does not present her bill, according to promise- a piece of neglect for which the comfortable head of the house ending in ogs would no doubt have chided her severely, could he have been prevailed upon to remain in town a day or two for that purpose.
As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running hither and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of business most emphatically, a "hen knee high"- by which some persons imagine them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i.- by which again the very classical phrase non est inventus, is supposed to be understood. In the meantime the young gentlemen, one and all, are somewhat less piously inclined than before, while the landlady purchases a shilling's worth of the Indian rubber, and very carefully obliterates the pencil memorandum that some fool has made in her great family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
Do it all Night, IN THE GHETTO
As described in a very bad Ken Russell movie, Gothic . Based on just the slightest bit of truth
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
How many morbid, alcoholic poets do we have reading these threads, anyway? I'd wager more than a few...
Even so, we know little about the universe outside of ourselves.
:P
This may sound stupid, but it isn't more unlikely then the big bang being likely so
Our "souls" or whatever might possibly know things from previous lives or whatnot that extreamly creative people might manifest in some form of art, yet not be able to understand it.
Did anyone else misread this as "Edgar Allen Poe, A Cosmotolgist"?
What is Muslim Physics? Physics is EXACTLY THE SAME whether the physicists involved are Muslim or not.
I think of some famous Muslim physicists like Abdus Salam (a Nobel Prize Laureate)or K. Rammal
(who pioneered the use of ultrametric structures
in spin glass theory). Their work is not
different from the work of their Atheist, Hindu or
Christian colleagues.
By the way I am not Muslim, Hindu or Christian.
I grew up in a Catholic familiy but like many other scientists I am an Atheist.
...a few years back John Astin was here in Des Moines beta testing a one-man show on Edgar Allen Poe. He gave a talk a few days beforehand, and mentioned, among other things, something Poe wrote that did deal with astronomy, and in particular Olbers' Paradox. If memory serves, he said Poe argued for what is in fact the correct answer (stars aren't uniformly distributed).
(If you happen across this, Mr. Astin, I hope you enjoyed the copy of The Quantum and the Jaguar, and the show was great.)
If you want to get to know more about the lesser known sides of Edgar Allan Poe go see Once Upon a Midnight. John Astin (yes, Gomez Adams from the old TV show) gives a fantastic solo performance as the tormented poet.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Initial trials already yielded amazing results. A group of alchoholics from one of our larger international development centers is unanimous in pre-discovering a device that shrinks one's enemies and then forces them to go to a specific body part of the user. The developers were all trying to use this device on the product manager who was waking them up and asking them to verbalize their thoughts.
To apply, reply to this message with your own visions of the future. In compliance with local laws, potheads will be considered, but only if they have glucoma.
Poe wrote this in 1848, the big bang idea became popular in the 1960's, the article says. Did someone only now in 2002 just discover that Poe had the same idea? I guess there doesn't need to be an ocassion for interesting tidbits. Poe is cool.
MAKE YOUR TIME
Hmm, how are we doing today?
"News": Well, Martin Gardner wrote about Poe's Eureka as cosmology in an article entitled "The Irrelevance Of Everything", reprinted in his excellent The Night Is Large: Collected Essays 1938-1995 . Maybe it was news 7 years ago...
"For Nerds": Real nerds don't click through links requiring "Free Registration" to get at pulpy science "news" articles. They are also conversant with the work of Martin Gardner.
"Stuff That Matters": Uh, yeah.
Look, fellows, if I want to read the NYT Science section, I'll subscribe to the NYT. Could we please quit recycling it all on /.?
So this is basically like the whole Pink Floyd Wizzard of Oz fiasco, right?
Puff puff give. Puff puff coincidence...
I planned on inserting something witty here but never got around to it.
