Today at work, one of my coworkers noticed that the 13th falls on a Friday this month. He noticed it because February 13 is his birthday (he’ll be 47). We started talking about that and other superstitions and how they got started. One of our salesmen wandered into the back room where all of us techies hammer away at the computers, and said, in all seriousness, “You know, I think people were scared of Friday the 13th even before the movies came out!”
Anyway, I need to resolve some of my foreshadowings. Since nothing else noteworthy happened today, I’ll describe the sticker on the front of my computer (as I foreshadowed yesterday). The sticker is the logo of the computer store I work for, and has the name of the store and a picture of an atom, with three electrons in evenly-spaced orbits around an invisible nucleus. The sticker is a 1” x 1” square of aluminum, with an adhesive backing. It’s a metallic blue, with the logo scratched into the surface.
Although it’s a rather attractive sticker, as far as computer stickers go (no neon colors, a strictly minimalist design that catches the eye), it bothers me. The reason is, the model of the atom with each electron making a discrete orbit has been discarded by scientists. That old model was the one used in the first half of the 20th century. Now, they’ve decided that electrons don’t hold to discrete orbits – that around the nucleus, there is an “electron cloud” of rapidly and erratically-moving electrons. They hold to the same distance from the nucleus, depending on their energy level, but they don’t make neat circular or elliptical circles around the nucleus like planets around the sun, much as scientists visualized them doing several decades ago.
So, if you’re going to be a cutting-edge tech company, the least you could do is stay on top of current nuclear physics. Although I must reiterate that I highly approve of the graphic design.
It’s not just my computer store, though – the “electron cloud” idea just doesn’t seem to be penetrating the cultural consciousness. Take comic books, for example. They’re always drawing pictures of atoms. Heroes with names like “Nuclear Man” or “Atomic Man” or “Radioactive Man” always take the atom as a logo, but it’s always the old model of the atom – never the new.
I somehow doubt that my complaints will be regarded. The old model of the atom is just too symmetrical, too iconic, too symbolic to change. It would be like saying, “No, the yin-yang symbol can only be rounded on one side – the other side has to have right angles for the metaphor to work properly.” Besides, I have probably just give our store’s logo more attention than all of our customers for the past year combined. In the grand scheme of things, such trivial details are irrelevant. But as Michaelangelo is reputed to have said, “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.” Maybe, when I found a computer store with an atom logo, or write a comic book about a superhero who got his powers from a radioactive toothbrush, I’ll do it right – but until then, I’ll just complain about it here.
Anyway, I need to resolve some of my foreshadowings. Since nothing else noteworthy happened today, I’ll describe the sticker on the front of my computer (as I foreshadowed yesterday). The sticker is the logo of the computer store I work for, and has the name of the store and a picture of an atom, with three electrons in evenly-spaced orbits around an invisible nucleus. The sticker is a 1” x 1” square of aluminum, with an adhesive backing. It’s a metallic blue, with the logo scratched into the surface.
Although it’s a rather attractive sticker, as far as computer stickers go (no neon colors, a strictly minimalist design that catches the eye), it bothers me. The reason is, the model of the atom with each electron making a discrete orbit has been discarded by scientists. That old model was the one used in the first half of the 20th century. Now, they’ve decided that electrons don’t hold to discrete orbits – that around the nucleus, there is an “electron cloud” of rapidly and erratically-moving electrons. They hold to the same distance from the nucleus, depending on their energy level, but they don’t make neat circular or elliptical circles around the nucleus like planets around the sun, much as scientists visualized them doing several decades ago.
So, if you’re going to be a cutting-edge tech company, the least you could do is stay on top of current nuclear physics. Although I must reiterate that I highly approve of the graphic design.
It’s not just my computer store, though – the “electron cloud” idea just doesn’t seem to be penetrating the cultural consciousness. Take comic books, for example. They’re always drawing pictures of atoms. Heroes with names like “Nuclear Man” or “Atomic Man” or “Radioactive Man” always take the atom as a logo, but it’s always the old model of the atom – never the new.
I somehow doubt that my complaints will be regarded. The old model of the atom is just too symmetrical, too iconic, too symbolic to change. It would be like saying, “No, the yin-yang symbol can only be rounded on one side – the other side has to have right angles for the metaphor to work properly.” Besides, I have probably just give our store’s logo more attention than all of our customers for the past year combined. In the grand scheme of things, such trivial details are irrelevant. But as Michaelangelo is reputed to have said, “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.” Maybe, when I found a computer store with an atom logo, or write a comic book about a superhero who got his powers from a radioactive toothbrush, I’ll do it right – but until then, I’ll just complain about it here.
posted by Mark at 2/11/2004 10:28:00 PM
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