I don't suppose most people were aware that 2005 was the "Year Of Physics," representing the 100th anniversary of Einstein's most famous breakthroughs. (I hear that yesterday was the 100th birthday of E=mc². Trivia fun.) I was aware of the "Year Of Physics" only because I happen to eat lunch with a physicist every other Wednesday, and even he couldn't really convince me to care. The human obsession with base ten is cute, I grant you, but it's hard to maintain enthusiasm when a new centennial roles around every year.

However, one bonus of the "Year Of Physics" is that it's got the physicists all riled up. I personally enjoyed a Guardian Unlimited editorial, 'Keats claimed physics destroyed beauty. Keats was being a prat.'

John Keats talked of "unweaving the rainbow", suggesting that Newton destroyed the beauty of nature by analyzing light with a prism and splitting it into different colours. Keats was being a prat. Physicists also smile when we see rainbows, but our emotional reaction is doubled by our understanding of the deep physics relating to the prismatic effects of raindrops. Similarly, physicists appreciate sunsets more than anybody else, because we can enjoy the myriad colours and at the same time grasp the nuclear physics that created the energy that created the photons that travelled for millions of years to the surface of the Sun, which then travelled eight minutes through space to Earth, which were then scattered by the atmosphere to create the colourful sunset. Understanding physics only enhances the beauty of nature.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: physicists don't "appreciate sunsets more than anybody else," and you don't have to be a physicist to understand atmospheric phenomena, light, and Rayleigh scattering. However, this editorial does have more to offer than just the predictable arrogance found in the math-related sciences. (You'd never find a haughty, self-important snob among the humble and dignified ranks of the biological sciences. We're far too noble, charming, and good-looking for that sort of behavior.)

Obviously the article raises one of my favorite talking points, which is that it is deeply funny when a grown man or woman prefers to believe that thunder means God is going bowling. I love to hear ignorant people blaming SCIENCE for their own inability to find beauty and wonder in the natural world, but not quite as much as I love to see those people's feeble mythological fumblings put to shame by the passion and delight of an enthused scientist.

Another bit I liked was how this editorial also reassured me that America is not the only modern nation which is determined to undermine the science education of its children; in the words of the irate editorializing physicist, "A budding boffin in Bangalore probably stands more chance of having good mathematics and physics teachers than the equivalent bright young spark condemned to a British science education." Budding boffin in Bangalore. I'm going to use that.

And, of course, what would a science article be without a multiple-choice quiz at the end? We egg-heads work long and hard to make sure that every layperson on the planet associates science with test-taking, low grades, and related forms of unpleasentness. It keeps the Arts majors out from under foot, you see.