A View from the Back of the Envelope top

Good descriptions

[I didn't get a chance to flesh out this page.
The main thrust is to include enough quantitativeness and visualization info for "deep" understanding to be possible.]

If I tell you "the bug is small", you really don't know anything you didn't already know before. If instead I tell you "the bug is small (1mm)", you have learned a lot. You now know it can get through your window screens. That it can't jump higher than a meter. That thousands will fit in your hand.

Atomic bonding (is fundamentally a balance of attraction (electrostatic) and repulsion (electron-compression).)

Search for Simplicity - Weisskopf

A View from the Back of the Envelope
Comments encouraged. - Mitchell N Charity <mcharity@lcs.mit.edu>

Pre-first-draft state... obviously...
top-down
important first
journalistic, not novelist layout
quantitative and related props
disconnected lump problem
role of richness lumps
dead foundation problem
that you can work with
include scale bars

Suggestions on looking for
Fun quote:
  "African wild dogs are medium-sized carnivores (weighing ~25kg) that
live in packs of 4-20 adults and their dependent young.  They feed
predominantly on ungulates weighing 15-100kg which they hunt and kill
cooperatively.  The members of a pack are normally nomadic within a
large (~500km2) home range." (Nature 98 Jan 29 p497)

 Why Paragliders are Nuclear Powered
 

History:
  2003-Feb-03   Fixed 1 link.
  1998.Apr.21   Added fun dog quote, nuclear gliders link.
  1997.Aug.01 - Format upgrade, but out of time for content improvement.