Sidewalk patio of the Just Us Cafe — Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Caucasian male, late 20s, with brush cut, sunglasses perched on top of head, and wearing black fleecie.
You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe, Christopher Potter (Knopf Canada)
Page 59:
It’s Not About You
Not at first did the gods reveal all things to mortals, but in time, by inquiry, they made better discoveries. -Xenophanes
Our understanding of how the contents of the large-scale universe are arranged – as a hierarchy of stars in motion – is the result of hundreds of years of scientific investigation. Whatever the scientific method has become, it was not always as it is now. It has evolved over time, in tandem with our understanding of the universe, and doubtless will continue to evolve as our understanding of the universe deepens. Science and the universe are inseparable.
My first birthday was five days after the moon landing, but my mother always liked to brag that I took my first “giant leap” before Neil Armstrong. My father, in his excitement over the Apollo 11 mission, took photographs of our bulby television set. Sadly, the pictures all failed, the screen turned to a murky green in the blinding Sylvania flash. It was cause for deep disappointment. You have to understand, he was a Navy man. He was a flight mech. in the Korean war, keeping the planes going, testing them by day, but never flying by night, never completing a mission because he was colour blind. He was nineteen.
