I've always been an admirer of the night sky.
Humans have been mesmerized by its wonder since the first recorded civilizations. The earliest records of cosmological posits date back to the ancient Mesopotamians (5300-ish BC), who believed earth was more or less a flat disk. They also believed the universe was contained in a dome above the earth's horizon, and beneath the earth's surface lay the netherworld. Each subsequent (and though there's no written record, probably antecedent) culture had its own idea of the universe which usually related somehow to their respective gods.
Then came the Renaissance (1500s) and astronomy finally began receiving accreditation as a legitimate scientific field. Copernicus debunking the universally-accepted belief that the earth was the center of the universe, Galileo using one of the first telescopes (20x more powerful than the human eye) to scan the night sky, Kepler's suggestion that the sun somehow affected the planets' orbital paths (this was before Newton got hit with that apple, folks).
Nowadays we know a bit more about the universe thanks to modern technology. We know that there are billions upon billions of other galaxies. But even with all this modern science, we aren't even close to being able to fathom how infinite it is, and how ever-expanding.
I sometimes get mad at myself for being a math ignoramus (basic algebra gives me fits) because if I weren't, I would have definitely been an astronomer. Staring at the night sky while camping or in various other remote places is among my absolute favorite activities (good thing I've always lived in a big city, huh?). While gazing into the black abyss that seems so carelessly splattered with stars, a few recurring thoughts always creep into my mind:
What's beyond the universe? Scientists say it's ever-expanding. Then what is it expanding into? One of my professors thinks we are "just a ball of lint in someone's pocket in an alternate universe." When I get to thinking about ideas like this Ball of Lint Theory, one of my first questions always relates to time. How can a ball of lint exist for the estimated 4.54 billion years earth is said to have been in existence? Perhaps time is relative. Perhaps because we are so miniscule in the grand scheme of things, time is slower for us. For example, the average lifespan of a gnat is 4 months. But maybe to them, since they are so small both in size and brain capacity, those 4 months seem like 80 years. Maybe we are the gnats of another universe.
Most of the stars we see when we stare into the night sky are hundreds of light years away. The closest star to earth (excluding the sun) is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light years from us. That means when we look at that star, we are seeing it as it existed 4.2 years ago. That's crazy to me! It's possible that many of the stars we see in the sky don't even exist any more, but since it takes so long for their light to reach our eyes we are seeing them as they were years and years ago. Blows. My. Mind.
And lastly, perhaps the most popular question of those with an interest in the cosmos, how did it all come to be? There are plenty of theories out there to explain this one, but none have come close to being proven the unassailable truth, accepted by all. Some believe in the Big Bang Theory. Others buy into the Inflation Theory. Creationists think God created it all (and even that has its branches- Deists believing God created the universe, set it into motion, and left us to ourselves vs. most major religions believing God created it AND still runs the whole show).
While I am not arguing for any theory over another (my stance is one of constant wonder and questioning), I do find it interesting that many scientists say the more they study the cosmos, the more they believe some higher power created it. A few quotes:
Ed Harrison (cosmologist): "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God – the design argument of Paley – updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."
Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics."
John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."
I perhaps am captivated by the night sky because, like so few things in this world, it rigorously challenges the boundaries of my imagination. And though on any given night you can be either strangely comforted by the universe or feel insignificant and alone in its ever-expansive bounds, its ability to inspire deep thought is always just a backward thrust of the head away.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Technical difficulties
Alright, I know a lot of you have been waiting for this post. It was only a matter of time.
A rant on cell phones.
First, try really hard to think back to the time right before everyone had a cell phone. Bill Clinton was president. "Seinfeld" was cleaning up at the Emmys. Super Nintendo was the newest video game system. Your wardrobe consisted of B.U.M. Equipment shirts and stirrup leggings. Life was simple then. And if you're my age, cell phones didn't become truly ubiquitous until about freshman year of high school. I got my first cell phone in the 8th grade and had to share it with my brother Danny, and we only really used it when one of us was going somewhere and we needed to be picked up by mom later.
What did people DO without cell phones? Well, here are a few of my recollections:
1. When you needed to be picked up from somewhere (if you were too young to drive/didn't take a bike or skateboard or rollerblades or....) you'd call your parents Collect on a pay phone. Just dial down the middle, remember? 1-800-C-A-L-L-A-T-T. Then when the lady would leave 2 seconds for you to say your name, you'd say "It's-Lisa-come-pick-us-up-at-*wherever*-please" before they could cut you off. And of course nobody ever accepted the charges because you got really good at talking fast and saying only the vital information. A free and easy way to communicate while abroad. I'd like to take this time to thank AT&T for years of free payphone service.
