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Michael R Burch May 2020
It’s Hard Not To Be Optimistic: An Updated Sonnet to Science
by Michael R. Burch

“DNA has cured deadly diseases and allowed
labs to create animals with fantastic new
features.” ― U.S. News & World Report

It’s hard not to be optimistic
when things are so wondrously futuristic:
when DNA, our new Louie Pasteur,
can effect an autonomous, miraculous cure,
while labs churn out fluorescent monkeys
who, with infinite typewriters, might soon outdo USN&WR’s flunkeys.

It’s hard not to be optimistic
when the world is so delightfully pluralistic:
when Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive,
and Hawking says time can run backwards. We thrive,
befuddled drones, on someone else’s regurgitated nectar,
while our cheers drown out poet-alarmists who might Hector

the Achilles heel of pure science (common sense)
and reporters who tap out supersillyous nonsense.

NOTE: I am a fan of both real science and science fiction, and I like to think I can tell the difference, at least between the two extremes. I feel confident that Schrödinger didn’t think the cat in his famous experiment was both dead and alive. Rather, he was pointing out that we can’t know until we open the box, scratchings and smell aside. While traveling backwards in time is great for science fiction, it seems extremely doubtful as a practical application. And as for DNA curing deadly diseases ... well, it must have created them, so perhaps don’t give it too much credit!

Submitted to U.S. News & World Report

Dear Editor,

While I’m usually a fan of your magazine, as a writer I must take to task the Frankensteinian logic of the excerpt I cited, and I challenge you to publish my “letter” as proof that poets do have a function in the third millennium, even if it is only to suggest that paid writers should not create such outlandish, freakish horrors of the English language.

Somewhat irked, but still a fan,
Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: science, fiction, quantum, physics, Hawking, Schrodinger, cat, DNA, infinite, monkeys, typewriters, Shakespeare, lab, animals, new, features
JV Beaupre Oct 2019
Black holes are really cool.
The bigger the cooler.
And they are not really black.
Absorbing real quick, emitting real slow,
By George, that's the way to go.
1st 3 lines from a summary slide for a class I taught
MARK RIORDAN Mar 2018
STEPHEN HAWKING PASSED AWAY
A GOLIATH OF MANKIND
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL HUMAN BEING
WITH AN ADVENTUROUS INQUISITIVE MIND


WITH HIS PASSION FOR SCIENCE
AND HIS LOVE FOR OUT OF SPACE
HIS CONCERN FOR MAN AND THE
EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN RACE



WITH A HEART OF GOLD
AND A LOVE OF ALL THAT WAS KIND
WITHOUT HIS PRESENCE AMONG US
OUR FUTURE IS HARD TO FIND


HE THOUGHT OF WHAT COULD BE
AND SAW THE STRENGTH IN US ALL
HE HOPED THAT MAN WOULD CARRY ON
BEFORE WE ALL WOULD FALL



STEPHEN HAWKING WILL ALWAYS BE
CLOSE AND NOT TO FAR
FOR HIS SOUL WILL LIVE FOR EVER MORE
IN EVERY SHINING STAR
STEPHEN HAWKING HAS PASSED AWAY A BEAUTIFUL AND INQUISITIVE MIND AND A WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING. HIS FASCINATING WONDER ABOUT THE COSMOS AND OUR ROLE IN THE UNIVERSE GAVE HIM A GIFT THAT HE SHARED.

REST IN PEACE
A mind so brilliant
Genius that's consilient
Everyone thought he'd die but he was resilient
But he crafted a legacy that's so transilient
It's almost impossible to match
These hateful comments that he achieved nothing and will go to hell
Don't worry, stay in your thatch
Nobody will remember you there
Nobody will hear your blares
You crafted your own mare
In the name of struggle
Take a deeper look into the mirror after your mouthwash guggle
And tell me what you have accomplished
People won't have time for you're always angry or complaining

In his words he couldn't omit
But he found a way to transmit
Across all ears and minds
Perishing on Einstein's birthday
Such a Genius is hard to find
We'll never be able to replace him
Our race didn't deserve a Man like him
The day felt much more grim
Without his brilliance flying out of the whim
R.I.P Stephen Hawking
E over c2 Mar 2018
A modern day Renaissance Man
Is a scientist who can feel without a theory
Who can theorise without feeling

Seperate,  his emotions and logic lie
But together when needed again

Crafting himself a world that is both beautiful
And efficient


So Einstein's violin let light be made constant
So Hawking's humour let black holes be radiant
So Leonardo's paintings let machines be made

So let my words
My notes
My voice
Lead to the latter
Onto the new
A dedication to the art of science, and a prayer for the future.
Breeze-Mist Mar 2018
From ashes to ashes, and so from stardust to stardust
Despite the harsh stasis, a mind of wanderlust
From black holes to aliens to a history of time
We bid farewell to a man of great mind
aurora kastanias Mar 2018
You were born in the mist
Of a worldwide ****** war,
Shielded in the town of Oxford
No one would have known,

Who came to light
On a random winter’s day,
And would have studied darkness
To humanity’s bewilderment

And science dismay.

Who could have envisaged
A modest run-of-the-mill boy,
Having troubles reading would pass
From studying clocks and radios

To figure how they work,
To later toy with physics
Identify the laws,
Of a universe beginning

With a silent bang.

A singularity unfolding
Ever-expanding space,
Projecting multiverse odds
Stretching theories of strings,

To unfathomable infinity
Countless possibilities.

I fell upon you by hazard
Listening to your alas robotic voice,
Notions of evanescence and chaos
Information lost forevermore,

In deep mystifying black holes
Only to reach the end,
Of an article explaining
The genius you were recognised

Even when you were wrong.

Sustaining a verity
You humbly would recant,
Thirty years later tell the world
Indeed energy survives and is returned,

To cosmos under a radiation
They now call by your name,
For there are no “eternal prisons”
Not in space nor in your wheelchair.

Your alacrity showed humanity so
By flying in a zero gravity zone,
Defying the physics constraining your body
An endless fervent hope, I dare

Share with you. For one day
To travel space and understand
A theory encompassing all,
Started studying cosmology

All because of you.
On Stephen Hawking
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