Emily Dickinson: A scientific mind?
I am on vacation and actually have some time to explore the lighter side of scientific thought. Digging through a used bookstore I found this great little poem from Emily Dickinson and thought it bared repeating:
"Faith" is a fine invention
When the Gentlemen can see--
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.
I wonder what she would say about nanotech today?
Although many writers of her day described nature, Dickinson's particular interest in science still stands out, as scientific ideas appear in more than 200 of her poems. The article "Sweet skepticism of the heart": Science in the poetry of Emily Dickinson goes into more depth about the scope of her writing.
My favorite piece of poetry trivia is the fact that you can sing almost any Emily Dickinson poem to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Amazing Grace," or, for that matter, the theme from "Gilligan's Island."
It's not that Emily was ahead of her time. Rather, she wrote most of her poems in iambic tetrameter, the same rythm later used in those songs.
This has nothing to do with science. It's just fun. ;-)
Science Buzz is supported by the National Science Foundation.
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