2. You had to actually make plans ahead of time and stick to those plans. It's ridiculous how being late has become acceptable these days, all because you can send a quick text to someone who's waiting for you saying you'll be there in x amount of minutes, you're running late (which always ends up being way longer, but that's the substance of another rant). Before cell phones, if someone didn't show up on time, it was called being "stood up" and the consequences were far greater, so people took being on time a bit more seriously.
3. You actually had to use your brain to figure things out. Now, if you don't already know, I'm a huge dissident of smart phones. My cell phone only has the capacity to send/receive calls and texts. And that's all I want it to do. I like to keep my technologies separate. I'll go on my computer at home if I want to use the Internet. I'll break out the old fashioned board game if I want to play Scrabble (yes, I just took a jab at Words With Friends). It's amazing how dependent people have become upon the nifty gadgets on their smartphones. For example, there are few of us left who can navigate new surroundings, or even know how to read an old-fashioned map (that's right folks, on actual paper with a key and legend and everything). And then when technology fails, which it always will at some time or another, most are left dumbfounded and pissed off. Smartphones are even affecting memory capacity. All the information we used to store in our brains so we could have it whenever and wherever we are is now stored in smartphones (thanks to cloud computing) which are, you guessed it, whenever and wherever we are.
4. You actually had to get to know people's families. Remember when the only way you could get ahold of your friends was by calling their house? It was rare if that person actually picked up, so you'd end up having to chit-chat for a while with their parents or siblings. This provided good practice in developing respectful manners and for parents it also meant that you knew the kind of crowds with whom your kid was fraternizing. It was a pretty rare thing that a kid had their own phone line. Now that even 2nd graders have cell phones, how many kids do you think actually have to call their friends and get through that familial first wall of communication before actually talking to them? Cell phones are only contributing to their social wuss-dom. These kids don't have to experience the gut-wrenching anxiety that goes into calling someone they have a crush on, and having to talk to their whole family first (as if just calling them wasn't bad enough!). Or on the flipside, having a boy (or girl for you fellas) call your house and subsequently your whole family knowing your dating life or being taunted by your big brothers as they jump to conclusions! Furthermore, they don't even call anymore. They hide behind their screens and just text. Wimps.
5. And my personal favorite rant: you actually had to give your full attention to the person with whom you were hanging out. Perhaps my biggest pet peeve on this entire planet is when I am with a group of people and half of them are looking down at their cell phones at any given time, texting away. Or even worse if you are having quality time with someone 1 on 1 and they stop listening to what you're saying, or stop what they're saying MID SENTENCE to text, or in extreme cases answer a call. I'm sorry, is my company not worthy of your full attention? Am I boring you to tears? Would you rather be having a root canal than a conversation with me? Oh, then by all means talk to someone else! To me, this is the ultimate rudest form of an interruption, and the scary thing is that it's quickly becoming more and more socially acceptable. The funny thing is I think I'm the only one under the age of 40 (that demographic who lived over half their lives without cell phones and did just fine) who finds this deplorable.
Cell phones are certainly not without their benefits, and I'm not trying to lead a worldwide cell phone burning by any means. All I'm saying is this: let's not lose sight of the importance of our inherent human instinctual capacities and basic social manners in this world of frighteningly swift technological advancement.
To wrap this up, I'm going to issue a challenge to my readers (all 3 of you... hi mom!):
Leave your cell phone at home for just one segment of your day, anywhere from 3 hours to the entire time the sun is up. Treat it like a housephone (you know, those archaic wiry things that used to be connected to the wall). At the end of the day I would LOVE to hear how your experience went, all your thoughts/emotions, whether you felt liberated or naked, had anxiety attacks because you felt like you were missing out on everything, etc.
Just do me a favor and don't text or call me or e-mail me with your findings when you're in the company of others.
Can you live without a cell phone?
A rant on cell phones.
First, try really hard to think back to the time right before everyone had a cell phone. Bill Clinton was president. "Seinfeld" was cleaning up at the Emmys. Super Nintendo was the newest video game system. Your wardrobe consisted of B.U.M. Equipment shirts and stirrup leggings. Life was simple then. And if you're my age, cell phones didn't become truly ubiquitous until about freshman year of high school. I got my first cell phone in the 8th grade and had to share it with my brother Danny, and we only really used it when one of us was going somewhere and we needed to be picked up by mom later.
