Oct 30 2022 - Carl Sagan

 

Bob McDonald had his 30th anniversary radio show on CBC yesterday.   He says that he had no formal training or education, and that he heard the Science Centre was hiring so he drove from work in the truck and work clothes to the Science Centre, and persuaded them they should hire him.  He worked there for 20 years, and then on to the CBC show, replacing Jay Ingram for 30 years.  An amazing beginning and wonderful result for us. There were many memories on the show as he has interviewed thousands of scientists.  The highlight was  a short clip of Carl Sagan explaining his philosophy about whether there is other life in the universe.   As you likely know, his most famous and powerful quote is this:   "The cosmos is also within us, We're made of star stuff." in that interview the year before he died, was that if we do find ourselves alone in the Universe, without any others, then we are the universe's consciousness and we are the means by which the universe understands itself.  This has been repeated by Brian Cox, our current Cosmologist communicator.  “We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.”  Brian Cox That's an optimistic view of the universe and other life.  The Fermi question Where is everybody - has many potential answers.  Here are a few here Scientists are so creative and original in their thinking that I am fascinated by all these possible answers.   Back to Carl Sagan:  I suggest we take voice lessons and learn to talk as Carl did  in content and tone - the world would change and there would be far less war and far more science. Here's our starry Sweet Autumn Clematis seed cluster against the Japanese Maple and the sunlit bokeh in the garden.

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Atomic Day

Of those five interesting facts yesterday, one of them was that the U.S. was going to detonate an atomic bomb on the moon - just to prove it could.  I usually feel compelled to reference an article on stories like this as they are so bizarre that they seem to be fiction.   Here is the Wikipedia entry on this:  Project A119, also known as A Study of Lunar Research Flights, was a top-secret plan developed in 1958 by the United States Air Force. The aim of the project was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon which would help in answering some of the mysteries in planetary astronomy and astrogeology. If the explosive device detonated on the surface, not in a lunar crater, the flash of explosive light would have been faintly visible to people on earth with their naked eye, a show of force resulting in a possible boosting of domestic morale in the capabilities of the United States, a boost that was needed after the Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race and was also working on a similar project. The project was revealed in 2000 by a former executive of NASA.  Carl Sagan was on the team responsible for predicting the effects of a nuclear explosion in vacuum and low gravity. The government has never officially recognized the project.  And what day is today? The 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  The after effects of the radiation continue: the list of those who died was updated since last year's anniversary. Do you know that there were people in both atomic blasts?  It was thought that perhaps as many as 200 people from Hiroshima sought refuge in Nagasaki.  The Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double "hibakusha". He was 3 km from ground zero in Hiroshima where he was badly burned, then arrived at his home city on August 8th, the day before the bombing.  He was at his place of work during the second bombing.  His remarkable story is HERE.   There are two stories in our images today - the first a wonderful sidewalk into a Summer Street Buffalo Garden, and the second a solitary confinement cell at Kingston Penitentiary.