[AZ-Observing] Re: Beautiful Universe
- From: "Bernie Sanden" <bsanden@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:31:20 -0700
Beautifully said, Stan.
Wait, now that I look closer, your message consists of nothing more than
a huge combination of squiggly letters. Each letter is nothing more
than some black dots on a white background.
Nevermind.
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Stan Gorodenski
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 7:05 PM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Beautiful Universe
My intent is not to criticize Keith, but I have had the opposite opinion
about the universe being beautiful for some time and this is as good a
time as any to raise this issue. The early philosophers and ancient
astronomers looked upon the universe in a mathematical way, i.e., in an
idealized abstract way. However, beauty is totally a matter of one's
perspective. We like to think of the human body as beautiful, but as we
magnify it to the cellular level we find cells that make up the human
body composed of snotty clumps of this or that cellular material. Very
ugly in another perspective. As we get to an even smaller and smaller
scale, even to the subatomic level, things are not nice and ordered.
Instead they are a hodge podge of irregular pieces of this or that that
can only be described in statistical and probabilistic ways. They
generally do not follow nice mathematical formulations. As we get to a
larger scale some of the astronomical objects we see we perceive as
being beautiful, but again it is only in the eyes of the beholder. Even
on a larger scale objects are composed of irregular pieces of this or
that. Even space itself is not uniform but again is composed of
inconsistent fields of differing types and strengths, subatomic
particles, etc. Yes, we like to think the Universe is beautiful, but
this is strictly a human perspective. In reality it is a _mess_ and not
that beautiful at all. Only man's _abstract_ mathematical laws and
concepts that define the universe in overall general terms without
getting into the nitty gritty of trying to model the irregular
appearance of, for example, the Orion nebula, are beautiful.
Stan
Keith Schlottman wrote:
>I just received the 2008 edition of Sky & Telescope's "Beautiful
Universe".
>The book is full of eye candy for those of us who enjoy this amazing
and
>awesome universe that we live in, and it highlights the works of the
world's
>best astrophotographers.
>
>One of the imagers is Tucson's own Dean Salman - his work covers four
full
>pages of the book!
>
>Congratulations to Dean.
>
>I highly recommend picking up a copy.
>
>
>
>Keith Schlottman
>
>
>
>--
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please
>send personal replies to the author, not the list.
>
>
>
>
>
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