What Did Poe Know About Cosmology? Nothing. But He Was Right. By EMILY EAKIN n 1848, by then a nationally celebrated poet, Edgar Allan Poe published "Eureka," a 150-page prose poem on the nature and origin of the universe. The work, an overheated grab bag of metaphysics and cosmology, was a flop. A reviewer for Literary World likened it to "arrant fudge." A hundred years later T. S. Eliot summed up the critical consensus. "Eureka," he wrote, "makes no deep impression . . . because we are aware of Poe's lack of qualification in philosophy, theology or natural science." Of course, Eliot had a point: "Eureka" was the work of an amateur, a backyard stargazer who read astronomy books in his spare time. But Eliot -- himself no scientist -- was underestimating his fellow poet. Eighty years before 20th-century cosmologists hammered out the math, Poe, it turns out, came up with a rudimentary version of contemporary science's best guess for explaining how the universe began. >Well so could anyone. Expansion from a point source is hardly a 'wondrous' idea that only a genius could explain. Departing from conventional wisdom of the day, which saw the universe as static and eternal, Poe insisted that it had exploded into being from a single "primordial particle" in "one instantaneous flash." >Modern Physics does not have anything to say about particles. To say otherwise is to misunderstand the theoretical constructs that pervade Quantum Mechanics. "From the one particle, as a center," he wrote, "let us suppose to be irradiated spherically -- in all directions -- to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously vacant space -- a certain inexpressibly great yet limited number of unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms." > He could easily be as easily expressing a view on the origin of radioactivity as to anything else. Clutch at more straws please. The language is vague and convoluted, and some details are wrong (Poe had no concept of relativity, and it makes no sense today to speak of the universe exploding into "previously vacant space"), but here, unmistakably, is a crude description of the Big Bang, a theory that didn't find mainstream approval until the 1960's. > All details are wrong. Depending on their context, some others could be considered musings close to other people's later hypothesis. This wasn't Poe's only uncanny display of prescience. He also came up with the idea that the universe was expanding (and might eventually collapse), a notion that the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann ferreted out of Einstein's equations in 1922. > Prove this. No really. Where is the math? Did you ever read Chicken Lickin? Einstein initially pooh-poohed the idea, and it wasn't widely accepted until the 1930's, > No it was Einstein who FIRST cam up with the idea. He later retracted it in the face of overwhelming astronomical evidence against it. This issue is still to be resolved!!! after Edwin Hubble gleaned some hard data from the velocities of far-flung galaxies. Black holes? Poe envisioned something like those, too. > Prove it. And he was the first person on record to solve the Olbers Paradox, which had dogged astronomers since Kepler: the mystery of why the sky is dark at night. >The Math of which is presented here: www.wildpresumptionswithoutmathematicalbacking.com
If the universe was infinite, as 19th-century astronomers believed, there should be an infinite number of stars as well, plenty, in other words, to illuminate the sky at all times. Poe understood why this in fact was not the case: the universe is finite in time and space (and light from some stars has not yet reached the Milky Way).
> Yeah? You mean Poe Presumed. He had no evidence.
So what accounts for Poe's prophetic genius?
> Your sensationalist journalistic attempts to
get an undeserved promotion just because you
managed to get yourself bribed to the front page??
Tom Siegfried, the science editor of The Dallas Morning News, doesn't explain
> Doesn't explain? he just makes wild assumptions without evidence?
just how the poet derived his cosmological theory, but in his new book, "Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time" (Joseph Henry Press), he argues that the history of astrophysics is littered with such "prediscoveries," or "instances of theoretical anticipation."
> So? Someone says "The universe is like an
onion." Does that mean they discovered M-brane
theory? NO. If no evidence is presented or a
pretention of proof, then its not science.
"There are lots of things theorists predict on the basis of what's known and what's already been found,"
> That is the point of theoretical developement, duh!
Mr. Siegfried explained in a telephone interview. "The distinction with prediscovery is that theorists discover the existence of something observers have never seen.
> And so the charlatan is exposed!
Siegfried does not understand that theory only PREDICTS. It does NOT discover.
It's one thing to figure out an explanation for the observation. It's another thing altogether to suggest something exists that no one had any idea about beforehand."
> Fantasy is easy. Just look at your local book
shop's shelves.
Unlike, say, Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of "flying machines" or Jules Verne's descriptions of submarines and televisions decades before such objects were ever made, scientific prediscoveries, as Mr. Siegfried defines them,
> Pre-design maybe. Prediscovery... anyone can
doodle. Without the physical calulations it is just a doodle.
are not human inventions awaiting technological realization, but rather insights into the nature of reality.
"Eureka" may be Mr. Siegfried's most striking example, a literary mind hitting the cosmological jackpot. But his list of bona fide prediscoveries includes an impressive number of contemporary physics' most basic concepts: antimatter, electromagnetic waves, neutron stars, neutrinos, quarks and atoms.
> FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD
In the 1860's the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell inferred the existence of invisible radiation from a mathematical analysis of electricity and magnetism. (Nine years after his death, Maxwell was proved right when the radio waves were discovered by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz.)
> Yes, but this has to do with what exactly?
Maxwell had studied his field... Emily Eakin,
clearly has not.
