This entry explains why I always wander to the "things for dorks" section when I'm at Powell's
I'm taking an environmental science seminar series this term for one credit. Not all of the seminars I attend have to be environmental science ones though, so in a few hours I'm going to a physics seminar about white dwarf stars. I'm way too excited about it, because I think stars are neat. And I have such an extensive vocabulary that I was able to choose between THREE DIFFERENT WORDS ("neat," "cool," or "the dog's bollocks") to describe how I feel about stars.
Thinking about the seminar made me want to post this quote from Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World, because I think it pretty much explains why I'm so fascinated not just by stars, but by science in general:
"...It's hard for me to see a more profound cosmic connection than the astonishing findings of modern nuclear astrophysics: Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us up - the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our brains - were manufactured in red giant stars thousands of light-years away in space and billions of years ago in time."
To me, that statement is way more meaningful and "spiritual" than anything I've ever heard in the Catholic services I've been to (or in any other religious context). Because it speaks to exactly what I want. I want to see an enormous web connecting everything in the universe, with nothing left out or isolated. And I know I'll never see the whole thing, or even come close. But understanding little sections of it makes me happy.
Another thing that makes me happy is the bag of taquitos in the freezer.
Thinking about the seminar made me want to post this quote from Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World, because I think it pretty much explains why I'm so fascinated not just by stars, but by science in general:
"...It's hard for me to see a more profound cosmic connection than the astonishing findings of modern nuclear astrophysics: Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us up - the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our brains - were manufactured in red giant stars thousands of light-years away in space and billions of years ago in time."
To me, that statement is way more meaningful and "spiritual" than anything I've ever heard in the Catholic services I've been to (or in any other religious context). Because it speaks to exactly what I want. I want to see an enormous web connecting everything in the universe, with nothing left out or isolated. And I know I'll never see the whole thing, or even come close. But understanding little sections of it makes me happy.
Another thing that makes me happy is the bag of taquitos in the freezer.