My Bang! Book has arrived
Current mood: rejuvenated

Hooh, great cover effect - really COOL, and LOTS of pictures!

Reminds me a little of a booklet I have from London Planetarium that, I think, dates back to the late seventies! But a LOT more pictures, and a LOT more colour!

Ha! Might have to take a sabbatical from blogging now, to go off and read it! 

You know, that's a really strange idea behind one of the questions Brian got asked the other day - that only now matters - what's the interest in our origins, kind of thing...it's like - people don't look at the sky and WONDER From ancient times, that's happened - I already mentioned the Chinese, but many ancient peoples have their own creation stories.

It makes me think, where in modern thinking did we become so disconnected from ourselves, our past, and the planet which is a part of both? Is becoming disconnected from each other a symptom of that? And we can see all the problems that are being caused by climate change now, especially in Africa...causing so much suffering...prevention is better than cure, and cheaper in the long run, I'm sure!

But back to the stars again...I also have a book called 'We Came In Peace' which was sent to me from the States at the time of the first moon landing - I was only 7 then! But I always kept it - it explained a few things about our solar system and about the Apollo project...I think it's quite natural to be interested in such things - I was never going to continue with scientific studies after a certain point anyway, because my big strength was in languages...

Hey, maybe the worlds' leaders should all have a crash course in Astronomy...together in one classroom - so then they could see where we all fit in to this great scheme of things and stop all this fighting to try to achieve their own ends! Ha! Idealism, I know...I was watching a programme the other day about the first moon landing and I believe it was mentioned that Armstrong came out with his own words 'One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind', rather than anything Nixon wanted him to say! Good job, that the moment was not seized in that way for a political coup! There was enough of that anyway, with the 'Cold War Space Race' between the US and the Soviets...well, maybe that part of it was a bit of healthy competition which advanced the discoveries we humans were able to make - something constructive arising from a rivalry, if you put aside the rest of it, with missiles pointing at each other. Goodness, I just logged on to say that this book had arrived and look where I finished up! Yapping about all sorts of stuff! It's like that old advert for the 'Radio Times' - "I never knew there was so much in it..."

Well, Whaddaya think?
Current mood: giggly

Of course, we're told straight away that it would be impossible to depict what the big bang looked like, because standing outside the realms of time and space would be impossible...

Well, in trying to get to grips with some of the vast concepts of the creation of the universe, I might have hit on the key to the equally vast mysteries of some of the guv'nor's lyrics! The colours of the stars reflect their temperatures,we're told, so we talk about things being white-hot or red-hot...

When a red hot man meets a white hot lady
Hoop diddy diddy - hoop diddy do...

(Maybe this book IS about sex after all? )

Maybe if I read on I'll find out about the ever-mystifying

soup in the laundry bag...

well, a 'soup of sub-atomic particles' is mentioned, and the diagrams explaining 'inflation' look, at first viewing, not unlike croutons floating in a goblet and cocktail glass respectively......but no laundry-bag to be found (yet)...

No, I AM taking this book seriously, honest! I've learned that 'quark' doesn't just refer to that yummy white stuff I've enjoyed with bread and jam at many a German meal table!

Of course, the big bang is just a theory, but one on which most astronomers agree. Here's someone who really had it in for anyone who didn't agree with his ideas - the late Fritz Zwicky - from Switzerland (where else, with a name like that?):

Anyway, my endeavours to get my head round all this stuff, as well as star-gazers like Herr Zwicky, who looked like he might have had some bizarre ideas (even if they were proved correct) have been washed down with a glass or two of wine here or there, with the result that I finished up having uncontrollable fits of giggles in the bath until my daughter was despairing of me...

Still, I shall keep working on it - as I'm finding this astronomy stuff quite entertaining as well as informative right now! Hope you enjoy my new profile background too!

