Science

Planting man on another planet, colonizing Mars or Venus, expanding man's outreach to the farthest parts of the galaxy... Mankind is beginning to explore for places to land its ships... the 21st century Lewis and Clark expedition is closer than you would think.

The search for our universal brethren is on -- man is looking for them now. How will we find them? What will we do when we do?

After 116 years, Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland is still the best introduction to the method of analogy used by virtually all mathematicians and physicists when describing the fourth dimension. In recent years there have been more than a dozen new editions in English, and translations into at least nine foreign languages.

WE TAKE DRUGS FOR TWO MAIN REASONS; EITHER TO RESTORE ourselves to the condition we regard as normal --to cure infections, and to take away pain; or to release us from normality--to enable us to feel more lively, or more relaxed; to alter our mood, or our perceptions. It is with this second category (of drug use, not of drugs; the drugs themselves may be the same) that I am concerned.

Man's interest in character is founded on an intensely practical need. In whatsoever relationship we deal with our fellows, we base our intercourse largely on our understanding of their characters. The trader asks concerning his customer, "Is he honest?" and the teacher asks about the pupil, "Is he earnest?" The friend bases his friendship on his good opinion of his friend; the foe seeks to know the weak points in the hated one's make-up; and the maiden yearning for her lover whispers to, herself, "Is he true?" Upon our success in reading the character of others, upon our understanding of ourselves hangs a good deal of our life's success or failure.

In this little treatise I am presenting to all students of nature great things to observe and to consider. Great as much because of their intrinsic excellence as of their absolute novelty, and also on account of the instrument by the aid of which they have made themselves accessible to our senses.