by neufer » Mon Dec 27, 2010 7:01 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_egg wrote:
NoelC wrote:
The word that comes to my mind to describe the visual distribution is "splatter".
![Image](http://www.newforestobservatory.com/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/projects/img_4751_cs3_nfo.jpg)
<<The cosmic egg is an ancient mythological concept resurrected by modern science in the 1930s and explored by theoreticians during the following two decades. Georges Lemaitre proposed in 1927 that the cosmos originated from what he called the primeval atom. In the late 1940s, George Gamow's assistant cosmological researcher Ralph Alpher, proposed the name ylem for the primordial substance that existed between the big crunch of the previous universe and the big bang of our own universe. Current cosmological models maintain that 13.7 billion years ago, the entire mass of the universe was compressed into a singularity, from which it expanded to its current state (following the Big Bang), the so-called cosmic egg.
Hindu concepts of Hiranyagarbha (golden womb) and Brahmanda (the first egg), are comparable to cosmic egg origin systems. The Bhagavata Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Vayu Purana among others contain references to the initial process of the origins of the universe as a cosmic egg: "The whole universe including sun, moon, planets, and galaxies was all inside the egg, and the egg was surrounded by ten qualities from outside... At the end of thousand years, the Egg was divided in two by Vayu." - Vayu Purana.
"Furthermore the god Mithras is often depicted as appearing from within an egg."
____ Metaphysics and philosophy
In Hindu tantra, based on the Hindu philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, the Shri Yantra represents the expansion of the universe from the cosmic egg after its creation by Shiva through the power of Shakti. The cosmic egg is represented by a dot in the center of the Shri Yantra mandala called the bindu.
____ Influences on science fiction and popular culture
In the 1970 science fiction novel Tau Zero by Poul Anderson, a starship forced to travel very close to the speed of light by an engine malfunction survives traversing our universe collapsing via a big crunch into a cosmic egg and re-exploding in a new big bang. The crew of the starship finds a planet similar to Earth in the new universe, upon which they land and establish a colony. In 1972 science fiction novel The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov baby universes, in their cosmic egg stage, are used as alternative fuel.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg wrote:
<<A world egg or cosmic egg is a mythological motif found in the creation myths of many cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg.
Sanskrit scriptures and Vedanta
The earliest ideas of "Egg-shaped Cosmos" comes from some of the Sanskrit scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (Brahm means 'Cosmos' or 'expanding', Anda means 'Egg'). The Rig Veda uses a similar name for the source of the universe: Hiranyagarbha, which literally means "golden fetus" or "golden womb". The Upanishads elaborate that the Hiranyagarbha floated around in emptiness for a while, and then broke into two halves which formed Dyaus (Heaven) and Prithvi (Earth) - concepts that existed in nearly every ancient culture, and were also articulated by the Abrahamic religions. The Rig Veda has a similar coded description of the division of the universe in its early stages.
____ Chinese mythology
In the myth of Pangu, developed by Taoist monks hundreds of years after Lao Zi, the universe began as an egg. A god named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: the upper half became the sky, while the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally Pangu died and his body parts became different parts of the earth.
____ Egyptian mythology
In the original myth concerning the Ogdoad, the Milky Way arose from the waters as a mound of dirt, which was deified as Hathor. Ra was contained within an egg laid upon this mound by a celestial bird. In the earliest version of this myth, the bird is a goose (it is not explained where the goose originates). However, after the rise of the cult of Thoth, the egg was said to have been a gift from Thoth and laid by an ibis, the bird with which he was associated.
![Image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Orphic-egg.png/220px-Orphic-egg.png)
Jacob Bryant's Orphic Egg (1774)
____ Finnish mythology
In the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a diving duck on the knee of Ilmatar, goddess of the air:
- One egg's lower half transformed
And became the earth below,
And its upper half transmuted
And became the sky above;
From the yolk the sun was made,
Light of day to shine upon us;
From the white the moon was formed,
Light of night to gleam above us;
All the colored brighter bits
Rose to be the stars of heaven
And the darker crumbs changed into
Clouds and cloudlets in the sky.
[quote=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_egg"]
[float=right][quote="NoelC"]
The word that comes to my mind to describe the visual distribution is "splatter".
[url=http://www.newforestobservatory.com/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/projects/img_4751_cs3_nfo.jpg][img]http://www.newforestobservatory.com/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/projects/img_4751_cs3_nfo.jpg[/img][/url][/quote][/float]
<<The cosmic egg is an ancient mythological concept resurrected by modern science in the 1930s and explored by theoreticians during the following two decades. Georges Lemaitre proposed in 1927 that the cosmos originated from what he called the primeval atom. In the late 1940s, George Gamow's assistant cosmological researcher Ralph Alpher, proposed the name ylem for the primordial substance that existed between the big crunch of the previous universe and the big bang of our own universe. Current cosmological models maintain that 13.7 billion years ago, the entire mass of the universe was compressed into a singularity, from which it expanded to its current state (following the Big Bang), the so-called cosmic egg.
Hindu concepts of Hiranyagarbha (golden womb) and Brahmanda (the first egg), are comparable to cosmic egg origin systems. The Bhagavata Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Vayu Purana among others contain references to the initial process of the origins of the universe as a cosmic egg: "The whole universe including sun, moon, planets, and galaxies was all inside the egg, and the egg was surrounded by ten qualities from outside... At the end of thousand years, the Egg was divided in two by Vayu." - Vayu Purana.
"Furthermore the god Mithras is often depicted as appearing from within an egg."
____ Metaphysics and philosophy
In Hindu tantra, based on the Hindu philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, the Shri Yantra represents the expansion of the universe from the cosmic egg after its creation by Shiva through the power of Shakti. The cosmic egg is represented by a dot in the center of the Shri Yantra mandala called the bindu.
____ Influences on science fiction and popular culture
In the 1970 science fiction novel Tau Zero by Poul Anderson, a starship forced to travel very close to the speed of light by an engine malfunction survives traversing our universe collapsing via a big crunch into a cosmic egg and re-exploding in a new big bang. The crew of the starship finds a planet similar to Earth in the new universe, upon which they land and establish a colony. In 1972 science fiction novel The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov baby universes, in their cosmic egg stage, are used as alternative fuel.>>[/quote]
[quote=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg"]
<<A world egg or cosmic egg is a mythological motif found in the creation myths of many cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg.
Sanskrit scriptures and Vedanta
The earliest ideas of "Egg-shaped Cosmos" comes from some of the Sanskrit scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (Brahm means 'Cosmos' or 'expanding', Anda means 'Egg'). The Rig Veda uses a similar name for the source of the universe: Hiranyagarbha, which literally means "golden fetus" or "golden womb". The Upanishads elaborate that the Hiranyagarbha floated around in emptiness for a while, and then broke into two halves which formed Dyaus (Heaven) and Prithvi (Earth) - concepts that existed in nearly every ancient culture, and were also articulated by the Abrahamic religions. The Rig Veda has a similar coded description of the division of the universe in its early stages.
____ Chinese mythology
In the myth of Pangu, developed by Taoist monks hundreds of years after Lao Zi, the universe began as an egg. A god named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: the upper half became the sky, while the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally Pangu died and his body parts became different parts of the earth.
____ Egyptian mythology
In the original myth concerning the Ogdoad, the Milky Way arose from the waters as a mound of dirt, which was deified as Hathor. Ra was contained within an egg laid upon this mound by a celestial bird. In the earliest version of this myth, the bird is a goose (it is not explained where the goose originates). However, after the rise of the cult of Thoth, the egg was said to have been a gift from Thoth and laid by an ibis, the bird with which he was associated.
[float=right][img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Orphic-egg.png/220px-Orphic-egg.png[/img]
Jacob Bryant's Orphic Egg (1774)[/float]____ Finnish mythology
In the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a diving duck on the knee of Ilmatar, goddess of the air:
[list] One egg's lower half transformed
And became the earth below,
And its upper half transmuted
And became the sky above;
From the yolk the sun was made,
Light of day to shine upon us;
From the white the moon was formed,
Light of night to gleam above us;
All the colored brighter bits
Rose to be the stars of heaven
And the darker crumbs changed into
Clouds and cloudlets in the sky. [/list][/quote]