Motus Mentis

Today is Friday the 13th, an occasion that many folks regard with a wary eye.

Not me, though: as it happens, I was born on a Friday the 13th, 51 years ago today. So whenever they pop up I always think of them as auspicious. Of course, as a man of science, I realize that’s just superstitious nonsense, but there it is anyway. It happens to the best of us.

There’s a story about the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr: apparently he was greeting some visitors at his country house, and one of them was surprised to see a horseshoe hanging over the doorway. When asked what it was doing there, Bohr said that he had heard it brings good luck.

“But professor! Surely you don’t believe in such things!”

“Of course not,” said Bohr. “But they say it works even if you don’t believe in it!”

We’ll be on the road today, and Internet access will be spotty over the weekend, so content may be thin over the next couple of days.