May 13, 2011

Happy birthday to Danish physician Ole Worm (1588-1654), who lent his name to the popular adage “The early bird gets the worm; the late birds might not get any worm a all, but the last bird definitely gets Ole Worm. Sucker.”

To combat the silliness of his name, Ole Worm often went by Olaus Wormius, which did nothing to combat the silliness of his name.

Anyway, one of Ole Worm’s contributions to the world of science was providing convincing evidence that lemmings were rodents, because at that point the prevailing wisdom was that lemmings were spontaneously generated by the air. I think maybe the convincing evidence was holding one up and saying, “Dudes, look at this. It’s a rodent.” And everyone then nodded sagely and said “Oh, that Ole Worm, what a genius.” Genius? What a killjoy. Wouldn’t you like to live in a world in which rodents suddenly appeared from nothingness? Imagine the possibilities!

*****

Actually, I’ve just imagined the possibilities, and I’d like to take it back. That would be awful.