Why I became interested in astronomy
Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 7:09 am
I hope I won't break any rules with this post, but if I do, I ask bystander or someone else in charge to delete it.
I grew up with people with very strong beliefs. When I was eight I was told that many of them waited for the end of the world, which they believed was imminent. My grandfather was one of them. During all his life he never bought any insurances, because he believed that the end of the world would happen during his lifetime, and then neither he himself nor any of his family would benefit from insurances. He moved his family to a small rented apartment and gave away all his spare money to charity.
Being told when you are eight years old that the world is coming to an end any day now is tough. Particularly if you are also told that the only way to be saved is to be as fervently faithful as your relatives and live up to their standards in every way. I felt extremely sinful and inadequate when I compared myself to them. My relatives believed with all their hearts that anyone who didn't share their beliefs would be punished for an eternity, and their conviction seemed so strong that I could almost imagine that their belief in itself was strong enough to rend the earth asunder.
When I was fourteen I saw 2001 - A Space Oddyssey and was literally knocked over by its portrait of a universe that was stronger than the astronauts who had ventured out into it. (Later I read that this movie is about mankind's first encounter with aliens, but I never saw any aliens in it. To me, the movie was about mankind's encounter with a chillingly majestic and overwhelmingly strong universe.)
When I was fifteen, I borrowed a book about astronomy from my local library. In that book I read a sentence that forever changed my way of looking at myself, my relatives and the universe.
It said, All stars are suns.
That night I went out to look at the night sky. There were pinpricks of light up there. I compared those pinpricks with the blinding light of the daytime Sun. If those stars were suns like the Sun, how far away were they? And if they were that far away, then how big was the universe?
I had believed that the faith of my relatives was strong enough to, literally, bring forth the end of the world. I hadn't given much thought to the size of the universe. I certainly knew about our solar system and the other planets, but I didn't have a "feel" for how far away the other planets were. I had seen illustrations of our solar system, where everything seemed quite cosy and nearby. The universe didn't seem to be very big. 2001 - A Space Oddyssey had certainly challenged that notion with its portrait of space, but it was only a movie. The book I read, with that short, dry sentence - All stars are suns - suddenly put me in my own personal bubble of inflation of the universe. It was like realizing how the canopy of the sky suddenly receded and receded and receded until I could feel only vertigo, and still everything just kept receding. It was an Alice in Wonderland experience, and afterwards I could never look at the proportions of the world around me in the same way as before.
And then it hit home that the universe was bigger than my relatives. They had appeared to me to hold sway over life and death and even over the continued existence of the Earth. And when the universe had appeared small to me, there wasn't that much difference between the world and the universe. If the world was coming to an end because my relatives said that it must, then surely the universe would end at the same time. But now I could see that there was no way that the influence of my relatives could reach those pinpricks of light which were as far away as they would have to be to look as faint as they did, even though in reality they were as bright as the Sun.
(Many, many years later I learnt that 99% of the stars we can see with the naked eye are brighter than the Sun, but 95% of the stars in our galaxy are fainter than the Sun. But back then, when I was fifteen, this spread of stellar brightness didn't matter for the "revelation" I had.)
The universe was too big for my relatives to hold sway over it. I could not be sure that they weren't powerful enough to control the Earth. Maybe they could still make the world come to an end through the sheer strength of their faith and willpower. But whether they could or not, there was a larger universe out there that they couldn't touch.
Discovering the vast universe out there set me free from the terror that my relatives had instilled in me when I was a child.
Interestingly, my grandfather also loved the stars. When he still lived in the country, he liked to take my mother out on a dark night and show her the constellations. Later, when he moved his family to a small rented apartment in a city where he waited for the end of the world, he couldn't see many stars in the light-polluted skies, and he lost interest.
I think it is interesting that both my grandfather and myself have seen things in the sky that have comforted us and strenghtened us. My grandfather saw the majesty of the powers he believed in and the solace and reassurance he needed that those powers would save him during the imminent ending of the world. I saw the majesty of a universe that won't come to an end to oblige even the most fervent beliefs of human beings.
