The new, the hidden and the strange

Well, The King's Speech was the winner, but it was not a sweeping victory, wasn't it? Best movie, best actor, best screenplay, ok, but that's it. Inception, True Grit and The Social Network are the truly losers. The Fighter is excellent, I said it before, but I am just sorry that Geoffrey Rush could not win a second Oscar after Shine; I think he deserves it. Christian Bale is amazing in the role and his flexibility is unique. I can't believe that the fucked brother in The Fighter is led by the same actor as that in Terminator Salvation. And, then, Melissa Leo. Never heard of her, but judging for her amazing resume, she must be an extraordinarily hard-working woman. She looks like that. And she is a terrible and genuinely disgusting character in her role! The way good actresses are supposed to be when they have to.

I know nothing about nothing, less about cinema and gossip and crap, you know, but I have to write something and am tired today. "You are always tired", you might say. Well, yes, yes, what can I do?

**

I did not finally attend the William Ramsay's reception and dinner last Friday at UCL, although I said I was going to do it. I even got my ticket... My ticket for a horrible dinner, terrible wine and free drinks to get mad and drunk. I don't know what to think about it, you can get drunk, that's fine (or not), but to take it for granted, support it or find pride or normality in it is a different matter... A nice occasion to make a perfect fool of yourself in a custome (I mean, tie and suit, what a falacy!) or acknowledge that capacity in others.

So I did not attend the dinner, but I have found out about Ramsay, Rayleigh, Crooks and Morris William Travers. Two books I should take a look at: "William Ramsay and the University College London" (1952); "A Life of Sir William Ramsay" (1956). I am brewing an idea in mind... .

So Travers and Ramsay, about twenty years his senior, learned of a new gas being discovered in America from heating uranium ores; however, it turned out to be helium. This element had been observed in a solar eclipse thirty years back. But the finding meant that the element was naturally on Earth. Between argon (recently found by the leading research of Rayleigh at the time) and helium, it should be something else, Travers and Ramsay, Ramsay and Travers said, in accordance to the pattern of the Periodic Table. And they went for them and got them and named them: neon, krypton and xenon; that is, in plain English, "the new", "the hidden" and "the strange". How about that?

Where is it today this nice sense of humanism in scientific research and discovery?

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