Hocus-pocus

Rowlandson, Thomas. Hocus Pocus [or searching for the Philosopher s Stone], IndEng Chem 34, no. 2 (Feb 1942) 216. 

Of all the odd myths that have arisen in the scientific world, the Caucasian mystery invented quite innocently by Blumenbach is the oddest., A Georgian woman s skull was the handsomest in his collection. Hence it became his model exemplar of human skulls, from which all others might be regarded as deviations and out of this, by some strange intellectual hocus-pocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian man is the prototypic Adamic man. 

What the people saw were various bacteria and other microorganisms, not the viruses that cause influenza. Still, Katterfelto was on the right track when he linked microbes to disease. After being terrified by these tiny active creatures invisible to the naked eye, audience members were treated to Katterfelto s hocus-pocus, his black cat, and his scientific tricks. They were astonished, and they readily concluded that the strange man in... 

He ignored the velvet cloth over the crystal ball, as if to imply that he would not be distracted by hocus-pocus. He passed the fireplace and came to the big double desk near the windows, littered on the Maestro s side with books and on mine with the packets of reagents I had left there, plus the letter I had been working on when I was sent shopping. Sciara reached for the paper. 

Only a few decades ago the term catalysis in the sense indicated by the title was practically a collective designation for a number of chemical reactions and adsorption processes, the nature and mechanism of which were very little known. Text books dating from the turn of the century, or even a decade or so later than that, usually contain a collection of more or less unsystematic observations and patents. For a long time in the school curriculum a catalyst was defined as a substance which accelerated a reaction without participating in it—a chemical hocus pocus, indeed ... 

Much hocus-pocus, but basically it meant sitting in front of a fire and daydreaming. ... 

The propagating carbamate Ion mechanism can explain most features of NCA polymerizations without the "hocus pocus" that attends many aspects of the "a.m." mechanism. The principal objections against It... 

There are two new characters in one case, two newer characters in the other. Two equals two. Therefore the amount of change is the same. Here we confront the beast in its lair real progress and its exact solution to a parsimony problem. I regret that Mark Twain is not with us to share the experience. I wonder what he would say in response Faced with hocus-pocus (Lopez, 2002), would he remain silent ... 

So let s examine what I see as deep subtext in three classic James Bond films You Only Live Twice, From Russia with Love, and the prototypical Bond film, Coldfinger. Warning What follows may forever change the way you look at these three films. Like Indy, you don t have to believe in all this hocus-pocus for it to be real. I m going to open the Ark, and it s up to you whether you close your eyes or have a look inside. 

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