Backward Mutters

Category: astronomy

  • Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet

    Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’ve read the ‘excursionary’ Space Trilogy numerous times since 1992. Only recently have I been clued into the influence of the medieval cosmology which Lewis loved so much. In the past I enjoyed the book on…

  • Merry Meeting

    I just learned that Tolkein and Lewis first met on May 11, 1926 my birthday–albeit not 1926. Alan Jacobs in his book on Lewis, The Narnian, writes of Lewis’ first impression of Tolkein in this way, “…the two young dons talked for the first time. In his diary entry…Lewis contrives…

  • The Grand Design ain’t so grand, and as for design?

    A review over at The Economist has this to say of Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s new book, The Grand Design. Particularly curious is the assertion of Hawking and Mlodinow that “philosophy is dead”. There is a potted history of physics, which is adequate as far as it goes, though…

  • Planet 51

    Over at Space.com is a report of an exoplanet (a planet orbiting another star) which is at an optimal orbit around it’s star–one which is favorable to life. Astrophysicist Steven Vogt has this to say about the discovery. “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it…

  • The Chaste Beams of the Watery Moon

    If you hadn’t noticed, the Moon is full today. Oberon, in a Midsummer’s Night Dream says the Moon is ‘watery’. Indeed, from our vantage point, it looks to be covered in lakes. Even the ancients noticed the effect the Moon had on the tides. Luna was even imagined to ride…