Readings/Quotes from Science

Relativity – Albert Einstein

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.

Reading inspired by Carl Sagan

"The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. Our little planet floats like a mote of dust in the morning sky. All that you see, all that we can see, exploded out of a star billions of years ago, and the particles slowly arranged themselves into living things, including all of us. We are made of star stuff. We are the mechanism by which the universe can comprehend itself. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth. We should remain grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. The sum of all our evolution, our thinking and our accomplishments is love. A marriage makes two fractional lives a whole. It gives to two questioning natures a renewed reason for living. It brings a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life."

Summer and Austin have left their apartment for a house -by Romie Stott

I meant to write a poem for your wedding

about super fluids. About quantized groupings

whose singular momentum pushes up and over containers –

about transmission of heat, creation of vortices,

the creation of h/m proportions of vortices

where h is plank’s constant –

a spun bucket that holds a dozen whirlpools.

I meant to write that you were aligned together

in the same quantum state,

and could not be contained. I meant to write

a poem of matter, of transition points –

of energy that transforms liquid to gas –

of boiling water at a steady temperature

as molecules leap into vapor.

They don’t use the term latent heat anymore.

I can’t use it to say you’ve changed states.

It was a long time building, only seeming

the same, like boiling water, as you transformed

into something that rises.

Quote ~ by Neil deGrasse Tyson

We are all connected;

To each other, biologically.

To the earth, chemically.

To the rest of the universe atomically.

Love in Science ~ quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Albert Einstein, and Carl Sagan

Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is a tiny blue dot that we humans call home. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries. We are constantly reminded that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is a prerequisite to survival. Our little planet floats like a mote of dust in the morning sky. All that you see, all that we can see, exploded out of a star billions of years ago, and the particles slowly arranged themselves into living things, including all of us. We are made of star stuff. We are the mechanism by which the universe can comprehend itself.

The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth. We should remain grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. The sum of all our evolution, our thinking and our accomplishments is love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics - so important a biological phenomenon as love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with the person you love for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. A marriage makes two fractional lives a whole. It gives to two questioning natures a renewed reason for living. It brings a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life.