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Old 03-02-2005, 11:33 AM
jane
 
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On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:01:10 +0000, bigboard
wrote:

~Nick Maclaren wrote:
~
~ In article ,
~ jane wrote:
~
~I love that quote. Would have liked to put it at the start of my
~thesis but at the time my external examiner wasn't sorted and could
~have been a medical physicist or a clued-up medic and I didn't want
~the latter to get rebuffed and be more likely to fail me!
~
~ Whereas I loathe it intensely. It wouldn't matter if so many boneheaded
~ physicists didn't believe it - and extrapolate it to mean that they don't
~ need to learn from other sciences :-(

Nah, we just used it at Uni to wind up the Chemists!
(Best way was to mention that chemistry is a subset of physics. You
got the best effect after they'd had 2-3 pints on a Friday night :-)

The quote never fails to wind up every other scientific discipline. As
all physics students know well :-)

And we must know
If it moves, it's biology
If it reacts (or blows up, or smells) it's chemistry
If it doesn't work, it's physics.

which is a negative comment on school physics lessons! (Though having
had a capacitor blow up in my face once in a physics lesson, I could
alter it a bit).

However!!!
Anyone who is a gardener is an amateur botanist and biologist (and
entomologist!) . If you test soil for pH, and add matter/compounds to
correct soil problems, you're a chemist. And we are all also amateur
meteorologists (at least in Europe!).

Any others? I'm sure I've missed several.

So there we are, every gardener is a scientist. Also an artist (after
all, we paint with flowers and design our plots.) What better hobby
can one have to cover so many disciplines equally?

~Aha! A stamp collector.

Wouldn't you love to know what Rutherford got as a reaction when he
originally said it? I'm sure it got one...


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove onmaps from replies, thanks!