Farewell

Well, looks like that's it for posting from now on. Its interesting that, since I love discussing classics so much, I actually found this to be somewhat therapeutic; almost as if classics was this deep dark secret I just needed to tell somebody-anybody! In any case, its been a blast. Maybe I'll continue with something like this, or even this very blog in the future, but for now, as exams are looming nearer and I realize that I've got three essay all due next week...I'll put this away.

If you're reading this, then thanks so much for reading- and I hope what you've read has been fun, informative and interesting.

For the last time (for now), I sign off. Have an amazing day!

-StarKid

PS- Picture above= M31 taken by R. Gendler in 2002

Astrology continued...

Alright, so moving right along from the last post, here’s precisely why Astrology fits none of these categories:


1. Consistency- I find it quite ridiculous that while one magazine may say that my love life will be grand and lavish one month, another may tell me that I’m doomed to break-up with whatever love I have now. Consistent? I think not.

2. Based on Evidence. What evidence?!?! That is all.


3. Falsifiable- Astrologers tend to latch onto the weakest forms of evidence of their success in order to claim themselves correct, thereby making the ability to falsify its principles impossible! ie. “No, your boyfriend may not have broken up with you like I predicted, BUT you did break that bowl the other day- bet you loved that bowl, right? Aha! Broken heart!”


4. Based on controlled Experimentation. This also means that others studying the same subject arrive at the same conclusions. How is this possible when the signs on which they base their conclusions are completely arbitrary, changing and irrelevant, and their consistency amongst one another is that of the consistency of religion itself?! Because no universal periodic table of the future has yet been made, it can’t possibly be ‘experimented’ upon.


5. Correctable. Because much of what astrology is based on is on the stars themselves, which are entirely unchanging, the science can never be corrected or changed.


6. Not Parsimonious. The entire principle of astrology is based on spirits, Fate and other intangible proofs that do not plausibly exist in a way that we can see and study them.

Of course, this only breaks the surface of the insurmountable evidence for the improbability that one can tell one’s future, personality traits etc. from the stars. It was fun however to investigate the legitimate reasons as to why Astrology is not a science in and of itself, whereas Astronomy is.

The last and final piece of evidence for the non-scientific nature of Astronomy is the principle of Occam’s Razor. This being that if two possibilities are presented, the simpler of the two should be trusted. In this way, it is much easier to believe in coincidence as opposed to the idea that our day of birth and the position of the stars lay the foundation for our entire lives.


Somewhat of a rant, but very fun to examine I think. Oddly enough, I atill have to refer to my Astronomy class as ‘Astro’ because I keep accidently saying Astrology instead. Guess that’s just another example of the presence of propaganda.


In any case, I hope you’ve enjoyed the rant, and I hope to write at least one more blog before I shut this lovely site down forever.


-StarKid

Astrology

Astrology; Why you can’t call yourself a scientist because you can predict someone’s love life.

I was talking to my Dad the other day and he asked me how my Astrology was coming along. As I think was fully warranted, my friend and I proceeded to rant about how useless Astrology was that I was by no stretch of the imagination wasting my time studying something so frivolous and unjustified. Which got me thinking- wouldn’t my plethora of avid readers want to know just why astrology is such a bogus science (aka. why it’s not a science at all)?

Firstly- the term pseudoscience refers to an activity that resembles science on the surface, but is backed up by none of the requirements for an actual science. Here are the requirements for a justifiable scientific study:

1. Consistency. If you say that when you drop this apple, it will fall, and it does, it’ll happen the next time you do it too. And the next, and the next, and the next…

2. Based on Evidence. I have 100 scientists who have calculated the velocity and precise moment that this apple will hit the ground, and behind them is evidence of the existence of gravity, and behind that is thousands of years of humanity backing up that existence with concrete examples etc…

3. Falsifiable. I cannot therefore say that, even if this apple doesn’t fall, that’s only because you don’t believe hard enough- therefore it’s your fault and either way I’m still right. Wrong.

4. Based on controlled experimentation. I didn’t see this apple fall on TV, I actually dropped this apple and heard the tell-tale thunk of it hitting the ground. So did my 100 scientists. And the bazillion measurement instruments…inside of a sealed room with no air flow.

5. Correctable. If for some reason my apple doesn’t fall, we can come up with a hundred new theories as to why that happened. I cannot therefore speculate that God willed it thus that one time, and therefore my theory still stands.

