What's Your Law?

John Brockman presides over a virtual salon at www.edge.com and posts an intriguing question at the beginning of each year. In 2000, he asked for nominations of the most important invention in the past 1,000 years. Brockman has gathered some of the best minds in the country to consider his questions. Among Brockman's 164 respondents is a virtual friend of mine: James J. O'Donnell—formerly of the Department of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania and creator of one of the best online courses (Augustinian studies) in the early days of the Internet—presently Provost at Georgetown University. What your law? I always upheld the Iron Law of Success in college: attend class without fail. Many of my students chose to ignore this law and the academic roadway was littered with roadkill. If this be (fair & balanced) pontification, so be it.

The 2004 Edge Annual Question...

"WHAT'S YOUR LAW?"
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There is some bit of wisdom, some rule of nature, some law-like pattern, either grand or small, that you've noticed in the universe that might as well be named after you. Gordon Moore has one; Johannes Kepler and Michael Faraday, too. So does Murphy.

Since you are so bright, you probably have at least two you can articulate. Send me two laws based on your empirical work and observations you would not mind having tagged with your name. Stick to science and to those scientific areas where you have expertise. Avoid flippancy. Remember, your name will be attached to your law.

I am asking members of the Edge community to take this project seriously as a public service, to work together to create a document that can be widely disseminated, that can stimulate discussion and the imagination.

Say the words....

Happy New Year!

John Brockman
Publisher & Editor

164 contribtors

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James J. O'Donnell, Provost, Georgetown University

O'Donnell's Law of Academic Administration

If it feels good, don't do it.

Because if it feels good, it's going to be because it eases some frustration you're feeling from all the constraints and hassles of the institution; or because it really shows up so-and-so; or because it makes you feel you really do have a little authority around here after all. It won't, it won't, and you don't. Better to calm down, make sure you know all the facts, make sure you've talked to all 49 stakeholders, and sleep on it, then do the thing you have to hold your nose to do.

O'Donnell's Law of History

There are no true stories.

Story-tellers are in the iron grip of readers' expectations. Stories have beginnings, middles, ends, heroes, villains, clarity, resolution. Life has none of those things, so any story gets to be a story (especially if it's a good story) by edging away from what really happened (which we don't know in anywhere near enough detail anyway) towards what makes a good story. Historians exist to wrestle with the story temptation the way Laocoon wrestled with the snakes. But at the end of the day, to tell anybody anything, you'll probably tell a story, so then be sure to follow:

Luther's Law

Pecca fortiter.

Literally, "Sin bravely." His idea was that you're going to make a mess of things anyway, so you might as well do so boldly, confidently, with a little energy and imagination, rather than timidly, fearfully, half-heartedly.