What did people DO without cell phones? Well, here are a few of my recollections:
1. When you needed to be picked up from somewhere (if you were too young to drive/didn't take a bike or skateboard or rollerblades or....) you'd call your parents Collect on a pay phone. Just dial down the middle, remember? 1-800-C-A-L-L-A-T-T. Then when the lady would leave 2 seconds for you to say your name, you'd say "It's-Lisa-come-pick-us-up-at-*wherever*-please" before they could cut you off. And of course nobody ever accepted the charges because you got really good at talking fast and saying only the vital information. A free and easy way to communicate while abroad. I'd like to take this time to thank AT&T for years of free payphone service.
2. You had to actually make plans ahead of time and stick to those plans. It's ridiculous how being late has become acceptable these days, all because you can send a quick text to someone who's waiting for you saying you'll be there in x amount of minutes, you're running late (which always ends up being way longer, but that's the substance of another rant). Before cell phones, if someone didn't show up on time, it was called being "stood up" and the consequences were far greater, so people took being on time a bit more seriously.
3. You actually had to use your brain to figure things out. Now, if you don't already know, I'm a huge dissident of smart phones. My cell phone only has the capacity to send/receive calls and texts. And that's all I want it to do. I like to keep my technologies separate. I'll go on my computer at home if I want to use the Internet. I'll break out the old fashioned board game if I want to play Scrabble (yes, I just took a jab at Words With Friends). It's amazing how dependent people have become upon the nifty gadgets on their smartphones. For example, there are few of us left who can navigate new surroundings, or even know how to read an old-fashioned map (that's right folks, on actual paper with a key and legend and everything). And then when technology fails, which it always will at some time or another, most are left dumbfounded and pissed off. Smartphones are even affecting memory capacity. All the information we used to store in our brains so we could have it whenever and wherever we are is now stored in smartphones (thanks to cloud computing) which are, you guessed it, whenever and wherever we are.
4. You actually had to get to know people's families. Remember when the only way you could get ahold of your friends was by calling their house? It was rare if that person actually picked up, so you'd end up having to chit-chat for a while with their parents or siblings. This provided good practice in developing respectful manners and for parents it also meant that you knew the kind of crowds with whom your kid was fraternizing. It was a pretty rare thing that a kid had their own phone line. Now that even 2nd graders have cell phones, how many kids do you think actually have to call their friends and get through that familial first wall of communication before actually talking to them? Cell phones are only contributing to their social wuss-dom. These kids don't have to experience the gut-wrenching anxiety that goes into calling someone they have a crush on, and having to talk to their whole family first (as if just calling them wasn't bad enough!). Or on the flipside, having a boy (or girl for you fellas) call your house and subsequently your whole family knowing your dating life or being taunted by your big brothers as they jump to conclusions! Furthermore, they don't even call anymore. They hide behind their screens and just text. Wimps.
5. And my personal favorite rant: you actually had to give your full attention to the person with whom you were hanging out. Perhaps my biggest pet peeve on this entire planet is when I am with a group of people and half of them are looking down at their cell phones at any given time, texting away. Or even worse if you are having quality time with someone 1 on 1 and they stop listening to what you're saying, or stop what they're saying MID SENTENCE to text, or in extreme cases answer a call. I'm sorry, is my company not worthy of your full attention? Am I boring you to tears? Would you rather be having a root canal than a conversation with me? Oh, then by all means talk to someone else! To me, this is the ultimate rudest form of an interruption, and the scary thing is that it's quickly becoming more and more socially acceptable. The funny thing is I think I'm the only one under the age of 40 (that demographic who lived over half their lives without cell phones and did just fine) who finds this deplorable.
Cell phones are certainly not without their benefits, and I'm not trying to lead a worldwide cell phone burning by any means. All I'm saying is this: let's not lose sight of the importance of our inherent human instinctual capacities and basic social manners in this world of frighteningly swift technological advancement.
To wrap this up, I'm going to issue a challenge to my readers (all 3 of you... hi mom!):
Leave your cell phone at home for just one segment of your day, anywhere from 3 hours to the entire time the sun is up. Treat it like a housephone (you know, those archaic wiry things that used to be connected to the wall). At the end of the day I would LOVE to hear how your experience went, all your thoughts/emotions, whether you felt liberated or naked, had anxiety attacks because you felt like you were missing out on everything, etc.
Just do me a favor and don't text or call me or e-mail me with your findings when you're in the company of others.
Can you live without a cell phone?
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Here comes the sun, do-do-do-dooo
Today is March 6. The first few days of March always rank highly on my Happiest Days of the Year list. My mood is elevated even more than usual, my walk is more jaunty, and there is an excited gleam of anticipation in my eye. True, there are no major holidays during the first couple weeks of March. Nor does my birthday fall in said days. So what's so great about this time span?
Well amigos, the beginning of March marks one of the most (if not THE most) under-appreciated days of the calendar year: the start of daylight saving time (DST). I'll spare you the day's interesting history, with its ties to standard time zones, the early U.S. railroad industry, the World Wars, farming, and debated legislation, but if you're a history geek like me, click here.