6. Not Parsimonious. In other words- there’s not some ridiculous explanation for why my apple falls, such as the existence of a bazillion invisible fairy elephants that like to sit on my apple and have the ability to propel objects downwards, thereby forcing it into the ground where it otherwise would have simply hung there. As if.

Although there’s a ton of other qualities of true science, and this is by no means a formal list of legitimized requirements for something to be science, it round about describes its basic qualities. And Astrology? I’d like to see one person debate why Astrology fits any one of these qualifications. Seriously. Next blog, I’ll discuss exactly why they don’t fit into these six categories, and introduce a magical theory called Occam Razor. Hopefully that’ll be fun!

-StarKid

Animals in the sky!

(Yes…the same topic as in the past 4 or so blogs- awesome right?!)

Moving swiftly on to…

9) Scorpio: Where we last left our heroes, Orion had just been beset by a scorpion sent by Apollo in order to kill him and keep his sister Artimis’ chastity intact. Enter the deadly scorpion. To make a long story short, the scorpion succeeded, by Artimis decided to put the pair of them up in the sky for all time in order to commemorate their fierce battle (although, as far as I know…it wasn’t much of a battle so much as Orion stepped on a scorpion…and died). However, because the pair were so at odds, the constellations were placed on the complete opposite sides of the sky, so they never meet and their fury never comes to fruition.

And since I feel that although I love Greek myth with all of my heart, I should really explore some other topics, this will be the last one:

10) Gemini: I thought this would be perfectly scandalous constellation to finish with! As the myth would have it, Leda, mother of the infamous Helen of Troy, was all in all raped by a swan. I should just leave it there- that sentence in itself is priceless. But…moving on. The swan of course was Zeus in disguise, because he’s messed up like that. Leda then gave birth to two twin boys, Castor and Pollox (the two brightest stars in the constellation), of which one was born by Zeus and another by Leda’s husband, King Tyndarus of Sparta. Pollox, the son of Zeus was immortal and abnormally strong. Castor was especially gifted with horses. The pair of them helped to save their sister Helen when she was kidnapped by Paris in the battle of Troy. The story goes that when Castor died, Pollox begged his father to give his beloved brother the same gift of immortality that he himself was privy to. Zeus granted his wish and therefore the pair of them are immortalized by the constellations in the sky.

I just thought I'd include this-  found it online and thought it was gorgeous...not to mention it accurately has elements of the myth integrated into the art. Love it!

Well, that’s all I suppose. Of course there’s lots and lots of other constellations to explore, and I definitely encourage you to look them up yourself, but I feel as if I should discover some other awesome classically related astro stuff. Hope the myths were good while they lasted!

-StarKid

What’s this?! MORE myth!?!

Yup. Onwards and upwards…

7) Hydra: Since we now know a bit about Herakles, I think it might be nice to tie in his second labour, that of the slain hydra. If you’ve ever heard of the hydra, you’ll surely remember that it represents a best with many head and that the main rule that goes along with the creature is that every time one of its heads is severed off, two new heads grow back in its place. Potentially problematic, I’d say. However, although Herakles was never really thought to be all that bright, his ways of slaying beasts seems to have been quite clever in my opinion. In this case, Herakles enlisted the help of another bay, his nephew, cauterize the stump after he’d decapitated one of the many hydra head, thus disabling its ability to grow two more. He then buried the heads underground so they would never pose a problem again.

 As you can see, the constellation of Hydra actually depicts a long, dragon-esque creature. This might simply be because the Hydra was sometimes referred to as the great water snake. 

8) Orion: Orion was bestowed with the characteristics of the world’s greatest hunter. With a few different perspectives of the myth, his heritage changes somewhat, yet it is mostly agreed that whether his parents were Queen Euryale and Poseidon or the parentless gift to a lowly peasant from Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes, its mostly agreed that he was given the gift of incredible hunting skills, and some other skills that make him a bit ‘showy’ if you ask me (walking on water, incredible strength etc…). In any case, he was also said to have been a skilled blacksmith and to have built great temples to the Gods in his lifetime. Its also said that he had a bit of a fling with Artemis, the chaste God of fertility and the hunt. Two stories are told about this- one that Apollo, worrying for his sister’s chastity, tricked her into shooting Orion while he was at sea, killing him. Another version has Apollo simply sending a scorpion to kill Orion, which leads us to…the next blog!

Aha! A cliff hanger, I know! Stay tuned my plentiful avid fans…

-StarKid

One more time...

More constellations! (There’s so many!)

