from 'Homer and Langley' by E.L. Doctorow




The team's set-up consisted of an inductee connected to a conductor. The energy within this connection oscillates rapidly between an electric field in the conductor.and a magnetic field in the inductee. The frequency of this oscillation is controlled by the conductor.s ability to store charge and the inductee's ability to produce a magnetic field. If the frequency in the energy-transmitter's connection is different from that of the receiver's connection they are non-resonant. The result is that the magnetic field coming from the transmitter interferes destructively with the field building up in the receiver, constraining energy transfer. But if the transmitter and receiver are resonant, the team reasoned, the oscillating fields of their two connections would always be in sync, meaning the interference is constructive and the amount of energy transferred is boosted.


Between two bodies of water
somehow or when parted
there exists a potential land bridge.
where water craft must adapt to wheels
or maybe hooves.
The sparkling spokes glistening in a noonday sun.

Between two bodies of water
sometimes possessing memories
of vast oceans surrounding little isles of palms
and coconuts.
The merpeople would gather on friendly shores,
with awe filled wonder to gaze upon even vaster places.

But healthy living won't always prevent risk, making regular screenings a must


By Jenny Lee, For Canwest News Service
www.ottawacitizen.com/technol...ory.html

Amanda McNally's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when McNally was just 12.

"I'd never heard the words 'breast cancer' before," said McNally, now 36. "That was 1985. I didn't know what it meant. I got that she was sick, that she needed to be treated, but I never thought that she would die. I don't think your mind allows you to think that at that age."

"Everyone knew it was going to be terminal but for me," McNally recalled. "I honestly believed she would get better and when I did realize she wasn't, she was in palliative care."

McNally's mom died when she was 16.

Three years ago when McNally's son, Jacob, was born, all the difficult feelings came back.

"I was quite overcome with grief at not having my mom and having those worries about if what happened to my mom happens to me," the White Rock, B.C. mom said. "I was really, really taken over by it.

"I started really realizing what my mom must have gone through. I don't want my children growing up knowing what it's like to lose your mother to cancer. For me, living most of my life without my mom, every milestone was hard. Having children without my mother is probably the worst thing I've experienced so far."

McNally made a conscious decision to lower her risk of getting breast cancer by taking preventative lifestyle measures. And to back that up -- after all, there are no guarantees -- she's also making sure she's goes for regular screening mammograms.

"When I lost my mom, I know how powerless I felt against this disease," said McNally who trained in early childhood education but now volunteers at the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation as run director for its Run for the Cure fundraiser.

"For me, I refuse to feel powerless. I'm doing something about it. If I do get diagnosed with breast cancer one day, I know that I've done everything I can to catch it early enough that I could change the end of the story."

One-third to one-half of all breast cancers in developed countries could be prevented by lifestyle changes, a cancer prevention expert says.

This conservative range recognizes there is a lack of consensus within the research community, Barbara Kaminsky, CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society (B.C. and Yukon) said in an interview.

The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research number is 38 to 42 per cent, while several sources suggest 50 per cent of breast cancers could be prevented with vitamin D, said Kaminsky, chair of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (B.C./Yukon) 2020 Prevention Working Group established in 2007 as part of a plan to achieve a future without breast cancer.

Contrary to popular belief, heredity is not a major factor in breast cancer. Only five to 10 per cent of breast cancers are due to heredity, Kaminsky said.

"The emerging research has to do with healthy living messages," Kaminsky said. "Smoking -- don't do it. Be physically active, keep a healthy body weight, eat a healthy diet. Beyond that, supplementing with vitamin D and avoiding the use of hormone replacement therapy shows more and more promise."

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are also looking promising as future agents for cancer prevention.

"A lot of women don't think that breast cancer is preventable," Carolyn Gotay, Canadian Cancer Society cancer primary prevention chair said.

While the healthy living message may seem boring or uninspired, the connection between healthy living and reducing breast cancer risk is "irrefutable," Gotay said.

"There is too much evidence. When you have thousands of articles all saying the same thing, this isn't something people are making up. The thing is we can't tell who are the 30 to 50 per cent who won't get breast cancer."

At the moment, most physicians are still very treatment focused, Kaminsky said.

"If you went to the average practitioner who treats cancer patients, a relatively small percentage would say that prevention is affected by lifestyle. I think that is just part of the evolution in health care generally," Kaminsky said. "The whole area of disease prevention is not something the average physician has had a lot of exposure to."