In 1931 the English physicist Paul Dirac came up with a more preposterous-sounding notion: antimatter. From the mathematical equations of other physicists, Dirac concluded that electrons, one of the observed building blocks of atoms, must have identical but oppositely charged twins.
> More FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD
Dirac WROTE the definitive version of Quantum
Mechanics: P and Q algebra.
True, he discovered anti-matter. But Emily
shows a complete lack of how and why and
forgets that he was aknowledged of this fact
almost immediately (in comparison to the point she is trying to draw).
The following year Carl Anderson, an American physicist, identified a positively charged electron, or positron, the first antiparticle.
And around the same time, the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli prediscovered the neutrino:
> FUD!!!!!
He THEORISED the existance of the neutrino!!
The proof of its existance can be found in
amongst others, the Super Kamiokande experiment which is stil running today!!!!
a neutral particle so light and undetectable that it could pass through a lead wall trillions of miles thick without a trace.
> Please keep believing that. Science is better
without you.
Given the number of successful prediscoveries in the past, Mr. Siegfried argues, some of the wacky ideas floating around in astrophysics today are bound to be validated sooner or later.
> If a millions monkeys sit at a type writer....
That turns out to be an alarming proposition: Mr. Siegfried's book is filled with enough mysterious hypothetical entities --
> ie. Mr Siegfried's book is full of Bullshit.
some of which, under the right circumstances could snuff out the earth in a nanosecond -- to sustain a dozen Hollywood thrillers.
> The same circumstances that would allow the
atom bomb was to ignite the atmosphere? I
contend it is all Bullshit.
Which object will turn out to be real? Cosmic Q-balls ("lumps of super matter that may have formed when tiny superparticles coagulated in the hot dense phase of the early universe")?
> You really don't underastand what you are
saying do you?
Wimpzillas (particles "heavier than a million billion ordinary subatomic particles")?
> You mean weakly interacting massive particles. Where the hell did the Zilla part come from?
Are you trying to make your own legacy???
Or quark nuggets (a four-ton object less than one twenty-fifth of an inch long that could "shoot through Earth like a bullet through butter")?
> Sensation!
Any of these concepts might help solve the mystery of "dark matter," the unidentified stuff that astronomers believe makes up 90 percent or more of an average galaxy's mass.
> No. Black Hole galactic nuclei have solved that problem, lassie
Personally, Mr. Siegfried said, he's betting on WIMP's -- that's short for weakly interacting massive particles -- thought to be heavy, generally unstable particles that hover in the outer regions of galaxies and rarely interact with ordinary matter.
> No, they are supposed to be neutrinos that have larger mass than we suspect due to errors in our calculations.
As extravagant as some of these potential prediscoveries sound, the astronomers behind them have a substantial leg up on Poe.
> You assume much!
They're working within a scientific world, using the latest technology, trading information and comparing notes.
> Comparing notes? You assume even more!
And yet Mr. Siegfried raises the tantalizing possibility that valuable scientific ideas may lie outside science, awaiting a mathematical mind to seize on them:
> No shit Sherlock. But it doesn't help when
people with hindsight try to put words into
dead people's mouths.
Alexander Friedmann, the man credited with inferring the expansion of the universe from Einstein's theory, he notes, loved Poe.
> No Friedman is credited with saying the
universe evolved over time.
Did Friedmann read "Eureka?" No one seems to know.
> Has any credible scientist? Have you? Properly?
Nevertheless, Mr. Siegfried speculates, it's quite possible "that Friedmann was conditioned by Poe's imagination to see the true meaning of Einstein's equations, whereas others, Einstein included, did not."
> Speculate to accumulate.... or just guess.
Without proof.
As for Poe, he never doubted that his ideas would eventually get their due. "What I have propounded will (in good time) revolutionize the world of Physical & Metaphysical Science," he wrote to a friend in 1848. "I say this calmly -- but I say it."
> And so he was placed along side other science
fiction writers, because he never proposed a
proof of his work by prediction.
Emily,
You have writen a very nice piece of fiction here. I hope my debunking does not loose you your job. But I hope it does make you realise that you can not post sensationalist clap trap (about a subject with which you are only vaguely familiar)to a national news paper without putting yourself up for ridicule.
Please feel free to debate any of the comments I have made. My e-mail should be available should you need.
