One of the passages in The Biographer's Tale that I liked was the last exert from Linnaeus, starting on the last line of page 65 and continuing onto the next page. There is a lot of juxtaposition in this passage, making the section seem cloudy. Linnaeus writes that he "was walking rapidly, facing the icy wind and sweating profusely". Either the wind was more of a gentle breeze, or Linnaeus was moving really dang fast, or there isn't something right with the story. He goes on to say that he was "always on the alert", yet he walked past a plant, then he decided to check it out again. But then he almost leaves, thinking it is another plant when he decides it is a new one. These contradictions of the description make the validity of the story questionable.

Later, Linnaeus goes on to write that the sun, being far north, shines into the eyes and makes it difficult to see. He also writes that "the shadows are also extended, and by gusts of wind made so confused, that things not really a bit alike can hardly be told apart". I think this line in this section is the most important to the book as a whole. An biographer's job is to not only find out things, but to also group them well or to not group them at all, which can be difficult if there is something obscuring the facts. Also, if you are to examine what looks like it should go together, but shouldn't, they you also need to examine stuff that looks like it shouldn't go together but actually should.

This idea goes beyond writing a biography. In diffi eq, problems sometimes relied on being able to group terms that were similar so that they canceled out nicely, leaving an easier problem to solve. This is also similar to NMR, which uses the same principles as MRIs but is used to identify molecules. A NMR hydrogen spectrum will give various peaks for all of the hydrogens in a molecule, but if the sample is impure it can often be difficult to group the different peaks correctly so that you can tell what is in your sample.