The body is made up of biochemical reactions. Whether you're taking drugs or making changes in the way your body works through what you eat and how you move, it's still affecting the biochemical processes.

Physical exertion speeds the course of activity in the colon. "Perhaps your colon is exposed to many bad by-products for shorter periods of time," Gotay said. "Other biochemical things happen when muscles work. There are certain things they release into the blood stream to help your body work more efficiently that may move by-products down the line more quickly. We don't know all the answers, but it is a constant interplay."

The same goes for food. "Different substances in food get translated into good things and bad," Gotay said.

"Some interesting studies are showing that even older women who take up an exercise program can reduce their risk of breast cancer, so it's never too late," said Gotay who is planning a study on the topic. "Even if you're 65, or older, it doesn't mean you're stuck with your lifestyle and your risk factors the way they are. You can make a difference."

"Hopefully in the future we'll have better ways of pinpointing who is going to be getting breast cancer. Some of it is a random mutation. Every day your body is making new cells and every once in a while, something goes wrong. Some of it may be random, some of it isn't random," Gotay said.

Even if you change your lifestyle you can still get breast cancer, Kaminsky said. "This is about reducing the risk, not about a guarantee."

These days, McNally alternates screening mammograms with ultrasounds, every six months.

"Every time I go for a mammogram, in the car, I think: 'Maybe I won't go this time.' I'd be lying if I didn't say that was true," McNally said. "When they tell you everything is fine, there is no feeling like it in the world. Every time I go, I know there's a possibility they are going to tell me things aren't fine.

"There are things you can't control. These are the things we can. We can eat well, we can get some exercise. I think it's important to take control of the things we can. There are just so many things that blindside you. At the end of the day, to eat right, big deal. To walk for 30 minutes. Big deal. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a drop in the bucket."

jennylee@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

As usual there is enough mixed metaphors to toss a salad, I still wonder at political opponents who forget that they are
rivals during elections not enemies, then ignore the fact that after the votes are counted there is only one side to represent.
Of course I'll always be more of a romantic than a realist any day or night.






Natural freedom is the only object of the policy of the [Native Americans]; with this freedom do nature and climate rule alone amongst them ... [Native Americans] maintain their freedom and find abundant nourishment . . . [and are] people who live without laws, without police, without religion.
—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Jesuit and Savage in New France

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand... ~Thomas Paine

American Indians have played a central role in shaping the history of the nation, and they are deeply woven into the social fabric of much of American life ... During the last three decades of the twentieth century, scholars of ethnohistory, of the "new Indian history," and of Native American studies forcefully demonstrated that to understand American history and the American experience, one must include American Indians.
—Robbie Ethridge, Creek Country

The Indians presented a reverse image of European civilization which helped America establish a national identity that was neither savage nor civilized.
—Charles Sanford, The Quest for Paradise

Washington had a six-point plan for civilization which included,

1. impartial justice toward Native Americans
2. regulated buying of Native American lands
3. promotion of commerce
4. promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Native American society
5. presidential authority to give presents
6. punishing those who violated Native American rights.


Through the years, Native Americans became US citizens by:

1. Treaty provision (as with the Mississippi Choctaw)
2. Registration and land allotment under the Dawes Act of February 8, 1887
3. Issuance of Patent in Fee Simple
4. Adopting Habits of Civilized Life
5. Minor Children
6. Citizenship by Birth
7. Becoming Soldiers and Sailors in the U.S. Armed Forces
8. Marriage to a US citizen
9. Special Act of Congress.

General Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe, created the articles of surrender which General Robert E. Lee signed at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Gen. Parker, who served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's military secretary and was a trained attorney, was once rejected for Union military service because of his race. At Appomattox, Lee is said to have remarked to Parker, "I am glad to see one real American here," to which Parker replied, "We are all Americans."

Forced termination is wrong, in my judgment, for a number of reasons. First, the premises on which it rests are wrong ... The second reason for rejecting forced termination is that the practical results have been clearly harmful in the few instances in which termination actually has been tried ... The third argument I would make against forced termination concerns the effect it has had upon the overwhelming majority of tribes which still enjoy a special relationship with the Federal government ... The recommendations of this administration represent an historic step forward in Indian policy. We are proposing to break sharply with past approaches to Indian problems.
—President Richard Nixon, Special Message on Indian Affairs, July 8, 1970

As of 2000, the largest tribes in the U.S. by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten.[91] In addition, there are a number of tribes that are recognized by individual states, but not by the federal government. The rights and benefits associated with state recognition vary from state to state.