6) Hercules: Hercules, originally Heracles or Herakles, was ironically most greatly threatened in mythology by the wife of Jupiter, Juno (ironically because ‘Heracles’ can literally be translated as the ‘glory of Hera’, Juno’s Greek name). At birth, Heracles was beset upon by snakes sent by Juno into his crib as an act of vengeance for her husband Jupiter’s infidelity with a mortal woman.  Easily strangling the twin snakes, this began Heracles career as a monster killer. He later married Megara who, as it was believed (possibly to retain Heracles’ heroic persona), was put under a spell of madness by Juno and killed Megara along with his own children. As atonement for these sins, however, he completes twelve necessary labours (one of which was of course the slaying of the Nemean lion…Leo!).

The constellation of Hercules is shown with him and his Nemean lion skin and club. An interesting parallel however- Heracles was never thought of as being intelligent, but was always famed for his brute strength. The Hercules constellation is the fifth largest in the sky, yet also one of the dimmest.

7) Cassiopeia: If you’ve read the blogs before this one, you actually know a bit about this myth already! Cassiopeia is the mother of Andromeda- the same mother that bragged how her daughter (or herself, according to different versions) was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. As penance for her pride, she was forced to have her daughter strung up and fed to the sea monster sent by a vengeful Neptune, God of the Seas and of the sea Nymphs themselves. Enter Perseus, the saviour and future husband to the daughter of Cassiopeia. He saves Cassiopeia’s daughter and runs off with her to be married.

In the constellation, Cassiopeia is assumed to be sitting on her throne in all her vanity. 

And there we have it. Two more to add to your mounting repetoir of constellation/mythological knowledge. 

-StarKid

More Constellations!!

I thought I’d give a bit more background on some more of the constellations drifting around the night sky:

4) Leo: Leo, the lion, is typically associated with the story of the Nemean lion faced by Heracles as one of his twelve labours. It was said that the skin of the Lion was perfectly impenetrable; therefore Heracles strangled the cat to death and subsequently used the creature’s own claws to skin the beast. Heracles is constantly depicted as having worn the skin of the Nemean lion on all of his adventures and seems to have been his key symbol apart from the club he bore as well.  Leo is most recognizable in the night sky by the bright star Regulus, representing the supposed heart of the lion. The curved “sickle” makes up the Lion’s head, and the triangle towards his flank makes up the back portion of Leo.

5)Draco: Draco, the snake (or dragon as it is sometimes depicted) has many originations, each of which is just as likely to be the true myth behind the constellation. Here, I’ll simply tell my favourite; the story of Cadmus and the founding of Thebes. Cadmus was given probably one of the most peculiar tasks of literally following a cow until the cow lay down, and here he was told to found the city of Thebes.  Once reaching the site, however, his men were set upon by the ‘monster of Mars’. Mars being the god of war and perhaps the most violent of the Roman Gods, it’s understandable why the men were killed so quickly. Cadmus took up arms however and slew the dragon, planting its teeth in the ground (some of these myths are pretty crazy) from which sprung a legion of warriors to fight for Cadmus. They fought amongst themselves until there were but 5 soldiers left, and they, with Cadmus, became the first people of Thebes.

Draco ‘snakes’ up in between the constellations of Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, distinctively curving in on itself. 

Hope that was enjoyable!!

-StarKid

The Classic Constellations

Have a look at the big ol’ sky outside your window right now. Assuming its night-time, you’re looking at a whole bunch of funky patterns that seems to make equally funky shapes; constellations. “But StarKid, where do the myths behind these constellations come from?” you ask.  Well, astute observer, the myths come from Classics!

Let’s have a look at some of the more amazing myths behind these constellations we see in the sky.

1) Perseus: Slayer of the Gorgon Medusa, this character was born out of wedlock between his mother and the almighty God, Zeus (as were most heroes…and Gods…and Demi-Gods…and just about everyone).  His mother’s Father seeing that she had been impregnated cast the pair of them out to sea in a wooden chest where they were rescued by a kind fisherman.  Raised with the fisherman and his mother, the fisherman’s brother soon become attracted to the oh-so-handsome mother of Perseus. Perseus attempts to defend his mother, but is told the only way to save her from rape is to complete a series of impossible tasks to win her back. These include speaking with the Fates to learn of the location of the Gorgon Medusa, chopping off her head by use of a reflective shield, meeting up with the hearty Atlas, rescuing Andromeda from a sea monster sent by Poseidon and eventually returning to gain freedom for his Mother. he then fulfilled an old prophecy that he would kill his Grandfather, completely by accident, when he bopped him in the head with a discus.

