Wednesday 14 March 2012

The Most Astounding Fact

I realise that I've not been active round here for a while. Sorry to the world and thanks to NobblySan for the nudge.

What is the most astounding fact about the Universe? A deep question which has tied up philosophers, theologians and scientists for millennia. The astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked this in an interview for TIME Magazine in 2008 (I think).

I would have said 'the direction of the arrow of time'. But thinking of the reverse: atoms and molecules converging through the soil to produce a corpse which is then animated as you, to exist for an undefined period gradually getting younger until doctors or midwives push you inside another person who then has inverse copulation...

Well it's no more strange then what we do by living 'forwards'. You'd be used to it because that's how it was. How would you tell the difference? I prefer it our way though.

DeGrasse Tyson chooses a different fact:

The Most Astounding Fact (Neil deGrasse Tyson)


We are stardust indeed.

Woodstock ~ Joni Mitchell

3 comments:

Mark said...

How terribly uplifting !

Andy Holroyd said...

DeGrasse Tyson has an infectious enthusiasm and he's a great speaker. You might enjoy this video from the Beyond Belief conference in 2006:

The Perimeter of Ignorance - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

NobblySan said...

The most astounding fact about my universe at the moment is that it's work in the morning, and I've done two thirds of the square root of fuck all of the stuff that I was going to do over the easter break.

Or maybe there's nothing astounding about that at all..... just ask MrsN.