Blue Marble Space Video

Space exploration begins at home.

Earthrise: "Riders on the Earth Together"

The words in the image above were written by the American poet Archibald MacLeish upon seeing the imagery coming from the Apollo 8 mission (the famous Earthrise image, accompanying the quote above, was taken just the day before MacLeish's quote was published).

Seeing our world from space, seeing that there are no national boundaries, no grand positions for monarchs and rulers to claim, seeing that we are all connected by sharing our beautiful little Blue Marble in the vastness of space... comes with an existential awareness that could be gained in no other way. 

Seeing ourselves as "riders on the Earth together" brings us together in our shared experience as members of our world, participants in our biosphere. 

---

Below, you can read the entire text from MacLeish's 1968 New York Times article:

A Reflection: Riders on Earth Together, Brothers in Eternal Cold
by Archibald MacLeish
New York Times, December 25, 1968

"Men's conception of themselves and of each other has always depended on their notion of the earth. When the earth was the World -- all the world there was -- and the stars were lights in Dante's heaven, and the ground beneath men's feet roofed Hell, they saw themselves as creatures at the center of the universe, the sole, particular concern of God -- and from that high place they ruled and killed and conquered as they pleased.

And when, centuries later, the earth was no longer the World but a small, wet spinning planet in the solar system of a minor star off at the edge of an inconsiderable galaxy in the immeasurable distances of space -- when Dante's heaven had disappeared and there was no Hell (at least no Hell beneath the feet) -- men began to see themselves not as God-directed actors at the center of a noble drama, but as helpless victims of a senseless farce where all the rest were helpless victims also and millions could be killed in world-wide wars or in blasted cities or in concentration camps without a thought or reason but the reason -- if we call it one -- of force.

Now, in the last few hours, the notion may have changed again. For the first time in all of time men have seen it not as continents or oceans from the little distance of a hundred miles or two or three, but seen it from the depth of space; seen it whole and round and beautiful and small as even Dante -- that "first imagination of Christendom" -- had never dreamed of seeing it; as the Twentieth Century philosophers of absurdity and despair were incapable of guessing that it might be seen. And seeing it so, one question came to the minds of those who looked at it. "Is it inhabited?" they said to each other and laughed -- and then they did not laugh. What came to their minds a hundred thousand miles and more into space -- "half way to the moon" they put it -- what came to their minds was the life on that little, lonely, floating planet; that tiny raft in the enormous, empty night. "Is it inhabited?"

The medieval notion of the earth put man at the center of everything. The nuclear notion of the earth put him nowhere -- beyond the range of reason even -- lost in absurdity and war. This latest notion may have other consequences. Formed as it was in the minds of heroic voyagers who were also men, it may remake our image of mankind. No longer that preposterous figure at the center, no longer that degraded and degrading victim off at the margins of reality and blind with blood, man may at last become himself.

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold -- brothers who know now they are truly brothers." 

Humanity, Technology, and an "Einstein Quote" that Einstein Never Said.

From the film Powder (1995). #film #movie #quote #powder #jeffgoldblum #seanpatrickflanery #EinsteinNeverSaidThat #humanity #technology #spirituality #lightning

A post shared by Graham Lau (@cosmobiologist) on Nov 17, 2017 at 6:18pm PST

I was recently thinking about the film Powder. Released in 1995 and starring Sean Patrick Flannery, Mary Steenburgen, Jeff Goldblum, and Lance Henriksen, Powder was about a young albino man, nicknamed Powder, with unique capabilities of intellect, telepathy, and paranormal ability. The man is an outcast due to his differences, and the film explores some of his interactions with others. The tagline for the film was "An extraordinary encounter with another human being!". Here's the trailer for the film:

It's definitely worth a watch. I remember being quite moved by it when I was a kid (I was 12 when the film came out). There's one scene in particular that stuck with me and comes up in my thoughts from time-to-time. Jeff Goldblum's character, Donald Ripley, is supportive of Powder and awed by Powder's abilities. In the scene that I still remember so well, the following exchange is had between the two of them:

Donald Ripley: “It’s become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity.”

Powder: “Albert Einstein.”

Donald Ripley: “I look at you, and I think that someday our humanity might actually surpass our technology.”

Beautiful, right?! I loved that scene as a kid, and I still love it now. However, something very interesting that I just learned is that the first part of the quote ("It's become appallingly clear...") isn't actually a quote from Albert Einstein!

