"If we spent a lifetime trying to understand completely how a single daffodil is made, we would be no nearer to understanding why such beauty is shown to us; nevertheless, we can have endless fun satisfying our curiosity in both areas. We wish you endless fun."

I got my copy of the BANG! book (Brian May/Patrick Moore/Chris Lintott, 2006), and decided I would post here about why this particularly is a big deal.

http://banguniverse.com

First I shall quote Prof. Tolkien...

'I wish I had known all this before,' said Pippin. 'I had no notion of what I was doing.'
'Oh yes, you had,' said Gandalf. 'You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not listen. I did not tell you all this before, because it is only by musing on all that has happened that I have at last understood, even as we ride together. But if I had spoken sooner, it would not have lessened your desire, or made it easier to resist. On the contrary! No, the burned hand teaches best. After that advice about fire goes to the heart.'
'It does,' said Pippin. 'If all the seven stones were laid out before me now, I should shut my eyes and put my hands in my pockets.'
'Good!' said Gandalf. 'That is what I hoped.'
'But I should like to know---' Pippin began.
'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?'
'The names of all the stars, and of all living things, and the whole history of Middle-earth and Over-heaven and of the Sundering Seas,' laughed Pippin. 'Of course! What less? But I am not in a hurry tonight. At the moment I was just wondering about the black shadow. I heard you shout......."

Then I'll do my trademark pic spam, only on the branch of "the whole history of Over-heaven" for now:


1971








Quoting: My favourite place on earth ...well, close to it ..... The magnificent National Park of Las Canadas, Tenerife .... the volcano is El Teide. This is where I spent many months observing the Zodiacal Light when I was a student, working on my PhD thesis. As soon as I am up there, above the clouds once more, I feel I am home.

"Ha ha !!" right back atcha.

:)



From the book:
"A Note on the Cover

Our cover artwork is for fun only. There is no suggestion that any part of the Big Bang ever looked like this. It would never be possible for a human to stand outside the Universe and take in such a view, since outside the Universe, as we shall see, space and time do not exist - there is no place to stand! However, we really have an even more privileged position - we are actually inside the mother of all explosions, and the further we peer into space, the more we realize that, all around us, everywhere we look, the Big Bang is what we see."


"Epilogue

Very deliberately, we have not ventured one inch into the territory of why they happened, or into the question of whether some extra-human intelligence put the whole sequence into operation. This, in the absence of any physical evidence, is the realm of mysticism and religion. We feel that if the workings of the Universe, in all their beauty, are properly appreciated, there is no conflict between Science and Religion; they merely deal with different areas. We hope that in a small way we will have contributed to calmness and lightness in the discussions that currently rage around our planet on this subject."


Then … do you remember the first moon landing ! If you were alive for that, you will never forget where you were at that moment. I was at our Drummer Roger Taylor’s house in Cornwall, making plans to tour … Cornwall ! And wondering if we would ever be big stars !

I wrote in, when I was a boy of 11 or so, to Sky At Night, to ask what the wonderful inspiring music was … (It’s by Sibelius, from Pelleas and Melisande – “At the Castle Gate”) .

...

Whatever it was when we were kids, that made our pulses race when we heard a guitar string bend, it urged us on a path, which became the biggest part of our whole life.

The Voice whispered, "You will spend your days chasing Butterflies and Rainbows, riding a gleaming Iron Locomotive. You will spend many years learning your skills; joy and tears will be the tools of your trade; you will follow in the footsteps of those who in former days were called "Jokers", "Fools", "Artists", and "Journeymen", and you will attract more Love but also more scorn than any of your classmates."

"And", the Voice went on, "somewhere along the way it will dawn on you that since you have been, almost by accident (almost), singled out to paint pictures from Life, the pictures you paint will reflect the breadth of Life that comes to you. Some of it will hurt bad. But the more Life, the more Art. As long as you have the guts to stay on the line.......

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No, I was not dragged .... I loved River Dance. I particularly liked the thread of universality that ran through it .... I believe that in a similar way ALL music made on Earth is linked. It might appear at first sight that Negro Blues and Celtic folk music must come from completely unrelated sources. But in fact it looks to me there are too many similarities between them to be born of coincidence. It would make an interesting PHD Thesis !!

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You're someone who [...] doesn't get that those who devote their lives to Music have guiding forces beyond your comprehension.


Hey *I* comprehend? Lol... but in that book of yours you say there's not the least bit of "evidence" - ouch... Einstein's last regret....


by Olga Kukhtenkova


kontu.merri.net/wiki/Yavanna