Although pictures that make sense of the constellation may vary, typically Perseus is seen as carrying his sword and Medusa’s head beside his beloved, Andromeda as seen here. 

2) Pegasus: Alternatively, one might view the constellations as having this shape, where Pegasus is included. Pegasus was the winged horse, which is rumoured to have sprouted from the severed neck of the Gorgon once slain by Perseus.  Pegasus was said to have one rider to whom he had an affinity; Bellerophon. Bellerophon was said to have been the first to tame and ride the first flying horse, and therefore he is often represented as being the ‘rider of Pegasus’. Other myths use a liberal amount of flying steeds however. 

3)Taurus: Taurus has many myths associated with him. The most famous, perhaps is the myth in which Zeus, enthralled by the beauty of a maiden, Europa, disguised himself as a bull (ie. Taurus) and bore her across the sea to an island, where he made her his mistress. He then told her that all the land she could see was now hers, which gives the land its name: Europe (yes, as in the continent). She then bore Zeus three sons (I told you everyone was born from Zeus), each of which became great and controlled their own poleis. The most famous of these perhaps being Minos. 

I suppose I’ll leave you with that for now, and I may expand and explain some of the other many constellations we see in the sky in subsequent blogs.

Adios!

-StarKid

The Myth of Er

So I know I said at the beginning that I would start the blog off with a bit of Classics, and then progressively get more ‘sciency’. Just never mind that.  Its officially the Classics angle on Astronomy!

Since I’ve made this executive decision, I’ve decided to explain Plato’s concept of the cosmos a little deeper, as I feel as if that previous post was a bit to brief from my liking. Our best idea of his deeply rooted belief in the heavens and their operations come from, in my opinion, his famous work The Republic. More specifically, the conclusion of this piece. In this portion of his work, he described the ‘Myth of Er’, which is quite literally a myth about a man names ‘Er’ and his experience with the world of the heavens.

The story basically follows the man as he is killed in battle only to awaken on his funeral pyre, having visited the heavenly world. He tells of how he went to a place where men and women were separated upon death, some to go to the sky, and others to go deep underground to pay for their crimes in life (I could go on for ages and ages drawing similarities between Classical mythology, which existed hundreds of years earlier, and the Bible, but that would warrant an entirely new blog page). With much explanation as to the souls Er spoke with whilst dead, the story generaly tells of a Lady Necessity, the Sirens and the Fates (characters in Greek mythology)  and their role as people chose their next life and were assigned Gods to help them live it. He then wakes up, about to be burned and tells his story.

It seems as if this is just an excuse for me to tell a neat story from Ancient Greece, but in fact the morals that philosopher’s see in this story (and Socrates explanations throughout its telling) tell us that this story supports and defines Socrates and Plato’s theory of the cosmos. First, that the soul is immortal as it never truly ends, only becomes something else. Therefore it is never able to be destroyed, and therefore perfect.  Lines are jagged and have sharp edges, whereas circles are round and flawless. Therefore the heavens must be circles. Consequently, the stars and planets seen in the sky, since they belong to the heavens, must only move in perfect circles.

Not only do these explain Plato’s theory, but even within the myth itself lies a model for the cosmos. In the myth is described a ‘Spindle of Necessity’. It describes the cosmos as it is attended to by the Sirens and the Fates (if you’d like to know more about these mythical creatures- try having a gander at The Fates and The Sirens [scroll down to  ‘Sirens’]). The model depicts the orbits of 8 celestial bodies, all corresponding to the Aristotelian planetary spheres.  Although inevitably inaccurate, the model actually accurately represents their motion as it appears to someone on earth.

In any case, I hope this helps to make sense of my last post, and also provides a bit of entertainment and storytelling to your day J

-StarKid

Plato and those Silly Lines….

Blog # 2- Plato and those silly lines….

So I figured (in keeping with the connection between Astronomy and a wee bit of Classics) I’d discuss the difficulties the ancient Greeks and Romans had with agreeing with the contemporary astronomers of their day.

First and foremost, in order to conceptualize this idea of a universe in the first place, someone had to have come up with the brilliant idea that the world was not created by the Gods (ie. Zeus and his earlier lineage), but that the earth could have come into existence all on its own. Thales was the very first to propose a model of the universe in which our existence didn’t rely on any omniscient, all powerful beings. Having lived from 624-546 BCE, one can imagine that this was an enormous step towards modernizing their concept of Earth and space.