Hitting the Champagne Trail

There's an olive stem I'd like to nail
To an intrinsic paramour,
With flavored sunshine du jour.
In this blank season of debate, whether
I bank left, right, even in between,
To mount head, heart or spleen,
I lean too cautiously, careen expectantly
From heat and frost, belated moderation
Rarely conceals the obvious intent.
Simply a race of competitive jeu d'esprit,
Or might I calm and render passive advice,
To entertain coolly without specific aim,
Passing time and passage, staving rain,
Remaining sanely ambivalent, surely a losing
Recipe, if taste and suave fare were all that
With a profound statement or two delivered je ne se qua,
Home free in a nutshell, clung to with a bootstrap, touched
And suddenly everything is changed.




If outrage isn't complaining, I don't know what is.

This is where relative comparisons break down.
The globe has every and no particular place in its cross-hairs,
marked alternately for disaster and relief.
The birth of the leisure class gives a lot opportunity for good works
and a great number of other pursuits with copious amounts of disposable income
and disposable time, that gives voice to a great many choices.
I'm not really sure if being spoiled prevents gratefulness, but it might prevent
certain memory functions from operating with realistic comparisons.
I can't quite complain about high prices of gas and food, so long as others have little or no food and gas.

I'm guessing that Martian Immigration Laws are going to be very stringent.
Apparently the Human Condition demands that to be appreciated the Cost Of Living
must be very high indeed.
Sometimes I think, to eliminate one problem is to invite another.
Perhaps for every cure there is a side-effect and for every side-effect a cure.


Whether we mine earth, ocean, sky or all,
we are not just looking for treasure,
working to earn our way;
it's the going for discovery
and the coming back for sharing;
and so much more of what we don't understand.
The Warrior may say, "Today is a good day to die!",
in their noble quest of test and all the rest.
And those of us that wait their turn
and are left behind.
hope and pray for their safe return,
at the time of tragedy,
it may seem
that we pay an even higher price
by having to stay and still go on



It is worthwhile to remark that a product is no sooner created than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value. When the producer has put the finishing hand to his product, he is most anxious to sell it immediately, lest its value should diminish in his hands. Nor is he less anxious to dispose of the money he may get for it; for the value of money is also perishable. But the only way of getting rid of money is in the purchase of some product or other. Thus the mere circumstance of creation of one product immediately opens a vent for other products. (J.B. Say


Thank goodness for Classics, they never go out of style.


List of eponymous laws

A

* Amara's law — "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."
* Amdahl's law — Used to find out the maximum expected improvement to an overall system when only a part of it is improved. Named after Gene Amdahl (born 1922).
* Ampère's law — In physics, it relates the circulating magnetic field in a closed loop to the electric current passing through the loop. Discovered by André-Marie Ampère.
* Archie's law — In petrophysics, relates the in-situ electrical conductivity of sedimentary rock to its porosity and brine saturation. Named for Gus Archie (1907–1978).
* Asimov's three laws of robotics — Also called, more simply, the Three Laws of Robotics or just the Three Laws, a set of rules which the fictional robots appearing in the writings of Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) must obey. There were eventually four Laws when the Zeroeth was added.
* Avogadro's law — In chemistry and physics, one of the gas laws, relating to the volume and molarity of a gas.

