Oh Lambert!

*Ooh-wee!*

*Mmmuaaacckks!!*

wretched

The sun is blazing hot outside and it’s freezing cold here inside the lab. My body is on auto-pilot as I complete the list of tasks for the day. My mind however, has gladly detached itself like broken bits of spaghetti scattered all across space and time continuum.

shadows

he wears it upon his shoulders
tattered and thin
memories he cannot shed
moments he cannot erase
promises unfulfilled
cloak of remnants
Heart bound by her shadows
and it wears him thin
what Love has stolen
and what Love has lost
Time heals on Time’s terms
shadows linger
shadows haunt
yet the heart beats on
walk out of the shadows
let me walk with you
grieve not alone
fight not unaccompanied
for I am stolen
I have nothing to lose
of Love I am not weary
This is our time
shadows begone

Zoo Köln

Here are some favourite animal photos from the beautiful Köln Zoo, the third oldest zoo in Germany. The photos were taken in the early morning when the zoo has just opened, hence perhaps the sleepy creatures…

tender love

mosaic of life

extra 20 winks

cheeky meerkat

dreaming hornbill

nap a while, crocodile

artist on science

This article made my day, very very much…

artists on science: scientists on art
Nature 434, 299 - 300 (17 March 2005); doi:10.1038/434299a
Copyright of Nature Publishing Group

A tale of two loves
The arts and sciences provide complementary ways of looking at the world, argues Alan Lightman

In childhood, I wrote dozens of poems. I expressed in verse my questions about death, my loneliness, my admiration for a plum-coloured sky and my unrequited love for 14-year-old girls. Reading, listening, even thinking, I was mesmerized by the sounds and the movement of words. Words could be sharp or smooth, cool, silvery, prickly to touch, blaring like a trumpet call, fluid, pitter-pattered in rhythm. And, by magic, words could create emotions and scenes. When my grandfather died, I buried my grief in writing a poem, which I showed to my grandmother a month later. She cradled my face with her veined hands and said, “It’s beautiful,” and then began weeping all over again. How could marks on a white sheet of paper contain such power and force?

Between poems, I did scientific experiments. These I conducted in the cramped little laboratory I had built out of a storage closet in my house. In my homemade alchemist’s den, I horded resistors and capacitors, coils of wire of various thicknesses and grades, batteries, switches, photoelectric cells, magnets, dangerous chemicals, test tubes and Petri dishes, Bunsen burners. I loved to find out how things worked.

When my experiments went awry, I could always find certain fulfillment in mathematics. When my maths teachers assigned homework, I relished the job. I would save my maths problems for last, right before bedtime — like bites of chocolate cake awaiting me after a long and dutiful meal of history and Latin. Then I would devour my cake. In algebra, I loved the abstractions, letting ‘x’s and ‘y’s stand for the number of nickels in a jar or the height of a building in the distance. I loved solving a set of connected equations, one logical step after another. I loved the shining purity of mathematics, the logic, the precision. I loved the certainty. With mathematics, you were guaranteed an answer, as clean and crisp as a new $20 bill. And when you had found that answer, you were right, unquestionably right. The area of a circle is πr².Period.

Mathematics and science contrasted strongly with the ambiguities and contradictions of people. The world of people had no certainty or logic. People confused me. My Aunt Jean continued to drive recklessly and at great speed, even though everyone told her she would kill herself. My Uncle Edwin asked me to do a mathematical calculation that would help him run the family business with more efficiency, but when I showed him the result he brushed it aside with disdain. Blanche, the dear woman who worked for our family, deserted her husband after he abused her and then talked about him with affection for years. How does one make sense out of such actions and words?

in memoriam

…greatness has been in our midst…