FOCUS: The Universe

On the Known and Unknown Universe
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." - H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

"When the cartographers of the Middle Ages came to the end of the world as they knew it, they wrote: 'Beware: Dragons Lurk Beyond Here.'" - William Manchester, A World Lit Only By Fire

"The scientist, Roger Pemrose, was walking with some friends and talking animatedly. He fell silent only in order to cross the street. 'I remember that - as I was crossing the street - an incredible idea came to me,' Pemrose said. 'But, as soon as we reached the other side, we picked up where we left off, and I couldn't remember what I thought of just a few seconds earlier.' Late in the afternoon, Pemrose began to feel euphoric - without knowing why. 'I had the feeling that something had been revealed to me,' he said. He decided to go back over every minute of the day, and - when he remembered the moment when he was crossing the street - the idea came back to him. This time, he wrote it down. It was the theory of black holes, a revolutionary theory in modern physics. And it came back to him because Pemrose was able to recall the silence that we always fall into as we cross a street." - Paulo Coelho

"In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, Bell Lab scientists, were modifying a radio antenna so it could be used to receive signals from an early communications satellite. They tried to eliminate sources of background radio signals, but no matter what they did, they still heard residual static-like ‘noise.’ Their genius was to make the connection between the noise and new theories about big bang. They became the first people to hear the birth of the universe, winning Nobel prizes in the process." - Rick Harriman, Synectics Inc.

"A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe, 'That fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.'" - Stephen Crane

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." - Albert Einstein

"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." - Woody Allen

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rich Cook

"The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around in it until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go hey, I'm Vine Man." - Jack Handey

"If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle." - Dave Barry

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of –
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up along delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr., High Flight

The Known Universe



Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Pluto Files


From FORA TV
The Dance of the Universe: Are We Alone with Father George Coyne & Lynn Rothschild (Video)

From FORA TV
The Black Hole War with Leonard Susskind (Video)

From FORA TV
Death by Black Hole with Neil deGrasse Tyson (Video)

From FORA TV
Confessions of an Alien Hunter with Seth Shostak (Video)

From FORA TV
God and the Universe with Ian Morison (Video)

From The New York Times
Heaven and Nature by Russ Douthat

From NASA
Cosmology: The Study of the Universe (PDF)