[edit] B–D

* Beer-Lambert law — In optics, the empirical relationship of the absorption of light to the properties of the material through which the light is traveling. Independently discovered (in various forms) by Pierre Bouguer in 1729, Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1760 and August Beer in 1852.
* Benford's law — In any collection of statistics, a given statistic has roughly a 30% chance of starting with the digit 1.
* Biot-Savart law — Describes the magnetic field set up by a steady current density. Named for Jean-Baptiste Biot and Félix Savart.
* Birch's Law — In geophysics, establishes a linear relation of the compressional wave velocity of rocks and minerals of a constant average atomic weight. Named after Francis Birch.
* Boyle's law — In physics, one of the gas laws, relating the volume and pressure of an ideal gas held at a constant temperature. Discovered by and named after Robert Boyle (1627–1691).
* Bradford's law — a pattern described by Samuel C. Bradford in 1934 that estimates the exponentially diminishing returns of extending a library search.
* Bremermann's limit — Named after Hans-Joachim Bremermann, is the maximum computational speed of a self-contained system in the material universe.
* Brooks' law — "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." Named after Fred Brooks, author of the well known book on Project Management, The Mythical Man-Month.
* Buys Ballot's law — Concerned with the notion that the wind travels counterclockwise around low pressure zones in the Northern Hemisphere. Named for C.H.D. Buys Ballot, who published an empirical validation of an existing theory, in 1857.
* Byerlee's law — Gives the stress circumstances in the Earth's crust at which fracturing along a geological fault takes place.
* Charles's law — States that at constant pressure, the volume of a given mass of a gas increases or decreases by the same factor as its temperature (in kelvins) increases or decreases. Named for Jacques Charles.
* Clarke's three laws — Formulated by Arthur C. Clarke. Several corollaries to these laws have also been proposed.
o First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
o Second law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
o Third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
* Classen's law — Theo Classen's "Logarithmic Law of Usefulness" - 'usefulness=log(technology)'.
* Conway's Law — Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it. Named for Melvin Conway.
* Cooper's law — The number of radio frequency conversations which can be concurrently conducted in a given area doubles every 30 months.
* Coulomb's law — An inverse-square law indicating the magnitude and direction of electrostatic force that one stationary, electrically charged object of small dimensions (ideally, a point source) exerts on another. It is named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.
* Dale's principle — In neuroscience, states that a neuron is capable of producing and secreting only one neurotransmitter from its axon terminals. Named after Henry Hallett Dale but more recent data suggests it to be false.
* Dalton's law — In chemistry and physics, states that the total pressure exerted by a gaseous mixture is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of each individual component in a gas mixture. Also called Dalton's law of partial pressure, and related to the ideal gas laws, this empirical law was observed by John Dalton in 1801.
* De Morgan's laws — Apply to formal logic regarding the negation of pairs of logical operators.
* Dermott's Law — The sidereal period of major satellites tends to follow a geometric series. Named after Stanley Dermott.
* Dilbert Principle — Coined by Scott Adams as a variation of the Peter Principle of employee advancement. Named after Adams' Dilbert comic strip, it proposes that "the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management."
* Dollo's Law — "An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors." Simply put this law states that evolution is not reversible.
* Dulong–Petit law — States the classical expression for the specific heat capacity of a crystal due to its lattice vibrations. Named for Pierre Louis Dulong and Alexis Thérèse Petit.
* Dunbar's number — A theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150. First proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar.
* Duverger's law — After Maurice Duverger. Winner-take-all (or first-past-the-post) electoral systems tend to create a 2 party system, while proportional representation tends to create a multiple party system.

[edit] E–G

* Faraday's law of induction — States that a magnetic field changing in time creates a proportional electromotive force. Named for Michael Faraday, based on his work in 1831.
* Faraday's law of electrolysis — States that the mass of a substance produced at an electrode during electrolysis is proportional to the number of moles of electrons transferred at that electrode; again named for Michael Faraday.
* Fick's laws of diffusion — Describe diffusion, and define the diffusion coefficient D. Derived by Adolf Fick in the year 1855.
* Finagle's law — Generalized version of Murphy's law, fully named Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives and usually rendered, "Anything that can go wrong, will," or, "If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment." Not strictly eponymous, since there was no Finagle.
* Fitts' law — A principle of human movement published in 1954 by Paul Fitts which predicts the time required to move from a starting position to a final target area. Fitts' law is used to model the act of pointing, both in the real world, e.g. with a hand or finger, and on a computer, e.g. with a mouse.
* Fourier's law, also known as the Law of Heat Conduction, states that the time rate of heat flow Q through a slab (or a portion of a perfectly insulated wire) is proportional to the gradient of temperature difference; named for Joseph Fourier.
* Gall's law — "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked."
* Gauss's law — In physics, gives the relation between the electric flux flowing out a closed surface and the charge enclosed in the surface. It was formulated by Carl Friedrich Gauss.
* Gay-Lussac's law — "The pressure of a fixed mass and fixed volume of a gas is directly proportional to the gas's temperature."
* Ginsberg's Theorem — A set of adages based on the Laws of thermodynamics.
* Godwin's law — An adage in Internet culture that states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Coined by Mike Godwin in 1990.
* Goodhart's law — When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
* Graham's law — In physics, a gas law which states that the average kinetic energy of the molecules of two samples of different gases at the same temperature is identical. It is named for Thomas Graham (1805–1869), who formulated it.
* Greenspun's Tenth Rule — Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. Coined by Philip Greenspun.
* Gresham's law — "Bad money drives good money out of circulation". Coined in 1858 by British economist Henry Dunning Macleod, and named for Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579). The principle had been stated before Gresham by others, including Nicolaus Copernicus.
* Grimm's law — Explains correspondence between some consonants in Germanic languages and those in other Indo-European languages. Discovered by Jacob Grimm, (1785–1863), German philologist and mythologist and one of the Brothers Grimm.
* Gustafson's Law (also known as Gustafson-Barsis' Law) is a law in computer engineering which states that any sufficiently large problem can be efficiently parallelized. Coined by John Gustafson in 1988.

