wanderings

This week’s wanderings landed me at the world famous Newton Free Library where I had the chance to meet noted author and Professor emeritus of astronomy and physics, Chet Raymo.


T’was a bit more than chance though.

1. I recently finished reading a book called Coming of age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris. It’s an eloquent 1988 account of how our species came to discover its place in the universe.

2. Last week I met the founder-director of the Center for Naturalism in Boston. After sharing my philosophy and interests with him, he suggested a website and blog called Science Musings.

3. On the blog, one passage really stood out… It was a Timothy Ferris quote that read:

"Our ignorance, of course, has always been with us, and always will be. What is new is our awareness of it, our awakening to its fathomless dimensions, and it is this, more than anything else, that marks our coming of age as a species."

This just happens to be one of the quotes I had already circled for future reference of my own.

4. I also notice somewhere else on the blog that Professor Raymo made reference to the “gall wasps.” This is significant because for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to hatch wasp larvae from galls for an upcoming blog entry of my own.

5. And lastly, I noticed he happened to be giving a talk at the Newton Free Library. So just had to go and check it out.

I’m currently reading Chet Raymo’s Walking Zero. It’s an excellent stroll through cosmic evolution.