Continuing the discussion
Current mood: hungry

It's clearly very difficult to express these concepts, such as relative positions in time and space, the shape of the universe etc. in words. As I've said before, astronomy is not something I even had a chance to pursue, even though the school where I studied for my A-levels had its own planetarium!

But I've started taking in an interest in certain things just because Brian is interested/involved in them, and I really don't care about lack of interest on the part of other Queen fans. It's all about life, after all, and if others wish to be so narrow-minded as to shut it out altogether, that's really down to them.

I read 'Out of the Silent Planet', the science fiction novel by CS Lewis, after the guv'nor mentioned it was his favourite book, simply out of curiosity. What about you lot? Has anyone else read it? I think it's a really thought-provoking story. I've also written quite a bit about matters that Roger has expressed an interest in the past, which was frankly easier because some of them were issues I already knew or cared about myself. I think an interest in the group might often involve an interest in the wider matters that its individual members have written or talked about.

As for astronomy itself, I think it requires different types of thinking, and I think it's fair to say that it may need more divergent thinking than most sciences. So many astronomers may be quite artistic characters. Some who have done great things or made great discoveries may not be great academics - like Einstein, working in a patent office, and I believe that some of the most notable astronomical observations and data collections have been made by amateurs.

So, for the calculations and such like, you need convergent thinking, but it can't assist with all the aspects of astronomical study. So it's quite fascinating, really, to get that combination, because my own strengths are much more on the side of divergent thinking.

Anyway, I'm having a great time blogging here and discussing this stuff. I don't know anything about the origins of the word 'quark' and how it's come to be used for the different definitions mentioned, but I might just look into it!  Clearly, there is a strong element of astronomers who have had German as their native language; I don't know if this has anything to do with it...

Anyway, I shall endeavour to return with more comments about the book in the near future! But it's Friday night - and what's more, the Friday before Bonfire night, so we have quite a few 'Bang!s' being heard from fireworks outside right now!

Moving further on...
Current mood: contemplative

I've read very little CS Lewis but I have read that Queen had a collective interest in him in the early days. I watched a programme about him around the time the Narnia film was released which was very informative - in particular the fact that his mother also died of cancer when he was a child - although he was a few years younger than me at the time. Eventually, he lost his wife from the same illness and wrote a small book referring to his feelings called 'A Grief Observed', which I have read, and I mention it briefly on the homepage of 'Bohemia Place'. 

It's true that some subjects appear really daunting and it's often felt best to avoid tackling them altogether...As for eternity, Brian also said that the world would be wiped out by something else long before it gets destroyed by the sun.

I think we have paid quite a terrible price in modern times for our reductionist thinking because it has led to our separation from our environment in every sense. I haven't read far enough in Bang! yet, but if the source all matter emerged as suggested, then the Native American idea that the earth is our mother and the sun/skies our father makes perfect sense. John Trudell talks of our DNA being connected to land bases. So we are looking at our own ancestry in that sense. In the smugness we have shown as a result of technological progress, we come to miss out on the wisdom of those who walked the earth before us.

For example, in the the film 'Amistad', which depicts the true story of a court case in America before the Civil War to decide the fate of a group of Africans forcibly taken from their homeland to be used as slaves, there is a point when it looks as though the court may decide against their freedom. Their leader is asked what he does in such a time of crisis. He replies that he and his people would look to their ancestors, 'because at the moment, I am the only reason why they existed'.

So those who question the relevance of looking at our background - whether it be in history, or cosmology, or in the realms of human experience, would also be those who question the relevance of being concerned about anything that happens beyond our doorstep. We arrive then at this difficult word 'normal'. What is normal? Is it thinking the way most people think? - for example, at one time and place, most people thought that there was nothing wrong with slavery. Or is it thinking in the way we should think as the current inheritors of this planet? I can only say what the 'norm' is - that's what most people act or think, or what happens to most people. 'Normality' comes from our own perceptions and an understanding that these arise from our current position in time and place and from the basis of our own understanding and experience.