[edit] H–K

* Hanlon's razor — A corollary of Finagle's law, and a play on Occam's razor, normally taking the form, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." As with Finagle, possibly not strictly eponymous. Alternately, "Do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence."
* Hartley's law - a way to quantify information and its line rate in an analog communications channel. Named for Ralph Hartley (1888-1970)
* Hawthorne effect — A form of reactivity whereby subjects improve an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they are being studied. Named after Hawthorne Works.
* Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle — States that one cannot measure values (with arbitrary precision) of certain conjugate quantities, which are pairs of observables of a single elementary particle. The most familiar of these pairs is position and momentum.
* Hebb's law — "Neurons that fire together wire together."
* Henry's law — The mass of a gas that dissolves in a definite volume of liquid is directly proportional to the pressure of the gas provided the gas does not react with the solvent.
* Herblock's law — "If it's good, they'll stop making it." Possibly coined by Herbert Lawrence Block, whose pen name was Herblock.
* Hofstadter's law — "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." It was created by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach.
* Hooke's law — The tension on a spring or other elastic object is proportional to the displacement from the equilibrium. Frequently cited in Latin as "Ut tensio sic vis." Named after Robert Hooke (1635–1703).
* Hotelling's law in economics — Under some conditions, it is rational for competitors to make their products as nearly identical as possible.
* Hubble's law — Galaxies recede from an observer at a rate proportional to their distance to that observer. Formulated by Edwin Hubble in 1929.
* Hutber's law — "Improvement means deterioration." Coined by financial journalist Patrick Hutber.
* Hume's Law — In meta-ethics, the assertion that normative statements cannot be deduced exclusively from descriptive statements.
* Isaac Bonewits's laws of magic — "Laws" synthesized from a multitude of belief systems from around the world, collected in order to explain and categorize magical beliefs within a cohesive framework, by Isaac Bonewits.
* Kepler's laws of planetary motion — Govern the motion of the planets around the sun. First discovered by Johannes Kepler.
* Kerckhoffs' principle of secure cryptography — A cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge.
* Keynes's Law — Demand creates its own supply.
* Kirchhoff's laws — One law in thermodynamics and two about electrical circuits, named after Gustav Kirchhoff.
* Kopp's Law — The molecular heat capacity of a solid compound is the sum of the atomic heat capacities of the elements composing it. Named for Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp.
* Kranzberg's First Law of Technology — Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. [1]

[edit] L–M

* Leibniz's law — A principle in metaphysics also known as the Identity of Indiscernibles. It states: "If two objects have all their properties in common, then they are one and the same object."
* Linus's law — "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Named for Linus Torvalds.
* Little's law — In queuing theory, "The average number of customers in a stable system (over some time interval) is equal to their average arrival rate, multiplied by their average time in the system." The law was named for John Little from results of experiments in 1961.
* Littlewood's law — States that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. Coined by Professor J E Littlewood, (1885–1977).
* Lotka's law — In infometrics, states that the number of authors publishing a certain number of articles is a fixed ratio to the number of authors publishing a single article. As the number of articles published increases, authors producing that many publications become less frequent. For example, there may be 1/4 as many authors publishing two articles within a specified time period as there are single-publication authors, 1/9 as many publishing three articles, 1/16 as many publishing four articles, etc. Though the law itself covers many disciplines, the actual ratios involved are very discipline-specific.
* Meadow's law — A precept, now discredited, that since cot deaths are so rare, "One is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proved otherwise." It was named for Sir Roy Meadow, a discredited paediatrician prominent in the United Kingdom in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
* Metcalfe's law — In communications and network theory, states that the value of a system grows as approximately the square of the number of users of the system. Framed by Robert Metcalfe in the context of the ethernet.
* Moore's law — An empirical observation stating that the complexity of integrated circuits doubles every 24 months. Outlined in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel.
* Moynihan's law — "The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country." Coined by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003).
* Muphry's law — "If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written." First described by Australian editor John Bangsund in 1992. Name derived from Murphy's law.
* Murphy's law — "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Ascribed to Edward A. Murphy, Jr.

