11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 Science Reveals the Wonder of a Mundane World

Where the untrained eye will see nothing but mire and dirt, Science will often reveal exquisite possibilities. The mud we tread under our feet in the street is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot and water. Separate the sand, however, as Ruskinn observes—let the atoms arrange themselves in peace according to their nature—and you have the opal. Separate the clay, and it becomes a white earth, fit for the finest porcelain; or if it still further purifies itself, you have a sapphire. Take...
Folksonomies: science wonder
Folksonomies: science wonder
  1  notes

Turning mud into wonder.

04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Chemists Live More Sweetly Than Persian Kings

The chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost insane impulse to seek their pleasures amid smoke and vapour, soot and flame, poisons and poverty; yet among all these evils I seem to live so sweetly that may I die if I were to change places with the Persian king.
Folksonomies: knowledge wealth
Folksonomies: knowledge wealth
  1  notes

Knowledge for its own sake is more satisfying than immense wealth.