To most of us, the start of DST marks the beginning of the warm months. It announces that spring is on its way. That flowers will soon bloom. That if we hang on for just a little longer, we will be rewarded with a long break from school (if you're no longer in school, sorry. But neenor neenor). It brings daydreams of the possible layouts of your backyard garden- O, what wonderful vegetables and flowers you'll plant this year! It marks the coming end to your impossibly pale skin. And you better put "clean the ol' bbq" on this week's to-do list, as you can almost smell the burgers, sirloins, hot dogs and kabobs grilling to perfection as you enjoy that ice-cold Pacifico on your patio.
But perhaps those who benefit most from DST are kids (or those of us still kids at heart). In retrospect, when the day finally came in which it didn't get dark outside pretty much right after you got home from school, it was cause for celebration. There was a certain poetic beauty to the abruptness of gaining an extra hour of daylight, and the long process of the days thereafter stretching out ever-so subtly, until that 9 p.m. sundown suddenly surprised you. Every year you knew it would happen, yet every year it seemed to come out of nowhere. Then you'd look back on those short winter days and the feeling of being blessed would wash over you, as if God breathed those extra hours of light and warmth into summer just for you.
Seemingly limitless evenings of kick the can, sardines, roller hockey, soccer. Basketball, baseball, football, any other "-ball" you can possibly name. Skateboards, rollerblades, scooters, bikes. Clubhouses made of every piece of stray plywood you could find. Climbing trees with the Popsicle stick switchblades you ever-so-craftily engineered and sharpened. Barefeet. Tank tops. Sneaking down to the candy store with the coins you found in the couch cushions, and having to hide your new stash in the garage so mom wouldn't find out. Otterpops. Hide and seek. The possibilities were endless.
(Yes, I did grow up in a completely middle-class, 1960s-like, Sandlot-ish, classic neighborhood. That whole aforementioned paragraph is written strictly from experience).
Perhaps after spending my first winter in a place where the temperature reaches well below the 60-degree (at their coldest) California winter days I'm used to, I have a feeling I'm going to appreciate the start of DST this year even more than I have the past 21.
Just one more week.
Well amigos, the beginning of March marks one of the most (if not THE most) under-appreciated days of the calendar year: the start of daylight saving time (DST). I'll spare you the day's interesting history, with its ties to standard time zones, the early U.S. railroad industry, the World Wars, farming, and debated legislation, but if you're a history geek like me, click here.
To most of us, the start of DST marks the beginning of the warm months. It announces that spring is on its way. That flowers will soon bloom. That if we hang on for just a little longer, we will be rewarded with a long break from school (if you're no longer in school, sorry. But neenor neenor). It brings daydreams of the possible layouts of your backyard garden- O, what wonderful vegetables and flowers you'll plant this year! It marks the coming end to your impossibly pale skin. And you better put "clean the ol' bbq" on this week's to-do list, as you can almost smell the burgers, sirloins, hot dogs and kabobs grilling to perfection as you enjoy that ice-cold Pacifico on your patio.
But perhaps those who benefit most from DST are kids (or those of us still kids at heart). In retrospect, when the day finally came in which it didn't get dark outside pretty much right after you got home from school, it was cause for celebration. There was a certain poetic beauty to the abruptness of gaining an extra hour of daylight, and the long process of the days thereafter stretching out ever-so subtly, until that 9 p.m. sundown suddenly surprised you. Every year you knew it would happen, yet every year it seemed to come out of nowhere. Then you'd look back on those short winter days and the feeling of being blessed would wash over you, as if God breathed those extra hours of light and warmth into summer just for you.
Seemingly limitless evenings of kick the can, sardines, roller hockey, soccer. Basketball, baseball, football, any other "-ball" you can possibly name. Skateboards, rollerblades, scooters, bikes. Clubhouses made of every piece of stray plywood you could find. Climbing trees with the Popsicle stick switchblades you ever-so-craftily engineered and sharpened. Barefeet. Tank tops. Sneaking down to the candy store with the coins you found in the couch cushions, and having to hide your new stash in the garage so mom wouldn't find out. Otterpops. Hide and seek. The possibilities were endless.
(Yes, I did grow up in a completely middle-class, 1960s-like, Sandlot-ish, classic neighborhood. That whole aforementioned paragraph is written strictly from experience).
Perhaps after spending my first winter in a place where the temperature reaches well below the 60-degree (at their coldest) California winter days I'm used to, I have a feeling I'm going to appreciate the start of DST this year even more than I have the past 21.
Just one more week.
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