From yesterday's infinitesimal view to today's infinite view.
I'm always amazed at how hard it is too keep things in perspective.
How we walk around in our daily lives worried about the opening weekend box office of a film, or the price of a bottle of milk at Ralph's, or the recount of some contested ballots in Minnesota, when at this very moment, whole NEW PLANETS are being discovered in new solar systems in the outer reaches of our galaxy.
These are two views of the HR 9799 solar planetary system discovered recently.
Using high-contrast, near-infrared adaptive optics observations with the Keck and Gemini telescopes, the team of researchers from Livermore, the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada, Lowell Observatory, University of California Los Angeles, and several other institutions were able to see three orbiting planetary companions to HR8799.
That ought to help us keep things in perspective!!
Reminds me of one of my favorite monologues in one of my favorite films, Scott Corey's last speech in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" as he fades away into nothingness, as written by Richard Matheson:
"So close -- the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens ... the universe ... worlds beyond number ... God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of Man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon Nature. That existence begins and ends is Man's conception, not Nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away, and in their place came -- acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation -- it had to mean something. And then I meant something too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something too. To God, there is no zero. I STILL EXIST!"
Enjoy!
william
What a great quote - 'God's silver tapestry" - just beautiful...
Posted by: Mary | December 20, 2008 at 03:06 AM
They say it was the Mayans who invented the zero in the 3rd century AD to use in their numbers. I agree that to God and Nature there is no such thing as none ( or zero).
Posted by: Margaret Oomen | December 22, 2008 at 12:17 PM
I agree too, there is no such thing as zero, it is just the word :)
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Posted by: cialis online | February 19, 2010 at 09:22 AM
"They say it was the Mayans who invented the zero in the 3rd century AD to use in their numbers. I agree that to God and Nature there is no such thing as none ( or zero)."
0 wasn't invented by the Mayans, it was invented by a Hindu mathematician Aryabhatta in India before 400 BC, but in India, not south America
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