Regards,
Chembryl (a graduate in astophysics)
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
This is off my head of course, but I remember reading somewhere that the Titanic disaster was, to use the article's term, pre-discovered, in 1898 by an American author. She wrote a book called "The Titan" (I think), which was about an 8000 ton ocean liner that was reputedly unsinkable, but crashed into an iceberg in its maiden voyage from England to New York. I believe it was meant to be a sort of commentary on the vanity of the ruling classes then.
It's interesting to note that "Titanic" the movie was released exactly 100 years later.
More than mere navel gazing.
Three Cheers for Poe for imagining the Big Bang, black holes, and coming up with a solution to Olber's Paradox. But honestly, whenever I read about Olber's Paradox I wonder if I'm missing something. So go off on that tangent with me for just a minute...
Olber said basically that an infinite number of stars should produce an infinite amount of starlight, so why does it get dark at night? Paradox.
Sorry, but no. The brightness of the sky would depend on how much of that infinite starlight has had time to reach the Earth. The fact that the sky isn't infinitely bright right now doesn't mean it won't get that way someday. No paradox. The only paradox is that this is called Olber's Paradox instead of Olber's Idle Musing.
Don't know why Olber's Paradox gets me going, but it always does. Or am I missing something really simple and obvious, and just being a complete jackass about this?
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edgar AllAn with an A! Bad spelling shall be lifted...NEVERMORE! /me suddenly realizes that people on SLASHDOT think I'm nerd...bringing my self-esteem to new lows
Well if we, on the planet, constitute a group brain, then what about all the squirrels and iguanas and frogs and lions and wombats and single-celled organisms out there? Huh? Where do they fit in?
I don't think the group brain idea holds water--or spinal fluid. I think if we're a group brain, we've got an awfully bad case of... you name it: Multiple Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, (and the biggie) Schizophrenea (sp?).
Nah, really though, I mostly agree with the other people who repsonded to your post. Sorry. Collective Unconscious idea has worn out it's welcome. Why not try memes instead?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Why has noone yet posted the Google mirror of this story?
People who post NYTimes stories should include this to start with.
Poe might not be considered a cosmologist, but he was certainly a cryptographer -- or at least a dabbler in the field. Like many very creative geeks, he did have something of a substance abuse problem. BTW, Absinthe is making something of a comeback in Europe -- the bar at one of the local universities here sells a drink based on Absinthe.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
Why doesn't slashdot just create a permanent link on their site for NYT online?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound."
This is my most loved Poe, I even used it in a scientific article I wrote not too long ago.
>If the universe was infinite, as 19th-century astronomers believed, there should be an infinite number of stars as well, plenty, in other words, to illuminate the sky at all times.
That's somewhat misleading because, although there aren't an infinite number of stars (and other luminant stellar objects), there are enough stars to "illuminate the sky at all times." It's just that the amount of light isn't quite perceptable to humans. There are other (mostly nocternal) animals that can see just fine at night, and with light amplification devices (a.k.a nightvision goggles) so can we. So it's not a matter of it being dark at night, it's just a matter of us not being able to see with that level of light.
Of course there's also the matter of there being a finite number of stars and light that hasn't reached us yet, but that's besides the point.
---
Open Source Shirts
To say someone pre-discovered that which is not factual is sheer rubbish. Big-bang/darwinism on the macro level can not be proven scientifically, thus there is no possible way for anyone to "discover" these two theories, let alone pre-discover. Now they can be hypothicised. At the same time, the scientific community is ignorantly accepting some of these cosomological theories as fact when these theoris cannot be proven scientifically.
Now for those of you who are going to jump all over the previous statement, a scientific theory can only be proven by observable and repeatable circumstances. Thus, history itself cannot be scientifically proven.
In order to graduate with a BA in English, I wrote a paper on Poe, and my thesis was that Poe used a variety of reptitive sounds in order to build mood and suspense, and in a few cases, to link his stories to his cosmogny/afterlife beliefs.
An example of what I am talking about can be gound in the Tell Tale Heart. The sound of the beating heart that exists only in the mind of the protagonist is one of the repetitive sounds used by Poe. Of course this technique is widespread today, especially in the use of music in movies.
Also, Poe used a sound to illustrate his belief that the afterlife was sort of a reincarnation cycle in which the dead waited in the black void of space for long periods, thinking over their sins, etc., before being recalled to life, in which time, a repetitive sound could be heard by the dead. This sound was supposed to be the "heartbeat of the universe" or something like that.
