Astronomy is one of those "Coffee-table Sciences", by which I mean: a science that manages to bridge the gap between academic research and popular culture. There are a few simple (but reliable) ways to determine whether a particular branch science falls into this category. Firstly, does Exclusive Books sell a book about it (especially if the book is too large to read in bed)? Secondly, has a Marvel or DC comic-book villain ever been a practitioner of it? And thirdly (and most importantly), how often does it spark heated arguments between individuals who have not even read the introductory paragraph on its associated Wikipedia entry?
What allows some branches of science to cross into popular culture while others cannot? I mean, what makes branches such as Astrophysics, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Evolution and Cybernetics so much more appealing to the general public than Mathematical Number Theory, Stereochemistry, or Pattern Recognition? I do not have a definitive answer, but I suspect that the key might lie in the different ways we evaluate value, or more specifically, the difference between classical and romantic value. In the most general terms, classical value is the value something has due to what it means and how it functions, while romantic value is the value it has in itself, in isolation. For example, a beautiful landscape has a high romantic value because its beauty is apparent immediately after its visual perception, while the value of a carefully engineered highway is almost entirely classical, being based solely on the success of its associated function. Classical value can therefore only be recognized (and appreciated) by an observer that has been educated in the appropriate field, while romantic value is observable to anyone (or at least anyone who shares the same moral and esthetic values).
All fields of science must have classical value (or else nobody would be interested in them), but perhaps the coffee-table sciences have some degree of romantic value as well. For example, perhaps the sheer visual beauty that exists in a photograph of a distant galaxy is enough to capture somebody's interest, even if they have no knowledge of exactly what the photograph depicts, nor its underlying meaning. But what about highly theoretic branches of science such as Quantum Mechanics? Surely I cannot believe that there is an innate romantic beauty within such a abstract field? No, in such cases I think that it is much more likely that these branches of research appeal to a select subset of classical questions that are common amongst all humans (regardless of their education level) such as "Where do we come from?", "What is our world made up of?", "What lies outside our world?". Even if most of us do not exactly understand how these branches of science might hope to answer such questions, their relevance is undeniable, and so are deserving of our reverence.
For those of you who may suspect that this post is going to degrade into a callous attack on the unlearned, overly-opinionated coffee-table science consumer, I am pleased to assure you that it will not. For I am as big an example of such a person as any other. I own a 50cm tall pictorial atlas of the universe, I have received most of my knowledge about nuclear fusion from an eight-limbed fictional character from the movie Spiderman 2, and I have often tried to win an argument using a half-remembered thought-experiment involving a cat in a lead train traveling at the speed of light (which invariably results in nothing more than a grey-haired feline of questionable health). Instead, I will attempt to explore this cultural phenomenon with reference to an actual coffee-table that I have recently built.
My coffee-table started as an excuse to utilise some scrap material that was lying around the house. Specifically, a steel base of an old table that was left in our courtyard by the previous tenants, and an off-cut from a wooden door that was to form the table-top. Fortunately the wooden off-cut was already perfectly sized to sit on top of the frame, and so with the structure of the table falling so easily into place, I was able to be quite ambitious with the design of the table-top. I have always been very intrigued by antique tables that incorporate scientific or geographic designs such as world maps and star constellations, and so I decided that I might try my hand at creating a reminiscent design for my table.
For me, the most interesting things about antique scientific diagrams are their inaccuracies. I love to compare a 200-year-old map of the world to what I know to be true, and then to point out the differences: "Oh - Greenland's too skinny!", or "Where's Madagascar gone?". While it might seem like I have a superiority complex, I believe that the joy I get from this activity stems instead from being reminded just how difficult it is to discover the truth, even about something that we now regard as so trivial that we take it for granted, such as the shape of the world. Facing the inaccuracies of what our ancestor's believed to be the truth also reveals how unlikely it is that anything can be known completely. Scientists tend to have a very confident belief in what they know, even though it is very likely that in a few hundred years people will be looking back and sniggering at our mistakes. I wanted to capture these feelings in the design of my table, and so I chose to depict one of the greatest scientific fallacies of all time: the structure of Ptolemy's geocentric universe.
The earth travels around the sun - right? Everyone knows that, or do they? According to a study by Dr. Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University in 2005, one in five adult Americans believes that the sun travels around the earth. Is that because all Americans are crude and uneducated? I doubt that. In fact I would not be surprised if a similar proportion existed in South Africa, or any other country of the world. But does it really matter? Well, in one respect, probably not. I have yet to face a practical problem that actually requires that specific piece of knowledge. But for many of us, learning that the earth travels around the sun caused us to realize, perhaps for the first time, that what our senses told us was not necessarily true. And whether good or bad, that lesson takes root in our minds as an ever-present seed of doubt, that continuously and fundamentally alters our perception of the world in which we live.
Regardless of what we believe now, prior to the 16th century the geocentric model of the universe was the prevalent belief throughout the western world, and it is easy to understand why, since all the sensory data seemed to support it. The earth was the largest object (taking into account the affects of perspective) that anyone had ever seen, and since large objects are harder to move than small objects, it was much more likely that the smaller objects (again, visually smaller due to perspective) such as stars and planets would move around the earth. Also, without specific knowledge of the structure of space and of our own gaseous atmosphere, it was quite respectable to question that, if the earth were moving around some other body, why did we not experience atmospheric turbulence in the same way that a chariot rider felt wind on his face? And lastly, the vast majority of the stars in the sky (excluding the 'wandering' type known as planets) moved in unison, as though they were all part of a great rolling celestial sphere. Therefore, the earth must lie at the centre of this sphere, or else the motion of the stars would vary as they moved closer and further away from the earth. The only observations that did not fit the geocentric model were the movements of the planets, whose rates of motion varied widely from fast to slow, and sometimes even in reverse. In order to account for the erratic motion of the planets, astronomers were forced to create new models of the universe by adding extra complexity. The most accurate of which became known as the Ptolemaic system.
The Ptolemaic model of the universe consists fundamentally of nine concentric spheres centered around the earth, each associated with a set of heavenly bodies. Ordered from the smallest to the largest they are: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Stars, and finally, the sphere of the Prime Mover. However, to account for the varying speed and retrograde motion of the planets, each planet is in fact placed on the surface of a second, smaller sphere called an epicycle, whose center travels around the larger first sphere, called the deferent. This arrangement can be seen clearly in animation below. The complicated interaction between the epicycle and deferent creates a system that is mathematically equivalent to a spherical heliocentric (sun-centered) model, just with a different frame of reference. Lastly, the very outermost sphere, the sphere of the Prime Mover, was responsible for rotating all of the other spheres around the earth, once every 24 hours - essentially providing us with days and nights.
Although the full Ptolemaic model is very accurate, the interactions between the epicycles and deferents are difficult to represent on a static drawing, and so I decided to look for a simpler representation to use for my table design. I found a very interesting drawing by Bartolomeu Velho, who was a Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer from the 16th century, and decided to use it as the basis of my design. Velho's "Figure of the Heavenly Bodies" depicts the nine concentric spheres of the Ptolemaic system (along with accurate estimations of their periods of rotation), but also includes religious decoration and a representation of the structure the four earthly elements: earth, water, wind and fire. This interesting intersection of religion, science and mythology is representative of the philosophical thought at the time, but lies in sharp contrast to our highly specialized modern point of view.
The actual construction of my table was very simple, relying on methods that would not have been out of place in the 16th century. My tools consisted of a compass made from a string and a nail, a pencil with which to sketch the layout, and a soldering iron that I used to burn the design into the wooden door (no - they did not have soldering irons in the 16th century, but a fire and steel poker would have sufficed). The conical tip of the soldering iron was able to create a large range of line-widths, which allowed me to incorporate both dark outlines and hair-fine details into the table design. The process of burning the design into the wood was painstakingly slow (requiring over 60 hours to complete the entire design), but it was also surprisingly therapeutic thanks to the repetitive nature of the line-work and to the comforting smell of charred wood that lingered in the air. Unfortunately the method of marking by burning is strictly limited to a monochromatic palette, and so in order to add visual contrast and to highlight key areas of the design I decided to stain about 50% of the table's surface with a subtle cherry-red hue. The overall effect creates a wonderfully textured surface on the wood that invites the viewer to feel the wood, and to physically trace the circular contours with their fingers.
After completing the seemingly never-ending tasks of burning and staining, all that was left to do was to add a few coats of clear UV protective varnish, and to attach the table-top to the freshly sanded and repainted steel base. Attaching the two pieces was a simple matter of drilling eight holes through the top of the base, and screwing them together from underneath. You can see an image of my completed table above, as well as detail close-ups of the corner decorations below. The top two corners were taken from Velho's original drawing, and they depict the crucifixion of Jesus, and God in the act of creation. The bottom two corners are my own additions; one is a portrait of the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy and the other depicts a ship caught in a storm. I felt that these representations of the conquests of man were necessary in order to maintain the delicate balance between religion and science.
When I started this project, many months ago, I truly believed that it was going take a weekend or two of work. However, once work commenced I quickly realized that it was going to take a long, long time to complete. At this realization I was faced with a very perplexing decision: do I stop now, before wasting any more of my time, or do I start down a journey of indeterminate length, with a promise to myself that I would see it to the very end. I chose the second option, and I am very glad that I did. I now have a custom piece of furniture that is visually intriguing, and sparks conversation with everyone who sees it. But even more importantly, it also represents a visual record of over 60 hours of my life. Just like a vinyl record, information is imbedded in the subtle undulations of its concentric grooves - not audio information, but rather information regarding my respiration rate at the time of its creation, of the level of cramp in my wrist, and even clues to my mental state. For this reason I have a deep personal affection for the table, which is an emotion that is difficult to describe to anyone else. Suffice to say: my table ended up being just as much a map of myself, as it is a map of the universe.
GO MARTIN!! This table is amazing. I am so impressed :-) I wish i could make something beautiful :-( This is carla by the way!!
ReplyDeleteHey Carla. Thanks so much for reading :) I didn't know you had a blog too - I will keep an eye on it.
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