Skip to main content

Strange Attractors

Here's a nice poem I read recently.

Strange Attractors

/Robin S. Chapman/

How to find them, those regions
Of space where the equation traces
Over and over a kind of path,
Like the moth that batters its way
Back toward the light
Or, hearing the high cry of the bat,
Folds its wings in a rolling dive?
And ourselves, fluttering toward and away
In a pattern that, given enough
Dimensions and point-of-view,
Anyone living there could plainly see--
Dance and story, advance, retreat,
A human chaos that some slight
Early difference altered irretrievably?

For one, the sound of her mother
Crying. For this other,
The hands that soothed
When he was sick. For a third,
The silence that collects
Around certain facts. And this one,
Sent to bed, longing for a nightlight.

Though we think this time to escape,
Holding a head up, nothing wrong,
Finding a way to beat the system,
Talking about anything else--
Travel, the weather, time
At the flight simulator--for some
The journey circles back

To those strange, unpredictable attractors
Secrets we can neither speak nor leave.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leadership

Check out the parody of Memoirs of a Geisha by Bobby Lee. Hilarious. Here's stuff on America's best leaders . Speaking of leadership, what makes a great leader? Do you have to be the smartest on the team? Or the best coordinator? It must really depend on the organization and job, but in general all leaders have to share similar traits. For example, I saw a brilliant basketball game today, Duke vs. Wake Forest. It's clear that Duke's leader is JJ Redick. That's because he is the most effective scorer, but also I think his will to win leads the team to achieve. Of course he is putting in perhaps the most work by scoring and playing nearly the whole 40 minutes. But he is defintely not the best defender on the team. So a leader needs to certainly be very skilled, but not necessarily the best at everything. The vision and determination is what makes a leader. Not everyone is a natural born leader. Some are better than others, by talent and nature. But I think leadership...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yes, Taiwan Can!

I saw this image somewhere, and I thought it was nice. I hope we can spread it around! I apologize for not giving full credit, but if it's yours, let me know!
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Mice and Men

Here's an interesting story, mice sing ! Check out the sound clip at the bottom of the page. Apparently during courtship male mice sing. This was discovered when researchers let male mice sniff on female or male mice urine, and though the original intention was to see how the male brain differentiates the pheromones, they noticed a rather complex ultrasound pattern erupted when hetero (whether there are homo mice is a question) male mice smelled female pheromones. This places mice in the same league as some other complex singing beings such as birds and dolphins! This is interesting for many reasons, but one I can think of is since mice are relatively easy to manipulate genetically, and the fact that they utilize complicated vocal patterns to court mates means perhaps mice have some simple language abilities. So we may be able to understand how language and vocal abilities develop and play such a crucial role (obviously as in birds better singers get to procreate!) in animals. We a...
Post a Comment
Read more