[edit] N–Q

* Newton's law of cooling — The rate of cooling (or heating) of a body due to convection is proportional to the difference between the body temperature and the ambient temperature.
* Newton's laws of motion — In physics, three scientific laws concerning the behaviour of moving bodies, which are fundamental to classical mechanics (and since Einstein, which are valid only within inertial reference frames). Discovered and stated by Isaac Newton (1643–1727).
o First law: "A body remains at rest, or moves in a straight line (at a constant velocity), unless acted upon by a net outside force."
o Second law: "The acceleration of an object of constant mass is proportional to the force acting upon it."
o Third law: "Whenever one body exerts force upon a second body, the second body exerts an equal and opposite force upon the first body."
* Occam's razor — States that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. ("Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.") When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. Named after William of Ockham (ca.1285–1349).
* Ohm's law — In physics, states that the ratio of the potential difference (or voltage drop) between the ends of a conductor (and resistor) to the current flowing through it is a constant, provided the temperature also does not change. Discovered and named after Georg Simon Ohm (1789–1854).
* Okrent's Law — "The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true." Stated by Daniel Okrent, first Public Editor for The New York Times
* Pareto principle — States that for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, but framed by management thinker Joseph M. Juran.
* Parkinson's law — "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Coined by C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993), who also coined its corollary, "Expenditure rises to meet income." In computers: Programs expand to fill all available memory.
* Peter principle — "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) in his book The Peter Principle. In his follow-up book, The Peter Prescription, he offered possible solutions to the problems his Principle could cause.
* Planck's law — In physics, given a black body at a given temperatures, describes the spectral radiance of the object. After Max Planck.
* Poe's law (poetry) — There is a maximum desirable length for poems: "The unit of poetry must be fixed by the reader's capacity of attention, and ... the limits of a poem must accord with the limits of a single movement of intellectual apprehension and emotional exaltation," named for Edgar Allan Poe.[2][3] See "The Philosophy of Composition".
* Poe's law (religious fundamentalism) — "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."[4] named after Nathan Poe who formulated it on christianforums.com in 2005.[5] Although it originally referred to creationism, the scope later widened to religious fundamentalism.
* Poisson's law of large numbers — For independent random variables with a common distribution, the average value for a sample tends to the mean as sample size increases. Named after Siméon-Denis Poisson (1781–1840) and derived from "Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements en matière criminelle et en matière civile" (1837; "Research on the Probability of Criminal and Civil Verdicts").
* Premack's principle — More probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors. Named by David Premack (1925 - ) [Roeckelein, Dictionary of Theories, Laws, and Concepts in Psychology, Greenwood, 1998 ISBN 0313304602 548 pages page 384]

