Loved this post. Two things come to mind: John Powell's comment about the Hadron Collider vs the Stratosphere reminds me of a similar contrast drawn by Hans Vaihinger in his book As If. A great (if obscure) book about the human need for "useful fictions" in philosophy and science.
The second is more obscure trivia: did you know that Raymond Roussel, the infamous proto-surrealist who influenced many twentieth century artists (Duchamp, Breton, Foucault, John Ashbery) had an idea for a glass-blown hollow form that could be used for insulation? I have the patent drawings somewhere. It was a kind of stackable balloon.
Loved this post. Two things come to mind: John Powell's comment about the Hadron Collider vs the Stratosphere reminds me of a similar contrast drawn by Hans Vaihinger in his book As If. A great (if obscure) book about the human need for "useful fictions" in philosophy and science.
The second is more obscure trivia: did you know that Raymond Roussel, the infamous proto-surrealist who influenced many twentieth century artists (Duchamp, Breton, Foucault, John Ashbery) had an idea for a glass-blown hollow form that could be used for insulation? I have the patent drawings somewhere. It was a kind of stackable balloon.