Ann
I grew up with people with very strong beliefs. When I was eight I was told that many of them waited for the end of the world, which they believed was imminent. My grandfather was one of them. During all his life he never bought any insurances, because he believed that the end of the world would happen during his lifetime, and then neither he himself nor any of his family would benefit from insurances. He moved his family to a small rented apartment and gave away all his spare money to charity.
Being told when you are eight years old that the world is coming to an end any day now is tough. Particularly if you are also told that the only way to be saved is to be as fervently faithful as your relatives and live up to their standards in every way. I felt extremely sinful and inadequate when I compared myself to them. My relatives believed with all their hearts that anyone who didn't share their beliefs would be punished for an eternity, and their conviction seemed so strong that I could almost imagine that their belief in itself was strong enough to rend the earth asunder.
When I was fourteen I saw 2001 - A Space Oddyssey and was literally knocked over by its portrait of a universe that was stronger than the astronauts who had ventured out into it. (Later I read that this movie is about mankind's first encounter with aliens, but I never saw any aliens in it. To me, the movie was about mankind's encounter with a chillingly majestic and overwhelmingly strong universe.)
When I was fifteen, I borrowed a book about astronomy from my local library. In that book I read a sentence that forever changed my way of looking at myself, my relatives and the universe.
It said, All stars are suns.
That night I went out to look at the night sky. There were pinpricks of light up there. I compared those pinpricks with the blinding light of the daytime Sun. If those stars were suns like the Sun, how far away were they? And if they were that far away, then how big was the universe?
I had believed that the faith of my relatives was strong enough to, literally, bring forth the end of the world. I hadn't given much thought to the size of the universe. I certainly knew about our solar system and the other planets, but I didn't have a "feel" for how far away the other planets were. I had seen illustrations of our solar system, where everything seemed quite cosy and nearby. The universe didn't seem to be very big. 2001 - A Space Oddyssey had certainly challenged that notion with its portrait of space, but it was only a movie. The book I read, with that short, dry sentence - All stars are suns - suddenly put me in my own personal bubble of inflation of the universe. It was like realizing how the canopy of the sky suddenly receded and receded and receded until I could feel only vertigo, and still everything just kept receding. It was an Alice in Wonderland experience, and afterwards I could never look at the proportions of the world around me in the same way as before.
And then it hit home that the universe was bigger than my relatives. They had appeared to me to hold sway over life and death and even over the continued existence of the Earth. And when the universe had appeared small to me, there wasn't that much difference between the world and the universe. If the world was coming to an end because my relatives said that it must, then surely the universe would end at the same time. But now I could see that there was no way that the influence of my relatives could reach those pinpricks of light which were as far away as they would have to be to look as faint as they did, even though in reality they were as bright as the Sun.
(Many, many years later I learnt that 99% of the stars we can see with the naked eye are brighter than the Sun, but 95% of the stars in our galaxy are fainter than the Sun. But back then, when I was fifteen, this spread of stellar brightness didn't matter for the "revelation" I had.)
The universe was too big for my relatives to hold sway over it. I could not be sure that they weren't powerful enough to control the Earth. Maybe they could still make the world come to an end through the sheer strength of their faith and willpower. But whether they could or not, there was a larger universe out there that they couldn't touch.
Discovering the vast universe out there set me free from the terror that my relatives had instilled in me when I was a child.
Interestingly, my grandfather also loved the stars. When he still lived in the country, he liked to take my mother out on a dark night and show her the constellations. Later, when he moved his family to a small rented apartment in a city where he waited for the end of the world, he couldn't see many stars in the light-polluted skies, and he lost interest.
I think it is interesting that both my grandfather and myself have seen things in the sky that have comforted us and strenghtened us. My grandfather saw the majesty of the powers he believed in and the solace and reassurance he needed that those powers would save him during the imminent ending of the world. I saw the majesty of a universe that won't come to an end to oblige even the most fervent beliefs of human beings.
Ann
But I think Jodie's character went on a space trip in her mind, or else she was put in suspended animation while her body travelled to another planet. And I do remember that there were aliens in the movie. Uh... did she meet her father at the end? 
So I should change my mind, then?
