TIME DILATION

TIME DILATION They say that Time flies when you’re having fun, but the real reason Time flies is boredom. If something interesting is being done, Time will slow down to sluggish minimum. Do something noteworthy, like speed light-fast or amass a gravitational sphere, and Time will dawdle rather than rush past, as if […]

COLD COMFORT

COLD COMFORT When life on this planet seems cumbersome and weighted with serious magnitude, delight dragged down by deep opprobrium, I pad into the kitchen for some food. In front of the refrigerator, I see tacked with tacky magnets your sweet face, in photographs that we took last July, and what was crushing becomes an […]

LEMMING

LEMMING Oh, little lemming, running to the sea, Tell us; tell us, what can the matter be, That you ignore your friends who warn and shout That you should try to stop and turn about. The path that you are on will not end well, And yet you are determined and pell-mell. […]

SENSE OF REALTY

SENSE OF REALTY We think one day we’ll find another Earth encircling some other distant sun. It won’t be like the planet of our birth. not one can stand up to comparison. If lucky, we’ll find one that’s the right mass — not to crush us with its gravitation — with atmosphere made of breathable […]

PLANETS

PLANETS Locked in orbit since before they were born, condensed from suns’ halos of dust and gas, they’re baubles that adorn a star’s naked radiance.

FORMATION

FORMATION Dust coalesces in orbital overture – music of the spheres

TOPPING THE STAR CHARTS

In 1977, a recording of “Liu Shui” (流水; Stream), as performed by Guan, was chosen to be included in the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated LP recording containing music from around the world, which was sent into outer space by NASA on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft. It is the longest excerpt included on the disc (lasting seven minutes and […]

POOR REFLECTION

POOR REFLECTION If we find life a few light-years from here, and it turns out that that life’s multi-celled and that it is intelligent, I fear they’ll still be dumb, and hope will be dispelled. What if they’re even stupider than us – some ancient culture that never evolved – no bronze age, their […]

LONG-RANGE PLAN

LONG-RANGE PLAN Another Earth, just twelve light years away, was found in our space telescopes today! Though what it looks like we can’t really say, we’re pretty sure that liquid water may exist upon its surface anyway. We can infer water’s liquidity due to its “Goldilocks” vicinity discerned through Einstein’s relativity, duration of periodicity […]

EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLES

Further inspired by Robert Frost’s form, this poem touches on the very sensitive membrane of a black hole, where although we know physics breaks down, we hope its laws will nonetheless point the way through the chaos of infinities we encounter at a singularity’s boundary. But what happens when things accelerate into a black hole, […]

BARD OF MARS

In The Twilight Zone Of Poetry And Science