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: …wow.
I mean “wow.” Just … wow.
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…
A Secret of Life
WHEN YOU’RE TALKING WITH SOMEONE, ask yourself: “How can I meet this person’s needs right now?“
I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one.”
— Albert Camus
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…
Why Am I Still Here?
BARRING ANY UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, I will celebrate my 62nd birthday tomorrow. Leading me to ask: “How did THAT happen?” As a child of the 1970s and very early ’80s, my gentle nihilism is understandable. It was a period marked by…
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
5 Thoughts: Lifechangers
0. YOU ARE ON A PATH. Suddenly, something knocks you onto another one. Here are five (of my many) “somethings.” 1. 2001: A space odyssey. At the tender age of six, my mind was blown, by what I could not…
Me and Mr. Jones
OUR TALE BEGINS SOME YEARS ago at my then-girlfriend’s folks’ house, specifically at their “hutch” — a giant, glass-shelved cabinet filled with such sentimental knickknacks and keepsakes as a commemorative Shirley Temple mug, souvenir spoons, porcelain bells, and the “good…
“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…