Excerpts
Science Quotes
From Freeman Dyson’s Is Science Mostly Driven by Ideas or by Tools?:
The physical sciences have alternated between revolutions driven by new ideas and explorations driven by new tools.
Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959):
A scientist, whether a theorist or experimenter, puts forward statements, or systems of statements, and tests them step by step. In the field of the empirical sciences, more particularly, he constructs hypotheses, or systems of theories, and tests them against experience by observation and experiment. I suggest that it is the task of the logic of scientific discovery, or the logic of knowledge, to give a logical analysis of this procedure; that is, to analyse the method of the empirical sciences.
In that case, Karl Popper would call something like fluids experiments a science.
Freeman Dyson, Origins of Life (Cambridge University Press, 1985):
The third and fourth names on my list of illustrious predecessors are those of Manfred Eigen and Leslie Orgel. Unlike Schrödinger and von Neumann, they are experimenters. They are explorers of experimental approaches to the problem of the origin of life. Eigen and his colleagues in Germany did experiments that showed us biological organisation originating spontaneously and evolving in the test tube. What precisely they demonstrated was that a solution of nucleotide monomers will, under suitable conditions, give rise to a nucleic acid polymer molecule that replicates and mutates and competes with its progeny for survival. From a certain point of view, one might claim that these experiments already achieved the spontaneous generation of life from non-life. They brought us at least to the point where we could ask and answer questions about the ability of nucleic acids to synthesise and organise themselves (Eigen et al., 1981). Unfortunately, the conditions in Eigen’s tests were not really prebiotic. To make his experiments work, Eigen put into the test tubes a polymerase enzyme, a protein catalyst extracted from a living bacteriophage.
Empiricism
I’m reading the first volume of Faraday’s diary
a lot more ‘loose’ than I expected
a lot of his observations was based on smell and visuals
he was meticulous in writing everything down, every detail and attempt. I should do the same
On Optimal Sleeping
Sound cancellation
Foam earplugs — okay, but you have to re-buy them and they are not silent enough.
Custom earplugs — guessing they are worse than foam earplugs.
Wax earplugs — really weird and uncomfortable to use.
AirPods Pro 3 — comfortable and almost zero sound penetration; last week I managed to sleep through a full-on party upstairs from my neighbours.
Temperature
20C is too cold
21C optimal, but only when I wear socks
Bike touring
I’m more convinced that less weight on my bike increases my utility more than the objects that occupy such weight.
My bike currently feels bumpy on gravel. Currently I run 38mm Schwalbe marathon tyres
i’m experimenting with 50mm x 700c gravel wheels - Schwalbe Rx Pro’s. Will report back
References
Dyson, F. J. (1997). Imagined Worlds. Harvard University Press. (See also “Is Science Mostly Driven by Ideas or by Tools?”, available here.)
Dyson, F. J. (1985). Origins of Life. Cambridge University Press.
Eigen, M., Gardiner, W., Schuster, P., & Winkler-Oswatitsch, R. (1981). The origin of genetic information. Scientific American, 244(4), 88–118.
Mehta, P. (2025). arXiv:2509.09892. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09892
Popper, K. R. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson.