EPILOGUE
The preface related how the man banging on the door at the Mauna Loa Observatory smiled and politely asked, “Are you a real scientist?” No one had ever asked me that, and I did not want to disappoint a visitor who had gone to considerable trouble to drive what was then a miserable road to MLO to meet a real scientist. After all, I am just a self-taught scientist. So I paused several seconds before providing the four words that required this book to explain: “I just do science.”
This brings to mind J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which closes with Frodo giving Sam the unfinished memoir by Bilbo and Frodo. Frodo then tells Sam that the book ends with several blank pages that he should use to describe his personal reflections. ...
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