CHaracters who were up to no good would hear echoes of this heartbeat of the universe, which may have been some sort of premonition/echo/remembrance of past life cycles on the part of the protagonists, reminding them that they would pay for their sins here by having to relive them while in limbo.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Hi:
Poe had a condition that is kind of a hyper-reaction to alcohol. A few snootful makes him drunk as a lord.
He was also insecure and uneasy with success. On more than one occasion, he sabotaged his own career by having a having a drink before a major appearance.
Needless to say, the manner of Poe's demise only added fuel to the fire.
A literary critic named Quinn was chosen to do his biography after Poe's death. Quinn couldn't stand Poe and basically published an unflattering portrait. The Quinn biography was the only scholary work on Poe for a generation, and solidified the perception.
Just the opposite. Solipsism is the belief that only you exist and that everything is a figment of your imagination. I'm saying, rather, that everything exists, and you are a figment of your imagination.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Oh, sure, you can include them too, and you get what's called the "Gaia hypothesis." Personally, I think that all distinctions are a product of cognition. We look at the universe, which is one whole thing, and we cut it up into little pieces so that we can think and talk about it, but the distinctions are arbitrary and imaginary.
I totally agree about memes, though, they provide a much better and more complete explanation of these things.
This thing that we call a "man" is only one small part of the thing we call the "universe". The distinction is arbitrary and can be very limiting, restricting our affections to the close circle of those around us. Our task must be to overcome this limitation by extending our circle of compassion to include the entire universe." -- Einstein
(I may have some of the words of that quote wrong, but I've got the gist of it. Einstein said this to someone who came to him seeking consolation on the death of his son.)
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Can find an acorn sometimes...
He's a professor at a community college.
No wonder he said such idiotic crap.
- "The tangible world is movement, say the Masters, not a collection of moving objects, but movement itself. There are no objects 'in movements', it is the movement which constitutes the objects which appear to us: they are nothing but movement... This movement is a continued and infinitely rapid succession of flashes of energy (in Tibetan tsal or shoug). All objects perceptible to our senses, all phenomena of whatever kind and whatever aspect they assume, are constituted by a rapid succession of instantaneous events."
There are better examples out there, but the idea that the tangible world is made up of movement, which itself is made up of flashes of energy (particles, let's say) is pretty spot on to have come up with before even Newtonian physics."Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
...why such a big deal.Don't you ever read Eureka?
There is only so many basic ways to look at things. Some religion or philospher has used them before. Hindus, Muslims, and others can show these seed ideas in there scriptures.
"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done there is nothing new under the sun"
...a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court.
It was like he was from some future time and then went back there and was bored, knew he couldn't tell anyone how or why he was there. So he decided to make the most of it and write and say stuff, get money from it, hang out, womanize, etc etc. but then grew tired of it and decided to drink himself to death.
so a less pleasant story than the Twain one, but that was what it made me think of.
I don't of course really think that is true, but it was what I pondered as I read the article.
Poe was someone that has always piqued my curiosity - I worked on his cipher, eventually breaking it, and I've read all of his works. I grew up near where his haunts were, and just tend to always perk up and listen when things about him come up.
I hope to someday be found face down in a puddle on the side of the road after a long binge of drinking to eventually die of pneumonnia (sp?). that just seems like the way to go if you ask me.
or strippers/whores, X, heroin, and coke.
one of the two.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
we don't KNOW anything about history; it's all speculation. For that matter, you don't KNOW what happened yesterday, because you only have your memories, which could be wrong.
The article is ABOUT people who dreamed something up and it turned out to seem relatively true; they in no way tried to "discover" anything or state it as fact.
How can you discover something that has never been proved? Just wondering... _Neuros_[]ut_
- Neuros { }UT -
An infinite number of stars does not mean that the sky is entirely full of stars. For example, if the number of stars is countably infinite, but space is not, then despite the infinite amount of light produced, we would expect the night sky to be dark.
"...we're taught that the Civil War... was fought to free the slaves... rather than the fact that the South had a lot more money and power than the North..."
Whoa, where'd you come up with that gem, Reb?
If the South had more money, why didn't they use paid labor instead of slave labor? If the South had more money why didn't it just buy a mercenary army? If the South had more power... should I go on? The Civil War wasn't fought over slavery or because "the North was jealous of the South", anymore than World War II was fought to rescue the concentration camp victims. The Civil War was fought over Federalism versus states' rights, y'all.
Space appears black because the universe is expanding--the other stars are drawing away from us; from our frame of reference this causes a change in the frequecy of light we perceive (i.e, red shift). If the universe were collapsing, space would be white.