Flights of the butterfly

  • The Rules of the Railway

    Once upon a time, a very long time ago when I was a little boy, I had an electric train set. My Dad built it and it was beautiful. It had scenery and a tunnel. I hope my Dad knows now that I appreciate all the effort he went to. But there were problems. The…

  • The Onion

    The universe is like an onion. Well, not exactly, but there are aspects of it that are definitely onionesque. I am referring to the solving of problems. From this point of view there is a property of the universe that seems like an onion. Trying to solve the mysteries of the universe, from our first…

  • Facts

    Ah, facts. Don’t we just love ‘em? Here’s a fun fact: there aren’t any. Well, not in Realworld anyway. The other day, a young man, nice but arrogant, told me something. He said it was a fact. He said it more than once and said it emphatically. Facts do exist, but only in somewhere like…

  • Light and stuff

    It was the day of the Big Bang and we were all very excited. I had decided to surf the leading edge of the expansion( nod to Dark Star). I had borrowed my Mum’s ironing board and prepared a package of sandwiches and a flask of coffee. I also had one of those revolving yellow…

  • Ockham’s Razor

    We need to get this out of the way before we do any complicated stuff. William of Ockham (1287 – 1347) The trouble with Ockham’s razor is that it’s a two-edged blade and you can get a nasty cut if you start slashing about with it indiscriminately. There are many ways of stating, or misquoting,…

  • Langton’s ant

    This is Langton’s ant. He lives on a plain sheet of paper, preferably white, with squares on it. His name is possibly Cyril. But, it could be Rodney. It’s difficult to tell. •           Cyril, or possibly Rodney, likes an uncomplicated life. He lives by just two rules. •           And two pots of paint. THE RULES…

  • Intersections and other stuff

    Here are three lines intersecting at a point: Well, actually, it’s not. As any engineer will tell you, it isn’t quite like that, it looks like this: There is always a slight error. In fact, when you get closer, it looks like this: Actually, nobody ever drew a straight line anyway, they all look like…

  • The Universe and ATC

    This information can be represented on a spreadsheet: