Seed Media Group

About

I am a postdoctoral fellow working near Munich, Germany. My focus is on neurobiology but my current project has taken me fairly far afield....

The title of this blog, Keats' Telescope, comes from lines in Keats' poem On first looking into Chapman's Homer . Keats has just received a new translation of Homer and spends all night reading it aloud with a friend:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken

For me this poems really nail the sense of astonishment (or "wild surmise") which can overcome even seasoned scientists when they first see something brand new. (Keats was probably referring to Herschel's 1781 discovery of Uranus.) It makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Top Five: Most German