"in order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

~carl sagan

I am such a nerd.

I am in the lab, in my iron-stained lab coat, waiting for my solution to filter and reading about science. For fun. I am even rocking my birth control prescription safety glasses, and when I'm not on the computer I'm wearing some sexy blue-violet gloves.

rowr!

but while I've been (im)patiently waiting for the filtering I've read this and this and this. For my personal edification and enjoyment.

Some of them (like Max Planck) make me think of high school, while others (such as the four laws of thermodynamics) make me think of college.

I happen to know a lot of what they're talking about--that's kinda how it works when you're a super nerdy chemical engineer--but I've learned some new things, too. I didn't know who Mary Leakey was (amongst other anthropological feats, she found what it likely the oldest existing footprints (yet found)--two sets side by side, about 80 feet long -- that are among the earliest evidence of upright, bipedal walking) and I didn't know that Richard Feynamn explained the Challenger explosion using an o-ring and a glass of ice cold water.

And some of it I might've known at one point, but have since forgotten--like how there's something in the middle of the milky way emitting radio waves and how buckyballs are formally called buckminsterfullerenes. and what a fullerene is.

now if only I could take these things I love knowing/learning and make them a part of my daily job. if only...