Folks at Quote Investigator and Snopes have tried to track down this claimed Einstein quote and have found that the first instance of the quote in known history actually is the movie Powder! The quote was written into the script as being from Einstein even though it wasn't actually an Einstein quote. Later, due to the film, others began using the quote and misattributing it to Einstein (such as DeAnna Emerson’s "Mars/Earth Enigma: A Sacred Message to Mankind" in 1996 and Nina L. Diamond's "Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers, and Healers" in 2000).

It's still a great quote and a moving sentiment. It reminds me of what I found to be the most powerful line in Martin Luther King Jr.'s essay "The World House":

"When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men."

Of course, the quote from Powder sounds like something that Albert Einstein would have said. And, even though I think it's good to be aware of things like misattribution, there's also something interesting about how we often will begin building legends around famous people from our past (and even present) and can slowly attribute talents, spoken words, and acts to those legends that may not have been true of the actual people the legends are based on. 
Maybe it doesn't matter that Einstein never actually said that. Maybe part of the legend of Einstein, the myth of the man, is that we build him up and attribute sayings and deeds to him that weren't really his. Even though I prefer knowing the truth in this instance, it might just be part of our human nature that we build our legends up in such ways. It's definitely something to ponder.


I'll leave you here with a quote that is pretty surely actually from Einstein:

"The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks."

(Of course, many have shortened the quote to say "The value of an education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think". Oh well.)

A few quotes about stars to brighten your day

And to enliven your night! 

Credit: Christophe Lehenaff

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” 

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now, that's a question.” 

― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

"There is no easy way from the earth to the stars” 

― Seneca

“There’s as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.” 

― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos

“It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.” 

― Mark Twain


“Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.” 

― Ptolemy

"There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope.” 

― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space.” 

― George Gordon Byron

No well is an ordinary well

Do you remember the well in Final Fantasy?
The "ordinary well" that gave this message:

...Well I beg to differ. 

Every well is a hole drilled into the Earth in pursuit of the sustaining fluid of life. Some wells are drilled in hope of finding water. Some wells are drilled where knowledge and experience have told us there will be water. Some wells have dried up long ago and now present nothing more than a vertical cave created by humans. 

Some wells are small and some are big, some supported by brick or metal, while others are drilled in rock strong enough to support itself. Some wells support entire communities of people while other wells have provided for a sense of fulfillment of individual dreams and wishes (even if that seems like idle hope). No well is an ordinary well. 

See You Speak Toastmasters - Balance

Tonight's meeting of See You Speak Toastmasters will focus on the theme of "Balance". I'll be talking about using exercises to find physical balance as well as using meditation to find mental balance, but, most importantly for public speaking, I'll also be talking about finding balance in our speaking.

For instance, some filler words (like 'ah' and 'um') will not destroy your message, but too many of them most certainly will. Also, variations in intonation and pitch in your voice, gives your speech a balanced dynamic. Just the same goes for using variations in the tempo (or timing) of your delivery. There's a lot of balance to be found in our speaking.

For tonight's meeting, I'll share this quote from a great speaker:

“What is joy without sorrow? 

What is success without failure? 

What is a win without a loss? 

What is health without illness? 

You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. 

It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, 

That will define you.” 

― Mark Twain

Do It Today!

...But also do it tomorrow.

There's a pretty famous quote that goes, "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today". There are plenty of variations of that quote, and an internet search will reveal lots of possible authors (including Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, though Philip Stanhope appears to be the oldest possible source).

I'm feeling pretty motivated today. Definitely a good day to get things done. However, tomorrow's going to have to be a day for getting things done as well. And, probably the day after that...

My motivation for today is to remember to get things done every day but to also reward myself after those accomplishments with some down time. After I read a research article today, I'll reward myself with a chapter from a Harry Potter book. After I revise the current draft of my research article for the day, I will reward myself with a television show.

How do you manage to keep yourself motivated?

Back to Work After the Holiday

Do well, mostly

I think each of us should, in our own way, try to be the best people we can be at all times, but we should also find comfort in knowing that we can't be perfect and sometimes we won't be the best. For this first week of 2016, I hope we can start the year off right by trying to do our best while not getting carried away with it.

Climb the Mountain

Climb the Mountain, by sunrise666 at Deviant Art

“Climb the mountain 

not to plant your flag, 

but to embrace the challenge, 

enjoy the air and behold the view. 

Climb it so you can see the world, 

not so the world can see you.”

- David McCullough Jr.

"You Have No Respect for Logic"

A Movie Clip Worth Sharing

"Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; 

and if it were so, it would be; 

but as it isn't, it ain't. 

That's logic."

-Lewis Carroll                 

It's late and I'm feeling a tad snarky, so why the hell not share this awesome video clip of one of my favorite scenes from the 1988 movie Twins?

This scene describes how I feel pretty often when reading public commentary on the internet.