Let’s have a looksee at how these ancient Greeks and Romans devoted themselves to their Gods. Every action any man took in his life was made with the Gods in the forefront of their minds. Countless thousands upon thousands of animals were burnt and sacrificed to appease their Gods in times of war, famine and various times of misfortune. Fisherman blames themselves for having angered the God Poseidon after a storm at sea. With droughts they played to Zeus, Demeter and Athena to being them good crops.  Hera was praised during weddings, and men killed each other because their enemy towns worshiped a God whom their God disliked. With such devotion to these powerful Gods and Godesses, I’m sure you can imagine why no one in their right mind would do anything to anger them. Who would offend a man with the power to strike you and your family with lightning, demolish your town with a tsunami or swindle you into committing adultery? Yet some dared.

The only problem here though is that every single person in existence in this particular area (ie. Ancient Greece) believed in these supernatural beings and that they had created life as they knew it. To objectify such a belief at this time was just about the most controversial and blatantly heretic way in which to offend every God-fearing man.  This of course, is only the beginning to man’s travel to the belief and acceptance of such an enormously vast space as the universe.

Next, Pythagoras attempted to calculate (successfully) that the Earth itself is a sphere.

Then came the infamous Greek philosopher, Plato. To anyone who has read Plato’s Phaedo or any of his other works, they will understand why exactly Plato rejected the contemporary model of the universe so adversely.

A brief explanation of Plato’s beliefs:

• ·         There is a world of forms, which is not this world
• ·         In this world, nothing is divisible, and therefore everything is perfect
• ·         In our world, all matter is divisible, therefore imperfect
• ·         Within each being, however, lies a form that can subsist after death
• ·         In this world of forms, there are no lines, for in Heaven there are no lines, and therefore this world of forms is perfect
• ·         The world of forms exists outside of ours (ie. the Heavens)

With that briefest of brief explanations, hopefully you can grasp the general concept that Plato was all about the circles. Since everyone at this time believed that the space that lay outside of their realm of living was the sky, Plato asserted that everything belonging to that sky must be perfect circles.

This theory persisted for hundreds of years, with no one being daring enough to objectify the Gods and research other ways of stellar travel- those that are not perfect circles. Many philosophers and early astronomers came up with varying models that supported the celestial heavens moving in perfect circles, but it was not until Johannes Kepler, nearly 2000 years later thought of the ellipses to describe stellar motion that this theory was finally put to rest.

Although that was possibly the shortest of explanations as to the ideas of early astronomers, I hope it’s given a more sound idea as to why Plato’s theory of Heavenly circles remained in celestial models for so long.

-StarKid 

Hello All!

Well first and foremost, I must say that I have a confession. I…am a Classics major. I know, I know, what on Earth is a Classics major doing blogging about space and the universe? Well, kind souls, let me tell you.

So many ideas can be derived concerning the connection between the Ancient Greeks/Romans and the stars and universe we study and observe today. This post, just to start off, will explain one of the many instances where Greek culture has had a direct influence on the study of stars.

Take the following names, for example;

Mercury

Venus

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Vulcan

Apollo

Pluto ( I know, I just couldn’t bear to leave it out)

Each one of these name directly corresponds to a Greek God or Goddess, taken right from Greek culture. In fact, all of these are the names that were adopted by the Romans to name their own Gods and Goddesses, each with nearly the exact same attributes as the Greek Gods. Don’t believe me? Well how about this- The following are symbols commonly associated with planets within our solar system. Watch:

- Mercury. This Roman God was modeled after the Greek God Hermes, God of travellers and thieves; the messenger of the Gods. In this symbol we can see the wings from Hermes’ winged helm, which (along with his feathered sandals) enable him to fly.

    - Venus. Modeled after the Greek Goddess of love and vanity, Aphrodite. This symbol shows her hand mirror she used to admire her own reflection.

   - Mars. The God of war and destruction. Ares, his Greek equivalent, is represented here with his shield and spear with which he would fight in battle.

    - Jupiter. The King of the Gods, Zeus, is depicted here with his lightning bolt; a great symbol of his power in the classical period.

    - Neptune. Modeled after the great god of the sea, Poseidon, symbolically represented here by his trident- his symbol of power.

So you see? Even as a lowly Classics major, my subject still has a monumental influence on our modern depiction of the universe. In subsequent blogs, it will inevitably become more and more ‘science-y’, yet I refuse to forget my roots as a student of the ancient world. When surrounded by so many new and impossibly fantastic discoveries about our expanding universe, it helps to remember the humble roots of our quest for knowledge.

-StarKid