oh_man miniver "If a comb is passed through dry hair, perhaps a million million electrons leave the hair and stick on the comb. Nevertheless, the comb is almost neutral. For every extra electron it has acquired the comb has a million million neutral atoms. It is fortunate for us that the objects in our macroscopic world remain always almost neutral. If the comb acquired anything close to the electrification of one extra electron per atom, the consequences would be dire. Either there would be a powerful and deadly bolt of lightning from comb to man as the charge was neutralized or the enormous force of electrical attraction would draw the comb back so violently that it would be a dangerous weapon." 001130 ... miniver I just bought the most amazing book! Well...a few weeks ago, now. "The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics". The contributors include: Diane Ackerman, Isaac Asimov, John D. Barrow, Emily Dickenson, Annie Dillard, Freeman J. Dyson, Albert Einstein, Timothy Ferris, Richard P. Feynman, James Gleick, Stephen W. Hawking, Primo Levi, Alan Lightman, Heinz R. Pagels, Roger Penrose, Max Planck, Rainer Maria Rilke, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, C. P. Snow, Wallace Stevens, Lewis Thomas, James Trefil, John Updike, and Walt Whitman. I could not survive without anthologies, I think. And this one may well be my favorite of all. Freezing Christ! I can't believe a book like this exists. 001130 ... miniver I'm only on page 60. Not even one of the more brilliant essays, and I'm still quoting. I wish I could quote the whole book. 001130 ... miniver (Um. Page 36.) 001130 ... amy that sounds like it's up my alley. more things to pull me to the bookstore again. just more stuff i gotta do. too bad it's not earth science... 001130 ... miniver C'mon, Amy! Physics is EVERYTHING-science. I am infatuated with this book. It makes me grin, just thinking about it. Truth. I would more fully describe it. But I already feel like an advertisement. And that takes alot for an automaton. 001130 ... amy schmisics. i disliked it at first. i like it okay now. i wouldn't say Everything Science. poetic, though. physicists like beauty, elegance, and symmetry. i wrote a paper on that in college. 001130 ... miniver I could get into an argument about the everything-science thing. But I guess I can't really blame you for being as picky about wording as I am around here. I could have done a better job...but I would have had to give up playing around with your wording ("everything science" for "earth science"). Using the simple statement "everything-science" to describe the entire, much-argued position of Physics' fundamentalness doesn't exactly eschew obfuscation. But, now that I've used it...I'm going to pretend that it encompasses that position brilliantly! Hah. Poop on the chemists and biologists and otherists if they can't take it that Physics is more fundamental. Physics isn't built upon the laws or theories of chemistry. Chemistry is built on the laws and theories of physics. 001201 ... j_blue physics is like a drill, always going deeper. chemistry is a macroscopy. this century could be called the century of physics. chemistry could also be thought of as a mediator between what we call physics and what we call biology. its getting to the point where physics advances are working their way up, because now they are touching biology. next century will be hecka crazy, with all the biological science advances. anyways, excuse my blather 001201 what's it to you? who go blather from