The Farthing layouts

16 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

.............Thanks Stephen. It took a while before the penny dropped regarding that Sydenham family! How interesting that De Glehn had a sister who was a women's rights activist, the plot is now thicker than pea soup   The Ladies Dining Society that she helped establish sounds interesting too!

 

An interesting pan-European family. (according to Wikipedia,"Alfred de Glehn was one of the twelve children of Robert von Glehn, a Prussian nobleman originally from the Baltic provinces, whose family had estates near Tallinn in Estonia, who had settled in England and married a Scotswoman.

..... Louise Creighton, an author and activist, was one of De Glehn's sisters

..... Alfred De Glehn changed the nobiliary particle in his name from "von" to "de" when he settled in France.")

Another fantastic Finkerbury tale with some wonderful photography. Really like the wikipedia page images. 

15 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

 

An interesting pan-European family. (according to Wikipedia,"Alfred de Glehn was one of the twelve children of Robert von Glehn, a Prussian nobleman originally from the Baltic provinces, whose family had estates near Tallinn in Estonia, who had settled in England and married a Scotswoman.

..... Louise Creighton, an author and activist, was one of De Glehn's sisters

..... Alfred De Glehn changed the nobiliary particle in his name from "von" to "de" when he settled in France.")

 

A study once examined how researchers got new ideas. It turned out that clutter and disorder played an important part. An example used to illustrate the point has stuck in my mind: A researcher had come upon an innovative idea because various articles/books were lying randomly next to each other on his desk. Seeing their different topics combined before him triggered a new idea in his mind. If everything is too orderly, you just reproduce what you know. If you allow for a degree of disorder, you set the scene for inspiration. 

 

10 hours ago, Charlie586 said:

Another fantastic Finkerbury tale with some wonderful photography. Really like the wikipedia page images. 

 

Thanks Charlie! Mixing fact and fiction is one of the things I enjoy when making these stories, so I thought a little dose of the "internet encyclopedia" was appropriate. The fact that Wikipedia is far from always correct only adds to the blur 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Mikkel

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

A study once examined how researchers got new ideas. It turned out that clutter and disorder played an important part. 

That can’t be right, Mikkel, if it were so, I’d be crammed full of bright ideas!

My wife gained an interest in a scientific subject that she had been taught at MSc level later in life but had no research experience in.  She then spent the next five years, yes, 5 years, looking at papers on Pub Med and brought together different strands of ideas that people who had been working in the field would not have put together as they would have been pigeon holed, or tramlined in their thinking.  She then went off and did a PhD in her theory during which she found something else that was wrong in the processing which was obvious to her as she came from another discipline and is now a leading expert in that particular area.  

 

This is not down so much to her untidiness but putting things side by side that others did not do.  Being really clever helped as well.

12 hours ago, Mikkel said:

A study once examined how researchers got new ideas. It turned out that clutter and disorder played an important part.

 

8 hours ago, Northroader said:

That can’t be right, Mikkel, if it were so, I’d be crammed full of bright ideas!

 

Well, there is some interesting exchange of ideas going on between your Washbourne and Englefield layouts I think? If you'd stuck with one layout maybe it would never have happened?

35 minutes ago, ChrisN said:

My wife gained an interest in a scientific subject that she had been taught at MSc level later in life but had no research experience in.  She then spent the next five years, yes, 5 years, looking at papers on Pub Med and brought together different strands of ideas that people who had been working in the field would not have put together as they would have been pigeon holed, or tramlined in their thinking.  She then went off and did a PhD in her theory during which she found something else that was wrong in the processing which was obvious to her as she came from another discipline and is now a leading expert in that particular area.  

 

This is not down so much to her untidiness but putting things side by side that others did not do.  Being really clever helped as well.

 

That's a great example Chris. As you say in this case your wife was being very methodological about things, which of course is also very much how science moves forward. In any case the notion of combining ideas from different sources really is a winner I think, and it seems people who arrive on the scene with a different perspective are often good at that.

 

All very well, says Thomas Grig, but how do I get down from here?

 

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Mikkel

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

All very well, says Thomas Grig, but how do I get down from here?

You don’t.

You get down from a duck or a goose.

Prototype for everything   Thanks to Chris Williams for pointing this out.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Mikkel