First posted June 30, 2015
The Old Astronomer to His Pupil
Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.
Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, ’tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles!
You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant’s fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
Sarah Williams
(from Best Loved Poems of the American People; Hazel Felleman, ed; 1936
(The last line was used as an epitaph for an Astronomer-couple buried at Alleghany Observatory)
NASA Released Stunning New Footage Of Earth, What It Shows Is Truly Breath-taking
incredible footage from the ISS speeding through Earth’s orbit. The video makes the largest cities in the world appear to be blotches of light surrounded by the deep blue of the sea. We also get to see natural phenomenon like the Aurora Borealis and thunderstorms from above
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A philosophy professor’s final class
Quantum poetics: Borges and Heisenberg on language and reality
Book Review: “Fashionable Nonsense” 20 Years Later
Kurt Gödel to his mother: We’ll meet again
Tae-Yeoun Keum: Why philosophy needs myth
Violence, desire and the sacred: Remembering René Girard (1923-2015)
‘We are all implicated in this system’: A philosopher’s advice for surviving unethical times
The Republic of Silence: Jean-Paul Sartre on the Aftermath of War and Occupation
After the truth-shower 