Roger Scruton (R.I.P.) discussed being misrepresented in the pages of a major publication, effectively purging him from an unpaid government architectural committee job.

So it was, and so it is:

Tim Hunt was a witch. Larry Summers, briefly became a witch.

—

Via Quanta magazine: ‘Scientists Uncover the Universal Geometry of Geology‘

“The math is telling us that when we begin to fracture rocks, however we do it, whether we do it randomly or deterministically, there is only a certain set of possibilities,” said Furbish. “How clever is that?”

Our author uses a bit of Plato to tie the piece together; a discussion of ideal forms:

As for Jerolmack, after first feeling uncomfortable over a possibly coincidental connection to Plato, he has come to embrace it. After all, the Greek philosopher proposed that ideal geometric forms are central to understanding the universe but always out of sight, visible only as distorted shadows.

“This is literally the most direct example we can think of. The statistical average of all these observations is the cube,” Jerolmack said.

“But the cube never exists.”

‘Universal’ is saying a lot.

In the meantime, enjoy walking through an abandoned mine. From engineers and geologists to wise men, fools and crazy old coots, it’s dangerous, dirty work.

Travel inside the Earth:

—

Maybe out of the depths of post-war guilt and nihilism, some Germans are still trying to thread the needle of all experience through the new fields of knowledge.

There’s something about the earnest piety of ‘We Germans’ and the Natural World which unsettles. The triumphs and failures of German Idealism have convulsed to some terrible extremes.

Nevertheless, join Wener Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer as they use documentary filmmaking to discover something true about that Natural World and deep within ourselves and our origins.

Here’s an interview with both men here:

–