Readings - Sicence
Written by John Stuffin
Our atoms and molecules come from this earth
Are ordered by ancestry
Are fired into life by union
Are sustained by the earth and powered by the sun
And return to the earth when life ends.
Reading ‘Advice to an Academic’ by F. M. Cornford
This reading was used at the Thanksgiving service of British theoretical physicist, Sir Charles Frank.
‘But if you find that I was right, remember that other world, within the microcosm, the silent, reasonable world, where the only action is thought, and thought is free from fear. If you go back to it now, keeping just enough bitterness to put a pleasant edge on your conversation, and just enough wordly wisdom to save other people’s toes, you will find yourself in the best of all company – the company of clean, humorous intellect; and if you have a spark of imagination and try very hard to remember what it was like to be young, there is no reason why your brains should ever get woolly, or anyone should wish you out of the way.’
'We are Stardust' by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The atoms that comprise life on earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to ancient stars that converted heavy elements to light elements under extremes of temperature and pressure. These stars went unstable in their later years and exploded, scattering their enriched contents across the galaxy – carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients became part of gas clouds that condensed to form the next generation of solar systems: stars with orbiting planets; planets with the ingredients for life.
So when you look up at the night sky, know that yes, we are part of the universe, and we are in the universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. Don’t feel small, feel big, because the atoms of your body came from the stars. Feel connected too, because everyone around you is just the same, we are all atomically connected to one another. We are, not figuratively but literally, stardust.
From Brian Cox’s ‘Wonders of the Universe’
Our story is the story of the universe. Every piece of everyone you love, everyone you know, of the things you hold most precious; was assembled from the forces of nature in the first few minutes of the life of the universe, transformed in the hearts of stars or created in their fiery deaths. And, when you and I die, those pieces will be returned to the universe in the endless cycle of death and new birth. What a wonderful thing it is to be a part of that universe. What a story. What a majestic story.
Stardust quote from astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The atoms that comprise life on earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable
to ancient stars that converted heavy elements to light elements under extremes of
temperature and pressure. These stars went unstable in their later years and exploded,
scattering their enriched contents across the galaxy – carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the
fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients became part of gas clouds that
condensed to form the next generation of solar systems: stars with orbiting planets; planets
with the ingredients for life.
So when you look up at the night sky, know that yes, we are part of the universe, and we are in
the universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us.
Don’t feel small, feel big, because the atoms of your body came from the stars. Feel connected
too, because everyone around you is just the same, we are all atomically connected to one
another. We are, not figuratively but literally, stardust.
Physicist's Eulogy
In Jun 2005, Aaron Freeman, on NPR’s “All Things Considered”, stated the following, in what has come to be known as a “Eulogy from a Physicist”:
“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.”