[Dean's World] Dean: The Poetry of Antiquated Science

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Posted by Dean:
The Poetry of Antiquated Science
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1149341812.shtml


   I love archaic terms. I like to refer to radio waves as "travelling
   through the aether," for example. Physicists used to think that light
   and radio waves had to move through something, and they didn't know
   quite what it was so they called it "the aether." They eventually
   abandoned the concept of the aether because (a) it was no longer
   useful, and (b) no direct evidence existed for it any anyway.

   Epicycles are even more interesting. Early astronomers noticed that
   the sun, the moon, the planets, and even the stars, seemed to run in
   somewhat circular motions, but they travelled in odd, loop-de-loop
   patterns. Here's a great illustration:

   [1]lyman's epicycle illaustration 

   Click on the image to enlarge it. On the left is a basic illustration
   of how we understand the moon's rotation today. It's how we all
   understand planetary rotations today. But on the right, what the heck
   is that?

   On the right is how it seemed to the ancient astronomers. Is that
   interesting or what? They observed that the moon seemed to orbit the
   Earth, but it seemed odd. It had this weird whirly loop-de-loop
   behavior, which they called an "epicycle." All of the planets, and all
   the prominent stars, seemed to have their own unique epicycles around
   the Earth. Mostly because they lacked our modern perspective, but also
   because it seemed to so elegently illustrate their behavior.

   Even today, in 2006, if you want to you can run the math that assumes
   the Earth to be the center of the universe, and the Epicycles will
   appear. Isn't that beautiful?

   More rationally, those two illustrations represent an incredible
   paradigm shift, the parsimony of a great scientific breakthrough. If
   you give up your old way of thinking, and find a better way of seeing,
   you usually get a clearer, cleaner, more parsimonious view: the Earth
   and the other planets revolve around the sun, the moon revolves around
   the sun, and the sun dances with all the other stars. Suddenly it's
   not complicated anymore. Sure, we've lost the great beauty of the
   epicycles, but we have gained immeasurably from discarding the old
   ideas.

   Yet I think that poetically, or lyrically, the old ideas still hold
   some truth. It should still be fair to talk about these obsolete
   concepts: the planets in their epicycles, travelling through the
   aether. Why not? The beauty of human language, the human soul, allows
   for such things, and expresses a beautiful truth in its own right.

   I mean, think on it: the Moon does not circle the Earth. It performs a
   spirographic loop-de-loop around us every month. Isn't that beautiful?
   It is true despite all rational thought.

   Similarly, there are words in the English language that poetic
   speakers still, in 2006, love to employ. They are:

   Sanguine: Of or relating to blood. Often means bright blood red. But
   used poetically, it usually means "Cheerfully confident; optimistic.
   Phlegmatic: A calm, sluggish temperament; unemotional, or indicating
   laughter or humor.
   Choleric: Filled with yellow bile. Showing or expressing anger;
   bad-tempered.
   Melancholic: filled with black bile. Severe depression, guilt,
   hopelessness, sadness, and withdrawal.

   Closely related is Bilious: Having a peevish disposition; ill-humored.
   A combinaion of choleric and melancholic--lots of both types of bile.

   These come from the days of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates,
   who believed that the various fluids of the body could be so
   categoritized. If you had lots of good red blood you were in good
   health and were sanguine. If you were very calm you had a lot of
   phlegm (that stuff that clogs up your nose and that you blow into a
   kleenex) and were in good health.

   These are all great words. They're based on antiquated science that
   said that the fluids running through your body could diagnose your
   condtion. So if you were sanguine you had lots of blood shining
   through your system and were happy and cheerful and optimistic. If you
   were phlegmetic--had lots of snot and semen in your system--you were
   calm, cool, and rational. If you were melancholic, meaning had an
   excess of black bile runing through your system, you tended to be
   moody, irritable, and obsessive. And if you were filled with the
   choleric fluids, you tended to be bad-tempered but a creative type and
   a leader.

   Scientificaly, none of this has any value at all. None. It's
   scientifically worthless. But poetically, within the English language,
   it speaks all kinds of truths:

   If you are "sanguine" you're in a terrifically good and optimistic
   mood (look it up in the dictionary).

   If you are phlegmetic, you are calm, cool, rational, and maybe have a
   dry sense of humor. (Again, look it up in any good dictionary)

   If you are deeply depressed and unhappy, we often say you are
   suffering from melancholy.

   Those are all fairly common words. Gradually losing favor has been the
   term "choleric," although I like it, as it indicates someone who is in
   a very bad mood and difficult to get along with, although choleric
   people often get things done when no one else can.

   There's also a semi-common word, "bilious," but which I've often seen
   spelled "bileous" (prounounced "BILE-ous"), but which I've also seen
   spelled as "bileous," or just "full of bile. I think that word can
   safely be applied to Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Al Franken, Janeane
   Garofalo, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Paul Krugman, Debbie Schlussel,
   and yes, Dean Esmay on a bad day.

   Oh yeah, and if you've ever heard the phrase, "He/she is in a good
   humour today," you should realize that whether the speaker knows it or
   not, she's referring to these antiquated notions of old science. The
   "humours" have nothing to do with things being funny or not, they just
   describe someone's mood: bad humour means they're filled with both
   kinds of bile, and good humour means they're filled with bright red
   blood and rich phlegm (yeah I know, "ick!" but thats what it means.)

   Here in the early 21st century, I take a sort of delight in saying, "I
   feel sanguine" or "these funny jokes about the current situation make
   me phlegmetic." And when I'm in a bad mood I love to say that I feel
   bileous, or to look at someone who is saying things that are angry and
   resentful, and to say that they're "pumping out their bile."

   It has no scientific meaning whatsoever, but poetically it speaks to a
   truth that has been understood here in the West for more than 2,000
   years.

   Ain't that neat?

References

   1. file://localhost/files/deanesmay-Epicycle-1.gif