“First, you are astonished by the view – Saturn’s golden rings, star clusters glittering like jewelry on black velvet, galaxies aglow with gentle starlight older than the human species – and by the realization that we and our world are part of this gigantic system.
“Second, you soon want a bigger telescope.”
Ferris says that three of the world’s largest telescopes sit atop a 14,000-foot peak in Hawaii, where astronomers can see clearly – but not, apparently, think clearly.
It is awfully difficult up where the air is so thin, and when you're there all night. Some of them turn to supplemental oxygen, and all have to be very careful not to make stupid mistakes. “The real thinking goes on at sea level,” reported one scientist.
A few of the telescopes have names that make me laugh, like Chile’s “Very Large Telescope.” The article doesn’t say how big that one is, though it mentions that today’s largest telescopes have mirrors about ten meters (33 feet) in diameter.
Bigger ones are coming, such as the European Extremely Large Telescope, which will have a mirror 42 meters across. This, says Ferris, is “a scaled-down version of the 100-meter Overwhelmingly Large Telescope, which was tabled at the planning stage when its projected budget turned out to be overwhelming too.”
The author sounded more like a philosopher when he said, “A telescope doesn’t just show you what’s out there; it impresses upon you how little you know.”
How often do our inquiries - into science, or art, into systems, people, and cultures - have that same effect?
>> Read the article.
3 comments:
timothy ferris wrote an interesting book on the history of cosmology called Coming of Age in the Milky Way. I have read it a few times and I think I am due for a re-read.
Looking on it on Amazon, I think that sounds really interesting! Especially the biographical bits, although my understanding of astronomy and science in general could use some bolstering, as well. Sometimes it seems a pity that so many things in the universe are interesting - I'm often aware of how much I don't know!
Remember me talking about the seminar I took in college, 'Creativity, Eccentricity, and Serendipity in Science'? Did some reading on these things, those days, but, well, that's been a couple decades now!
i think you could follow most of the book w/o advanced knowledge of science. as i recall there is some about the laws of thermodynamics and maybe laws of motion, but it is mostly history and perspective, actually.
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