In the heat of the afternoon I retire to our cool bedroom to read The New Scientist. Is it the intensity of the heat or my limited knowledge but incipient lethargy collapses my concentration and I am no nearer understanding how you measure a proton let alone discovering that its dimensions are considerably smaller than previously supposed? The femtometer, a very fine unit of measurement indeed, is used for the gauge. A new word for me, so I have learnt something. Chambers Dictionary defines the prefix femto as signifying a thousand million millionth. My Oxford Reference Dictionary doesn't mention it all. Perhaps it is too small for the editors to have noticed.
In the vegetable garden I cut some courgettes (zucchini), about the length of my little finger. Not to be measured in femtometers, but small enough to be a pleasure to toss in a frying pan with olive oil and a clove or two of garlic alongside the strident orange coloured flowers.
3 comments:
The closed flowers make me think of buttermint kisses with peppermint stripes. Cool!
What an amazing and gorgeous flower!
As you were reading NS (or trying to) I was invoking it. It proved a useful device in Gorgon Times and now it popped up - sort of inevitably - in Hand Signals. But, I fear, only the classifieds in both cases. Your retirement to the cool bedroom reminds me of a post I need to post and of a quote I want to employ - the times are out of joint. I'm pretty sure it's WS and Hamlet seems likely. But here's the rub. Google will allow me to verify its provenance in seconds, after which I'll toss it into the prose with faux languidness. As if I were a tap and an infinity of quotes were available from my memory. Is the way I will present this sliver of info a form of cheating? And should I, in the pursuit of honesty, drop my original idea for a post and write one instead about Google's corruptive power. You quote a lot. In your case I automatically assume these quotes arrive without the need for verification. I'll go further. If they don't, I don't want to know. I prefer my assumption about your echt languidness than the mundane alternative. Already I see I now have material for three if not four posts. And all because of New Scientist.
Post a Comment