{"id":1989,"date":"2011-06-19T22:05:46","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T05:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2011-07-06T09:56:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T16:56:29","slug":"mentor-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=1989","title":{"rendered":"Mentor passing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hope that the handful of people who follow this blog will forgive me for wandering somewhat off topic. This website and its blog explore the natural world around Kootenay Lake. Other than to describe what I see, I don\u2019t talk about myself.<\/p>\n

Yet, this posting is personal and it is deeply felt. It is about my mentor, Professor R.S. Scorer. He died this May at the age of 91. But, being about him, it is also about me and how he informed my view of nature. And that makes him relevant to this website.<\/p>\n

At his funeral, I offered these few words:<\/p>\n

\n

Dick Scorer was the consummate naturalist: he would observe his surroundings through far more perceptive eyes than most others, and had the impressive capability to use physics to make sense of what he saw. He didn\u2019t just see events; he saw processes.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I was a beginning meteorologist in 1963 when I read Ludlam\u2019s and his book, <\/span><\/em>Cloud Study<\/span>. I had never imagined that one could view nature this way. For me at the time, physics was something that took place in a laboratory and meteorology was the creature of a vast set of data processed by colonies of ants. But, Dick would look at a cloud, at frost, at a halo, and use his knowledge of physics and mathematics to read his surroundings as others would read a book. I had to study with this man.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I did study with him. Certainly, I learned a great deal about solving problems and presenting ideas, but the primary thing that he gave me was an inquisitive view, but one constrained and informed by the laws of physics. His approach guided me through years of research, writing, and teaching. Now that I have retired, it guides my observation and interpretation of the birds, bears, and bugs around me\u2014and, of course, clouds.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I owe an unpayable debt to Dick Scorer\u2014he taught me how to make sense of my surroundings.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

As I was preparing this posting, I looked out the window. There was a rainbow. Poignant, for the only two physical gifts Dick and I ever exchanged were books about the rainbow. He gave me a copy of Carl Boyer\u2019s classic book (1959),\u00a0The Rainbow From Myth to Mathematics. <\/em>Years later, I returned the compliment by giving him an autographed copy of my own book on the subject: Raymond L. Lee, Jr. and Alistair B. Fraser (2001),\u00a0THE RAINBOW BRIDGE: Rainbows in Art, Myth, and Science.<\/em> (It is not by accident that the header image on this blog features a rainbow).<\/p>\n

In memory of Dick Scorer: a picture of this evening\u2019s rainbow and its reflection in the waters of Kootenay Lake.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hope that the handful of people who follow this blog will forgive me for wandering somewhat off topic. This website and its blog explore the natural world around Kootenay Lake. Other than to describe what I see, I don\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-history","category-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2220,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/2220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}