A Change in Trajectory

Each day is filled with decisions, some more important than others. Sometimes we don't realize that choices we make may cause our situation to head in an entirely different direction. A tiny shift can totally change the trajectory of our lives. These pivotal decisions may be part of our daily routine, which can alter our lives and what we contribute to the world.

The musical performer Sting had one of these simple, yet life-changing experiences. As a young boy, he lived near a small port in England, in the “shadow of a shipyard.” It was a town that had built some of the largest sea going vessels in the world. For generations, the people living there did the same thing: they worked in the shipyards and struggled to make ends meet. Once an important ship was completed it was christened, and usually members of the royal family attended the celebration. On one such occasion, Sting’s small town hosted the official gathering. He had attended these events before. As usual, his mother made him wear his Sunday best and stand on the sidewalk waving the British flag in his hand. As a young boy, Sting sensed the excitement in the air and watched as the motorcade steadily approached, carrying the Queen Mother. As her vehicle drove by, Sting waved with enthusiasm and smiled. Just as he did, the Queen made eye contact with him and smiled and waved back. He said at that moment he was infected with the idea that he wanted a bigger life. One that was out of the ordinary and different from what his family had known for generations. Because he attended that one event as a young boy, Sting was introduced to an idea that altered the rest of his life. He began to think outside of the box on what he could do with his life and his trajectory changed from that day forward.

Neil deGrasse Tyson also had an experience that adjusted the direction of his life. Today Tyson is a well-known astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. When he was first getting started as a young man from the Bronx, Tyson was interested in astronomy and applied to attend Ithaca at Cornell for his first year of study. Carl Sagan, then a successful astrophysicist, noticed Tyson’s application and invited him to spend the day with him. What an opportunity for Tyson! The two of them spent the day touring astronomy faculties, and that evening, Sagan gave Tyson the book, “The Cosmic Connection” and signed it, “to a future astronomer.” It was a cold, snowy December evening in New York when Sagan drove Tyson back to the bus station to go home. Sagan wrote his phone number on a scrap of paper and gave it to Tyson telling him to call if the bus couldn’t get through the storm. Tyson already knew that he wanted to study astronomy, but something changed during the day he spent with Carl Sagan. The kindness and interest Sagan showed Tyson, changed his idea of what kind of scientist he would be and he recognized the importance of including people in science and not just facts.

Russell Shorto is a journalist, best-selling author, and historian who had a question that changed his life. He lived in New York and routinely took his daughter to an old churchyard at St. Mark’s-in-the Bowery. It had a lawn filled with large sycamore trees, a perfect place for a young child to run and get some fresh air. Each day as his daughter played there, Shorto looked at the tombstones that filled the old churchyard. One stood out more than the others; it belonged to Peter Stuyvesant one of the leaders of the early settlement in New Netherland in the 1600s. Shorto’s mind began to question what the original settlement was like. He followed this idea, which led him to a man named Charles Gehring. Shorto learned from Gehring that where his daughter played each day was once the Dutch Colony of New Netherland and Peter Stuyvesant had been one of the directors there. This meeting with Gehring led Shorto to an obsession to learn all he could about the colony and he eventually wrote, “The Island at the Center of the World” about this location.  Shorto also became actively involved in the New Netherland Institute (whose director is Charles Gehring), and has taught the public about New Netherland ever since. Shorto’s solitary question led him to an area of history he knew little about and now he successfully shares that knowledge with the world.

I could go on with examples of people who have made a drastic change in their lives because of one small decision. In many of these instances the people ended up being successful in their individual lives, and then sharing their newfound knowledge with all who would pay attention. Their change in trajectory ended up being a chain reaction, which led others to alter their paths also. As you go about your normal day be aware of questions that come to your mind or ideas that you have. Keep them bouncing around in your head and see if they eventually become one of those pivotal decisions which will send you in an entirely different direction.

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http://www.ted.com/talks/sting_how_i_started_writing_songs_again#t-834662

I've Always Looked Up

The night sky has always captured my attention. I remember a 4th grade slumber party at a friend’s house a few weeks before school started. We were outside under the stars with a huge bowl of popcorn talking and laughing. As the evening continued we noticed a lot of "shooting stars" and our conversations abruptly halted as we pointed to the bright flashes across the sky. I remember staying awake as long as I could to see just one more of those "shooting stars." I was certain we were the only people to witness the stellar event on that warm, summer evening. Since then I have realized that myriads of people were watching the night sky on that evening and knew there would be "shooting stars."

While I was attending Boise State University, I decided to take "Introduction to Descriptive Astronomy." I soon learned that the night of "shooting stars" I'd witnessed years ago was actually the Perseids meteor shower, which happens every year in the middle of August. Throughout the years I have slept out under the stars with my family during the annual Perseids meteor shower. We laid in sleeping bags and I talked about the stars, answered a few questions and then quietly lay there hoping to see every meteor I could as my family drifted off to sleep. This past summer during the Perseids meteor shower, only my husband and I were around so we stretched out on our backyard benches to watch for a little while.  As we talked and watched, a brilliant fireball shot across the sky from northeast to southwest. Its brightness lingered in the sky for a long time; the best of show for the evening.

A fortunate coincidence happened while I was taking the astronomy class at Boise State. NASA had launched the Voyager I and Voyager II spacecrafts years before, into our solar system; it was during the beginning of that semester that they reached Jupiter and Saturn. The historic part of the event was the fact that there had never been a space mission like it, and the pictures and information being sent back were all new to the world. We were observing things and learning facts that had never even been supposed.

Last year when I was teaching a unit on European Explorers, I explained how the explorers found their way using the stars in the night sky, and recently I was able to experience a bit of this for myself. My husband and I went on a hike into a wildness area in Oregon. It was not a trail we had been on and we started at the trailhead later than planned. