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Radio song
Sep. 2nd, 2008 03:38 pmThey're beautiful, aren't they?
Or is it just me?
Okay, maybe it is just me. Me and, probably, the people who work with them and extract amazing information about the universe from them. I don't have such intimate knowledge of radio telescopes and their usefulness, though I do have (thanks, largely, to Carl Sagan) an excited layperson's appreciation for those very things.
Even beyond what they mean, though, right now I'm just impressed at how these radio telescopes look. I do think they are beautiful, in that way that entirely functional things sometimes are. When no attention is paid to aesthetics, sometimes the functionality itself provides something pleasing to the eye.
In just a few seconds in a TV show mostly about something else that I find myself watching only because I love Ian Stewart, who's presenting it (as he's introducing himself at the beginning I am, for the second time in only a couple of hours, impressed at how Scottish people can say "Stewart" (or "Stuart" I suppose) in only one syllable), I was struck by these shots of radio telescopes, enough to catch them and put them here.
It's so easy to anthropomorphize the telescopes. Maybe it's the particular angle of these dishes that makes me believe they could be upturned faces, maybe it's the way the precise uniformity of their alignment reminds me of a military drill team.
I like this picture because they look so curious. While I know about perspective -- some cows are small, and some are far away -- I still say their small size against the big horizon makes them look childlike, in full possession of their sensawunda, and making me wonder what they're all looking at over there.
Or is it just me?
Okay, maybe it is just me. Me and, probably, the people who work with them and extract amazing information about the universe from them. I don't have such intimate knowledge of radio telescopes and their usefulness, though I do have (thanks, largely, to Carl Sagan) an excited layperson's appreciation for those very things.
Even beyond what they mean, though, right now I'm just impressed at how these radio telescopes look. I do think they are beautiful, in that way that entirely functional things sometimes are. When no attention is paid to aesthetics, sometimes the functionality itself provides something pleasing to the eye.
In just a few seconds in a TV show mostly about something else that I find myself watching only because I love Ian Stewart, who's presenting it (as he's introducing himself at the beginning I am, for the second time in only a couple of hours, impressed at how Scottish people can say "Stewart" (or "Stuart" I suppose) in only one syllable), I was struck by these shots of radio telescopes, enough to catch them and put them here.
It's so easy to anthropomorphize the telescopes. Maybe it's the particular angle of these dishes that makes me believe they could be upturned faces, maybe it's the way the precise uniformity of their alignment reminds me of a military drill team.
I like this picture because they look so curious. While I know about perspective -- some cows are small, and some are far away -- I still say their small size against the big horizon makes them look childlike, in full possession of their sensawunda, and making me wonder what they're all looking at over there.