We see here a striking example of how Lewis Carroll used his Hunting of the Snark to foreshadow many of the significant scientific advances of the Victorian era. This stunning example of an x-ray of the Bellman’s head is not only a vivid drawing of a fax of a xerox of a sodden cocktail napkin of an x-ray of a genuine bird brain; it is also quite a poke in the eye of a certain Herr Wilhelm Röntgen.
The latter had claimed to invent the x-ray in 1895, without ever acknowledging Carroll’s groundbreaking contributions to the nascent science of looking through opaque objects to find nothing in particular within them.
Later researchers would further refine this technology until it became possible, by the 1920s, for aviocervellians such as Martin Heidegger (better known to Snarquistas as the Barrister) to find Nothing hidden everywhere.
Of course, the Bellman knew that all along, you can tell by the self-satisfied, smug look on his face … can’t you?
No comments:
Post a Comment