My only solace, in my 9.30 a.m. astrophysics lecture, is asking the teacher very silly questions.
“So, what you’re saying is that we know something big has moved in front of this star, because of the gravitational lensing…but we can’t see what it is…couldn’t it be an alien spaceship?”
“Well, it would have to be about the mass of Jupiter to show these results.”
“…so, a really big spaceship, then.”
Why can’t Quantitative Reasoning credits be more like trashy TV shows?
On the other hand, Einstein’s Cross is fairly amazing:
This is actually one very bright light source (a quasar), behind another galaxy, which bends the light around it so that it looks like there are four quasars instead of one. Aside from all the math, this class is fantastic. Existence is an entirely mind-blowing place.
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. (Albert Einstein, 1932.)
that particular quote of einstein really proves every single man’s quest to touch the mystery that is within. thanks for sharing!
peace!
Ah, you know the way to make me comment - talk about astrophysics.
That’s a great Einstein quote. You know, that whole mystery thing applies to women, too, if you heard TC’s speech the other night. So, astrophysics is like a woman………..
And jeez, Nikki, don’t torture Bailyn like that. It’s bad enough you scared him with “my boyfriend believes in string theory”-talk.
The difference between the Einstein quote and TC’s speech is important, though — Einstein is saying that no matter how hard we try to understand (and he did a lot of understanding!) there will still be mystery, and mystery is beautiful. Whereas TC was advocating not trying to understand so that the mystery will remain.
I think this may be a better analogy:
My random stargazing : TC with women :: an astrophysicist’s attempts at understanding the universe : how one should actually approach love