I remember my father and the night more than 40 years ago. He woke me up in the middle of the night in my hometown of Derry in Northern Ireland - a town torn by strife, civil war nearly, between nationalists and unionists, between protestants and catholics. He woke me up and we dressed and walked out, up into the hills overlooking the city, and sat on the hillside in the ink dark, surrounded by others - a milky way of people clustered in small constellations on the hillside - and waited for an eclipse.
That night certainly inspired a lifelong interest in science and astronomy, but it taught me so much more as well: how a sense of wonder, a sense of awe, staring into the deep mysteries of the universe, could unite us all, adult and child, man and woman, nationalist and unionist, protestant and catholic, together. None of those differences mattered to us on that hill.
Now, deep under the soils of Switzerland this weekend, the engines have begin to rev and the Large Hadron Collider, the big bang machine, is springing to life. Molecules will be hurled around and around a 17-mile long subterranean racetrack, excited to incredible speeds, each molecule harboring the power of an automobile traveling 1,000 miles per hour, before being crashed into each other.
Scientists hope to uncover the the secrets to the origin of the universe in these crashes. And they might.
However, some scientists have voiced concerns - widely dispelled - that this experiment will birth a black hole or some other cataclysmic event that might imperil our planet. And still other astrophysicists say we have nothing to worry about - that the universe will not allow us to discover these secrets, that it will actually send agents back in time to stop the collider from working. Really. They’ve written papers!
The thing is, we just don’t know.
I have stood in the dark, deep night many times as dew has settled lazily on the grass, watching the heavens. I have been entranced by northern lights and in their movement have glimpsed cosmic secrets, of the dance of molecules that weaves us all together - you and I and the grass and the stars all.
I have strained to follow the bright arcs of shooting stars and in their faint traces have sensed the impermanence of all life - we each flash in our brilliance, we each reach apogee, and we each then fade and fall.
I have children. From mere cells they have sprung, from molecules dancing together, to form hair, body, eyes, smiles, hearts, souls and energy.
And I feel so often a child myself, always learning, always running up against the edge of mystery.
I know it can be the stuff of fear and worry. But it can just as much be the stuff of wonder.
For there is mystery in each sunrise, in each smile, in each tear and in each touch.
In the whorl of the fingerprints on a baby’s hand, in the shape of a cloud, in the spiral of a snails shell, in a single blade of grass –there is mystery.
There is just so much we do not know or understand. How did it arise? Where did it come from? Where does it go?
The truth appears to us much like that shooting star - ephemeral, evanescent, quickly gone. A mystery. And I am so thankful for that.
Because mystery begets awe and awe, that sense of wonderment, is intrinsically humbling. For it places us, not in the center of the universe, but near a small, unspectacular sun, on an arm of one of thousands of spiral galaxies hurtling at the speed of life away from the big bang. In that mystery is all of the potential of the universe. And for that, for those infinite possibilities, I am eternally grateful.
That night certainly inspired a lifelong interest in science and astronomy, but it taught me so much more as well: how a sense of wonder, a sense of awe, staring into the deep mysteries of the universe, could unite us all, adult and child, man and woman, nationalist and unionist, protestant and catholic, together. None of those differences mattered to us on that hill.
Now, deep under the soils of Switzerland this weekend, the engines have begin to rev and the Large Hadron Collider, the big bang machine, is springing to life. Molecules will be hurled around and around a 17-mile long subterranean racetrack, excited to incredible speeds, each molecule harboring the power of an automobile traveling 1,000 miles per hour, before being crashed into each other.
Scientists hope to uncover the the secrets to the origin of the universe in these crashes. And they might.
However, some scientists have voiced concerns - widely dispelled - that this experiment will birth a black hole or some other cataclysmic event that might imperil our planet. And still other astrophysicists say we have nothing to worry about - that the universe will not allow us to discover these secrets, that it will actually send agents back in time to stop the collider from working. Really. They’ve written papers!
The thing is, we just don’t know.
I have stood in the dark, deep night many times as dew has settled lazily on the grass, watching the heavens. I have been entranced by northern lights and in their movement have glimpsed cosmic secrets, of the dance of molecules that weaves us all together - you and I and the grass and the stars all.
I have strained to follow the bright arcs of shooting stars and in their faint traces have sensed the impermanence of all life - we each flash in our brilliance, we each reach apogee, and we each then fade and fall.
I have children. From mere cells they have sprung, from molecules dancing together, to form hair, body, eyes, smiles, hearts, souls and energy.
And I feel so often a child myself, always learning, always running up against the edge of mystery.
I know it can be the stuff of fear and worry. But it can just as much be the stuff of wonder.
For there is mystery in each sunrise, in each smile, in each tear and in each touch.
In the whorl of the fingerprints on a baby’s hand, in the shape of a cloud, in the spiral of a snails shell, in a single blade of grass –there is mystery.
There is just so much we do not know or understand. How did it arise? Where did it come from? Where does it go?
The truth appears to us much like that shooting star - ephemeral, evanescent, quickly gone. A mystery. And I am so thankful for that.
Because mystery begets awe and awe, that sense of wonderment, is intrinsically humbling. For it places us, not in the center of the universe, but near a small, unspectacular sun, on an arm of one of thousands of spiral galaxies hurtling at the speed of life away from the big bang. In that mystery is all of the potential of the universe. And for that, for those infinite possibilities, I am eternally grateful.
This puts my tiny world back in perspective. Thanks, Malcolm!
Posted by: Gail Bennett | 2009.11.30 at 10:36 AM