Initial steps for this symposium began a few billion years ago. As soon as the stars were formed, opacities became one of the basic subjects determining the structure of the physical world in which we live. And more recently with the development of nuclear weapons operating at temperatures of stellar interiors, opacities become as well one of the basic subjects determining the processes by which we may all die. -- Opacity Calculations: Past and Future, by Harris L. Mayer
It’s places facts about a seemingly simple effect (opacity) into a context of the grandest possible scope thereby showing the surprising complexity of everything if taken seriously. At the same time it uses this as a cool literary device.
It doesn’t tell you this upfront but I saw it as teaching to think big in a true way. Either this is too hidden or I interpreted something that isn’t there.
I agree with Randall Munroe that it is an awesome opening paragraph for a physics paper
I agree that it’s a great opening paragraph, but is it really a “rationality quote” in any useful sense?
It’s places facts about a seemingly simple effect (opacity) into a context of the grandest possible scope thereby showing the surprising complexity of everything if taken seriously. At the same time it uses this as a cool literary device.
It doesn’t tell you this upfront but I saw it as teaching to think big in a true way. Either this is too hidden or I interpreted something that isn’t there.