24 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
A Star for Everyone Who Ever Lived
Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth. Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star. But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and...Folksonomies: speculation science fiction
Folksonomies: speculation science fiction
In just our own galaxy.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Venus is Hell
Venus thus seems to be a place quite different from the Earth, and alarmingly unappealing: Broiling temperatures, crushing pressures, noxious and corrosive gases, sulfurous smells, and a landscape immersed in a ruddy gloom. Curiously enough, there is a place astonishingly like this in the superstition, folklore and legends of men. We call it Hell. In the older belief – that of the Greeks, for example – it was the place where all human souls journeyed after death. In Christian times it ha...Very similar to it as Carl Sagan describes the planet.
09 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
If the Stars Only Came Out One Night in 1,000 Years
If the Stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.This Emerson quote begs the question: What if we lived on a planet like Venus, where perpetual cloud coverage obscures the skies?
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Miracles Should be Investigated to Improve Upon Them
Now, it might be true that astrology is right. It might be true that if you go to the dentist on the day that Mars is at right angles to Venus, that it is better than if you go on a different day. It might be true that you can be cured by the miracle of Lourdes. But if it is true it ought to be investigated. Why? To improve it. If it is true then maybe we can find out if the stars do influence life; that we could make the system more powerful by investigating statistically, scientifically jud...If there are miracles, then we should investigate them in order to figure out how to make them better, in order to figure out how to best take advantage of them.