About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

7 Minn. J.L. Sci. & Tech. i (2005-2006)

handle is hein.journals/mipr7 and id is 1 raw text is: Panegyric The Midas Touch Jim Chen* Midas, the mythically avaricious king, ascended a throne already exalted by his family's deeds.1 The oracle at Delphi had prophesied that the next king of Phrygia would arrive in an ox-drawn cart. Gordius, father of Midas, came in a cart and thereupon became king. After dedicating his wagon to Apollo with gratitude for the oracle's prophecy, Gordius secured his cart in the acropolis with a monstrous knot. Whoever should untie this knot would rule all Asia. Many aspirants tried. None succeeded until Alexander of Macedonia, in his impatience, cut the Gordian knot.2 The Gordian knot and its Alexandrian solution provide an apt metaphor for a problem that has bedeviled science and the broader culture for nearly half a century. In his celebrated 1959 lecture, The Two Cultures, C.P. Snow excoriated the conflict between what he called the scientific and literary cultures. Snow aimed his sharpest criticism for natural Luddites, the Western intellectuals who have never tried, wanted, or been able to understand the industrial revolution, much less accept it.3 The dominant literary culture's refusal to embrace science and its industrial applications, said Snow, condemned humanity's humblest to a wretched, short © 2005 by Jim Chen. * Associate Dean for Faculty and James L. Krusemark Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School <chenx064@maroon.tc.umn.edu>. Gil Grantmore, Owen D. Jones, and Susan M. Wolf provided helpful comments. Thanks, as always, to Kathleen Chen. 1. See THOMAS BULFINCH, BULFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY: ILLUSTRATED EDITION 46-48 (1979). 2. See, e.g., 2 W.W. TARN, ALEXANDER THE GREAT 262 (1948) (Everyone, as the phrase goes, knows two things about Alexander, even if they do not know who he was: he was the man who wept because there were no more worlds to conquer, and he was the man who 'cut the knot.'). 3. C.P. SNOW, THE TWO CULTURES: AND A SECOND LOOK 22 (2d ed. 1964).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most