[edit] R–T

* Raoult's law — In chemistry, Raoult's law states that the vapor pressure of mixed liquids is dependent on the vapor pressures of the individual liquids and the molar vulgar fraction of each present in solution.
* Reed's law — The assertion of David P. Reed that the utility of large networks, particularly social networks, can scale exponentially with the size of the network.
* Reilly's law of retail gravitation — People generally patronize the largest mall in the area.
* Roemer's law — A hospital bed built is a bed filled.
* Rothbard's law — Everyone specializes in his own area of weakness.
* Salem hypothesis — The conjecture that an education in the engineering disciplines forms a predisposition to Scientific Creationism.
* Sarnoff's law — The value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers.
* Say's law — Attributed to economist Jean-Baptiste Say and contrasted to Keynes' law (discussed above), saying that "supply creates its own demand," i.e., if businesses produce more output in a free market economy, the wages and other payment for productive inputs will provide sufficient demand so that there is no general glut[1].
* Sayre's law — "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue." By way of corollary, the law adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter."
* Schneier's Law — "Any person can invent a security system so clever that she or he can't think of how to break it."
* Segal's law — "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."
* Shermer's Last Law — A corollary of Clarke's three laws, it states that "Any sufficiently advanced alien intelligence is indistinguishable from God." Originally posited in Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column in the Jan 2002 issue of Scientific American.
* Skitt's law — A corollary of Muphry's law, variously expressed as, "Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself," or, "The likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster."
* Smeed's Law — An empirical rule relating traffic fatalities to traffic congestion as measured by the proxy of motor vehicle registrations and country population. After R. J. Smeed. [2]
* Snell's law — The simple formula used to calculate the refraction of light when travelling between two media of differing refractive index. It is named after one of its discoverers, Dutch mathematician Willebrord van Roijen Snell (1580–1626).
* Sowa's law of standards — "Whenever a major organization develops a new system as an official standard for X, the primary result is the widespread adoption of some simpler system as a de facto standard for X."
* Stang's law — A Proto-Indo-European phonological rule named after Norwegian linguist Christian Stang. The law governs the word-final sequences of a vowel, followed by a laryngeal or a semivowel */y/ or */w/, followed by a nasal, and according to the law those sequences are simplified in a way that laryngeals and semivowels are dropped, with compensatory lengthening of a preceding vowel.
* Stefan–Boltzmann law — The total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body in unit time is directly proportional to the fourth power of the black body's thermodynamic temperature. Named for Jožef Stefan (1835-1893) and Ludwig Boltzmann.
* Stevens' power law — In physics, this law relates the intensity of a stimulus to its perceived strength. It supersedes the Weber-Fechner law, since it can describe a wider range of sensations. The theory is named after its inventor, S. Smith Stevens (1906–1973).
* Stigler's law — No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer, named by statistician Stephen Stigler who attributes it to sociologist Robert K. Merton, making the law self-referential.
* Stokes' law — An expression for the frictional force exerted on spherical objects with very small Reynolds numbers, named for George Gabriel Stokes, (1819–1903)
* Sturgeon's law — "Nothing is always absolutely so." Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985).
* Sturgeon's revelation — "90 percent of everything is crud." The last word is often misquoted as "crap".
* Sutton's law — "Go where the money is". Often cited in medical schools to teach new doctors to spend resources where they are most likely to pay off. The law is named after bank robber Willie Sutton, who when asked why he robbed banks, is claimed to have answered "Because that's where the money is."
* Szemerényi's law — A Proto-Indo-European phonological rule, named after Hungarian linguist Oswald Szemerényi, according to which word-final clusters of vowels (V), resonants (R) and of either */s/ or */h₂/ are simplified by dropping the word-final fricative (*/h₂/ was phonetically itself probably a back fricative), with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel.
* Thatcher's law — "The unexpected happens. You had better prepare for it." — named after former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.[6][7]
* Thomas theorem — "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences," a social law as far as there are any. (After W.I. Thomas and D.S. Thomas.)

[edit] U–Z

* Verdoorn's Law — In economics, this law pertains to the relationship between the growth of output and the growth of productivity. According to the law, faster growth in output increases productivity due to increasing returns. Named after Dutch economist, Petrus Johannes Verdoorn.
* Verner's law — Stated by Karl Verner in 1875, Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s and *x, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively *b, *d, *z and *g.
* Weber-Fechner law — This law named after the Germans Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Theodor Fechner attempts to describe the human perception of various physical stimuli. In most cases, Stevens' power law gives a more accurate description.
* Weiner's Law of Libraries — There are no answers, only cross-references. [8]
* Wike's law of low odd primes — "If the number of experimental treatments is a low odd prime number, then the experimental design is unbalanced and partially confounded." (Wike, 1973, pp. 192-193).[9]
* Wiltshire's Law of Explanation — "To define is to limit." (Nevsky, 1964, pp. 65-68).[10]
* Wirth's law — Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
* Zawinski's law — Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
* Zipf's law — In linguistics, the observation that the frequency of use of the nth-most-frequently-used word in any natural language is approximately inversely proportional to n, or, more simply, that a few words are used very often, but many or most are used rarely. Named after George Kingsley Zipf (1902–1950), whose statistical work research led to the observation. More generally, the term Zipf's law refers to the probability distributions involved, which are applied by statisticians not only to linguistics but also to fields remote from that.





Native Kentuckian

a fortunate son of a Wells

I've almost always been healthy,
hardly have had time to be starved,
being forever hungry,
I've been beat,
but never beaten,
I'm defiant as hell,
yet angelic as well,
a proud fortunate son of a Wells.

This is not a boast
but an indictable statement of fact,
that's full of regret, remorse and shame
and a yell for help
for all those that are not always healthy
because they are starving unnecessarily,
made hungry with any defiance beaten out,
the unfortunate sons and daughters of us all.