IN HIS EPIC, THREE-VOLUME Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, the astronomer Robert Burnham, Jr., proposes the following metric: Let one astronomical unit (the mean Earth-Sun distance) equal 12 inches. On that same scale, one light-year, or 63,000 astronomical units, equals one mile;…
Tag: Committee For A Bigger Universe
Transcendent Science and Knowery.
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
— Thos. Jefferson
Here’s What I Know …
… AND WHEN I SAY “KNOW,” I’m not talking about “faith,” “opinion,” or “reasoned analysis,” but an intimate, visceral, experiential knowing. (Torah has a word for it — דַעַת — “da’at,” which can also refer to intimacy of the sexual…
Confessions of a Sidewalk Astronomer
THERE ARE TWO TELESCOPES IN my living room, a third in a backpack in my bedroom closet, and a pair of astronomical binoculars on the bookcase near the front door. “Why so many?” you may ask. Easy answer: I am…
I’m not here. I’m an event. I’m an improbable coalescence of stardust enjoying one fleeting, glorious dance through the cosmos before … poof.”
— Adrian Bliss
“2001” in 2024
LET’S TAKE IT FROM THE top, shall we? – Earth-orbiting weapons: check. – Commercial spaceflight: check. – “Shirtsleeve” space environments: check. – Seatback videoscreens: check. (Legal pad-sized portable videoscreens: check.) – Spaceflight stewardesses: not to my knowledge. – Zero-G pens:…
5 Thoughts: Make. BELIEVE.
0. READ CAREFULLY — THERE WILL BE a test later on. 1. In the book of Exodus, Moses tells the Children of Israel that G?d wants to enter into a contract with them. With one voice, and without knowing the…
Posse Commentatus (An Alpha-Nerd Manifesto)
(Originally posted 2007.06.28) IN THE BEGINNING was the Text. But not for long. The Text – definer and exemplar, authority and comfort, platform and trampoline – was no ordinary collection of words. It spoke of history and possibility, treated miracles…
Regarding ChatGPT (or, Cassandra’s Got Nothing On Me)
BE CAREFUL PLAYING WITH THE shiny new toy — the shiny new toy may decide to play with you.
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
— Thos. Jefferson
Stellar Blues
do the stars know the names by which we call them? we, the hubristic and temporary, label the unthinkably ancient with quick mouth sounds and fading pen-scratches. will they mourn when we are gone? would they say: “nice try, two-legs;…
Clearly the best time to be alive is when you start out wondering and end up knowing. There is only one generation in the whole history of mankind in that position. Us.”
— Carl Sagan, June 1974