Thanks for sending the paper. Enjoyed it. Will look up the website when I
can find a moment -- not easy, I'm afraid.
One correction: I deserve no credit for pointing out that Newton was
greatly disturbed by what he called the "absurdity" of his discovery that
the mechanical philosophy is false -- something that he refused to believe,
and worked to the end of his life to disprove. That's standard history of
science, for half a century. Also, it's not so clear that Newton saw a
distinction between his (for him, as you say, narrow) interest in
properties of motion, etc., and the deeper and more important ones with
which he struggled in private. He apparently held the belief (not
unreasonable at the time) that the ancients had made remarkable
discoveries, but had preserved them only in a hidden form, which he sought
to decipher. Even the commitment to alchemy was not at all unreasonable
under the physical assumptions of the day: the corpuscularian hypothesis,
which Newton accepted, that all matter is made up of the same building
blocks, differently arranged. There's a very interesting book by Betty Jo
Dobbs and Margaret Jacob on Newton's thinking on all these matters, and
lots of other scholarly work.
I just came down from a mountaintop and ate a whole
1/4 kilo tub of ice cream. YUM! When I headed up, it
was New Year�s Day, and hardly any stores were open,
so I had along only 6 varieties of sustenance:
walnuts, raisins, bread, cheese, wine, and a blob of
chocolate. It was obviously enough, since I brought
half of it back, except the wine. But I WAS thinking
of this excellent Argentine ice cream...
I�m waiting for Bill and Miles to show up. To satisfy
their desire to drive more and my desire to hike more,
we hatched this plan for me to spend 2 nights in the
mountains while they drove further south. It was a
fine idea from my standpoint, and I�m sure they have
had a fine time too. Bill loves driving new roads, and
Miles is happy with a story in the tape player.
So I went on this fine trip from El Bolson, very near
where Ana Pelligrini lives when she�s here. I started
at the valley bottom, crossing the Rio Azul on the
ricketiest suspension bridge I�ve ever seen. This
footbridge is probably 100 meters long, with 4 cables
hanging across the river from towers on each side. The
two bottom cables have wooden slats connecting them,
for you to walk on, and the upper ones are for your
hands. Occasional wires hold the hand cables to the
bottom ones, just to hold things together. The thing
that makes it all so interesting is that about 60 % of
the slats are missing. Irregularly. So you might get a
few steps with relatively solid flooring beneath you,
and then you�ll have some steps where there are 2-foot
gaps between the slats. With the beautiful Rio Azul
there beneath your feet, clear down there. On my way
back today I sat by the river to cool my feet, and a
man and a woman came along to cross the bridge,
tourists. The woman went first, holding on to both
hand cables, which is a little awkward anyway because
they�re too far apart. So there she goes with her arms
poked straight out, concentrating on each step. She
got a good 40 feet out when the bridge started wildly
undulating, bouncing. Of course it was her husband,
jumping and swinging on that bridge, and grinning. (I
couldn�t even see his face, but I KNOW he was
grinning.) And I thought, "You know, he HAD to do
that. Just as surely as he has to grow whiskers on his
face, he had to bounce that bridge." It�s on the Y
chromosome. So if you find a guy who doesn�t do this,
either it�s because you barely know each other, or
else he�s a mutant, which might be good, but it�s
bound to have its downsides.
So anyway, I started at the river and got to see the
whole elevation array, from river bottom to
mountaintop. I camped both nights just below tree
line, and went up to the mountaintop yesterday. It was
beautiful weather, and I could see the whole nearby
world. It was all rock and snow and running water,
with the occasional spring flower, and warm enough in
shorts. Almost. And it was all friendly and
non-threatening, except for the occasional gust that
surpassed the "friendly" barrier. I had all day to do
this 3 or 4 hour hike, so I hung out up there and
practiced, "If I Only Had a Brain" on my harmonica.
The forest between here and tree line is lovely too,
with giant trees and an open understory, lots of
fallen logs. The annoying aspect of the forest was the
tabanos, these gigantic, voracious horseflies that do
the whole obnoxious stage of their life cycle in a 4-6
week period that�s happening right now. They whiz in
circles around you, looking for a good place to sink
their jaws. Actually, they might not have jaws. They
have huge green eyes and a long proboscus, like a
mosquito or elephant. I studied one that was half
dead, and was astounded to see its thinner-than-a-needle proboscus opening at its tip,
into 3 parts! These 3 parts apparently hinged a few
millimeters from the tip, and they would open, and
then close again, as smooth as a needle-point again.
This made me wonder which position they�d take for the
entry into my skin--pointy? Or opened, to grab a
chunk? I still don�t know. This might sound sort of
cold-hearted, to half kill a creature and then watch
its proboscus open and close (and even encourage it
with a stick), but I was feeling no mercy toward that
species.
The last week we�ve had lots of excellent hiking in
perfect sunshine in stunningly beautiful country.
Summer in the mountains--I love it. Miles is a
reluctant hiker, but has amazing endurance. He got
halfway up a mountain the other day listening to tapes
on his Walkman, and the other half was done with ice
cream bribery. Twice now Bill and I have taken turns
hiking on ahead, so that we both get to see the whole
thing and Miles doesn�t have to do it all. One of
those was to a refugio (cabin) on the slopes of El
Tronador (The Thunderer), up in the snow. This
mountain has glaciers coming off of it that fall off
cliffs, with resounding booms, just like thunder. Very
cool. We never saw any chunks falling, just heard
them.
So we�ve been hiking some, camping a lot, spending
some time in towns, not too much. Getting to practice
Spanish. Playing rummy. The time together is good. Not
bumpless, but good.
We�ll be home before you know it! I probably won�t
even see the internet again before then, although Bill
might. He�s much more dedicated. I hope all is well
with everyone.
Love, Jane