Two examples of scientific prose

There is a paragraph in the paper Quantitative determination of calcium, magnesium, and zinc in fingernails by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, which goes like this:

Electron number density (n_e) calculated from the width of the H_α lines was also used to assess validity of the standard matrices for analysis of nails. The spectra used for the calculation were acquired in the spectral window shown in Fig. 1. The full width of the line at 656.2 nm was measured and an iterative calculation was performed using the equation ∆λ_1/2=2.50×10⁻⁹α_1/2n_e^2/3 with α_1/2 interpolated from tables by Griem [15]. The resulting electron number densities for plasmas formed on the nails, filter paper, and keratin pellet were 1.0×10¹⁶, 8.6×10¹⁵, and 7.7×10¹⁵ respectively. Because the width of the Zn line at 481.0 was also greater than the spectrometer limited line width, this line could also be used to estimate electron number density using ∆λ_1/2=2ωn_e/10¹⁶ according to Gojani [16]. In this case, using ω=0.1 gives electron densities of 1.2×10¹⁶, 1.3 ×10¹⁶, and 1.0×10¹⁶ cm⁻³ for the nails, filter paper, and keratin pellet respectively. In this case, it can only be concluded that the electron density of the plasmas formed on the nails, filter papers, and keratin pellets were all approximately 10¹⁶.

It makes me very happy to see my paper quoted, furthermore, quoted in Talanta, a Q1 journal in analytical chemistry. But, the better surprise is that I am quoted by name in the same paragraph as Griem. I don't know what made authors write the paragraph as they did, because I did not derive the equation they refer to; in fact, this equation can be found in many other papers and books. In any case, I am happy they did what they did.

***

In the paper Hydrodynamic theory of electromagnetic fields in continuous media, Mario Liu writes:

Therefore, hydrodynamic equations (such as in ferrofluids or nematics) employing Eqs. (2) without α and β would indeed lead to blatantly nonsensical results and is not usually done.

I find the quote funny, because it gives some humanity to the usually dry scientific prose. But, I can't find the unusual cases when the mistake to which Liu refers to is done.

Learning Japanese

I'm trying to come up with a sort of Ten Commandments for Learning Japanese, but I can't reach to number ten. What I've got so far is this:

1. Thou shalt not use keigo.
2. Thou shalt start with kanji.
3. Thou shalt not translate literally, not even close to it.
4. Thou shalt write and speak and write again in Japanese only, using kanji (typing is OK, don't pay attention to strokes and stuff like that, just get the message through).
5. Thou shalt not expect people to laugh at your jokes as told in Japanese.
6. Thou shalt not think that by knowing おいしい、寒い、暑い、そうですね、そうですか、すごい、you know any Japanese.
7. ...
8. ...
9. ...
10. Thou shalt not use keigo, not if you haven't at least passed JLPT N1 with a 100% score on all sections, if you are not 110% sure what you're doing, or if you don't want to get embarrassed - stick to the ーます form, which covers a huge range of situations.

怖い夢

こんな夢を見た。

私が広い部屋にいる。右の壁に海の絵がある。この絵の下には花瓶と枯れた花がある。天井から重そうなシャンデリアが吊り下げられてある。左の壁は見えない。

大きい地震が起きた。「どうすればいいのでしょうか。まず、テーブルの下にもぐろう」と思い出しながら、シャンデリアが壊れ、テーブルに落ちた。壁にあった絵は大きく揺れた。水は花瓶に流出した。花は十一りんも生きていた。

「地震から全部壊れたよ。」と後ろから来た女の人が言った。「その花を食べられないよ。今からどうする？ファストフードばかりだ。」

私はうなずいた。

「あなたは、いつも何を考えているの？」と女性といて小さい白ウサギが聞た。「あなたはファストフードが気に入っていると思うよ。」

「いやそれどころか、嫌いです。」と私が答えた。

「外にいい食べ物があるはずだ。」と女性が言って出た。小さい白ウサギも早く出た。

携帯電話代わりにウサギを持っている女の子は最近の子どもと違う。有機農産物も好きらしい。でも、女の子はウサギほど大きいくなかただ。

私も外へ行きたかった。しかし、走るとしても、動けなかった。その時、枯れた花は元気になって、女の子のような声で歌った。これを聞いた時、私はびくりして起きた。

こんな変な夢は、最近同時に『不思議の国のアリス』と『中級へ行こう』を読んでいるからだ。