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;…
Tag: Committee For A Bigger Universe
Transcendent Science and Knowery.
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
By telling tales about stardust, I hope we can remind ourselves that we live in an interconnected and beautiful world, full of rare and precious elements. It is our duty to treat it, and each other, with care and respect.”
— Astrophysicist Sanjana Curtis
Private Fame
TO AN AMATEUR SKYWATCHER (in the original sense of that first word), the beginning of the month is quite special; it’s when the new issue of Astronomy arrives. Among that magazine’s many excellent features and fixtures is “Ask Astro,” where…
Be not ashamed to learn truth from any source.”
— Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol (1021-1058)
IF YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
— Albert Einstein
THE AX EXISTED FOR 1.4 million years before anyone thought to put a handle on it.”
— James Williams
Pithyism #001010
SOMETIMES, THE TERM “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE” is just a cover for genuine stupidity.
5 Thoughts: 32x
1. IT’S THE MAGNIFICATION THAT CHANGED history. 2. When Galileo Galilei first-lighted* his telescope more than four hundred years ago, he didn’t know that simple act would begin a new era for humanity. He certainly didn’t know that by deducing…
What Maimonides (Or Was It Lao-tse?) Really Meant
“THOSE WHO KNOW, CHUCKLE.”
… Each of us sits alone within the cell of our subjective awareness. Now and then we receive cryptic messages from the outside world. Only dimly comprehending what we are doing, we compose responses, which we slip under the door. In this way, we manage to survive, even though we never really know what the hell is happening.”
— John Horgan
When faced with [a piece or opinion of Torah] that is on its face absurd or contradictory, the rabbis do not dismiss it, but actively work to understand it. What would it look like for us, when someone says something apparently illogical and absurd, to assume that they are making some kind of internal sense and actually thoughtfully work to understand their reasoning?”
— Sara Ronis, “A Daily Dose of Talmud (Pesachim 78),” @myjewishlearning.com