The story of Thales’ prediction of a solar eclipse in 585 BCE might be apocryphal. I don’t know. Thales’ reputation as one of the first scientists might suggest a bit of truth in the tale.
The sixth century before Christ is a long time and many eclipses ago. We know that since Thales walked around Miletus a number of eclipses have been associated with human belief and behavior, mostly of the kind associated with religious fervor and apocalyptic fear. An eclipse of 1133 appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this way:
“Men were greatly wonder-stricken and were affrighted and said that a great thing should come thereafter.”
The “great thing”? King Henry II kicked the bucket that year. Coincidence? In the minds of the uninformed, “I think not.”
One might think that after Thales and others predicted eclipses on the basis of computations that the phenomenon of the moon’s temporarily blocking the sun’s light would be a HO-HUM experience for twenty-first century denizens. But, alas, no. There are still those who panic at the thought and those who believe such occurrences portend dire consequences or great personal affirmations.
What are we doing in schools that we have so many bereft of knowledge about our world, that there are still people who think—even after seeing a neighboring spherical moon and sun—that Earth is flat. How many twist their logic however they wish to demonstrate its flatness? How many still believe stars are “heavenly” bodies of astrological influence?
Remember Marshall Applewhite’s cult called Heaven’s Gate? The members of that cult were convinced in 1997 that Comet Hale-Bopp was coming to take them to who-knows-where. They committed group suicide. Such is the nature of humans. It doesn’t seem to matter what we learn about the physical world, that comets, for example, are mostly just dirty balls of ice and gases, that their “tails” are gases excited and blown off by the solar wind always extended on the side of the comet opposite to that facing the sun. Ignorance isn’t just bliss; for Heaven’s Gate it was suicidal.
Understanding natural phenomena and processes will always be a challenge. No one can “know it all,” and the natural world still holds some mysteries. But the physical world, thanks to the Higgs Boson, is our home. And just as you can navigate to the sink for a drink in the darkness because you mentally mapped your apartment or home, you need to be able to map and navigate your world. Moving from carpet to hardwood floor without tripping or moving through doorways instead of bumping into walls is what we do because we understand our “ personal home world.” A lack of knowledge about the physical world and ordinary natural phenomena will surely lead to tripping or bumping.
Numerous people will look to the skies for some sign of whatever, things that affirm their beliefs or things that serve as mute prophets. Such people frame their lives by events that usually turn out to be “uneventful.” The moon’s shadow appears to have been such an uneventful event for our ancestors, and it appears to be an uneventful event for our contemporaries. And ignorance of eclipses extends to ignorance of the electromagnetic spectrum, to ignorance of short wave energy that can burn the retinas of direct onlookers. Eclipses come and go. Eclipses of the mind seem to be here to stay. Uneventful events will become “events” over and over and over…
This place, this Earth, this universe: This is your home. It will never be completely illuminated, but if you know it well enough, you’ll get by all right even in its temporary shadows.
The sixth century before Christ is a long time and many eclipses ago. We know that since Thales walked around Miletus a number of eclipses have been associated with human belief and behavior, mostly of the kind associated with religious fervor and apocalyptic fear. An eclipse of 1133 appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this way:
“Men were greatly wonder-stricken and were affrighted and said that a great thing should come thereafter.”
The “great thing”? King Henry II kicked the bucket that year. Coincidence? In the minds of the uninformed, “I think not.”
One might think that after Thales and others predicted eclipses on the basis of computations that the phenomenon of the moon’s temporarily blocking the sun’s light would be a HO-HUM experience for twenty-first century denizens. But, alas, no. There are still those who panic at the thought and those who believe such occurrences portend dire consequences or great personal affirmations.
What are we doing in schools that we have so many bereft of knowledge about our world, that there are still people who think—even after seeing a neighboring spherical moon and sun—that Earth is flat. How many twist their logic however they wish to demonstrate its flatness? How many still believe stars are “heavenly” bodies of astrological influence?
Remember Marshall Applewhite’s cult called Heaven’s Gate? The members of that cult were convinced in 1997 that Comet Hale-Bopp was coming to take them to who-knows-where. They committed group suicide. Such is the nature of humans. It doesn’t seem to matter what we learn about the physical world, that comets, for example, are mostly just dirty balls of ice and gases, that their “tails” are gases excited and blown off by the solar wind always extended on the side of the comet opposite to that facing the sun. Ignorance isn’t just bliss; for Heaven’s Gate it was suicidal.
Understanding natural phenomena and processes will always be a challenge. No one can “know it all,” and the natural world still holds some mysteries. But the physical world, thanks to the Higgs Boson, is our home. And just as you can navigate to the sink for a drink in the darkness because you mentally mapped your apartment or home, you need to be able to map and navigate your world. Moving from carpet to hardwood floor without tripping or moving through doorways instead of bumping into walls is what we do because we understand our “ personal home world.” A lack of knowledge about the physical world and ordinary natural phenomena will surely lead to tripping or bumping.
Numerous people will look to the skies for some sign of whatever, things that affirm their beliefs or things that serve as mute prophets. Such people frame their lives by events that usually turn out to be “uneventful.” The moon’s shadow appears to have been such an uneventful event for our ancestors, and it appears to be an uneventful event for our contemporaries. And ignorance of eclipses extends to ignorance of the electromagnetic spectrum, to ignorance of short wave energy that can burn the retinas of direct onlookers. Eclipses come and go. Eclipses of the mind seem to be here to stay. Uneventful events will become “events” over and over and over…
This place, this Earth, this universe: This is your home. It will never be completely illuminated, but if you know it well enough, you’ll get by all right even in its temporary shadows.
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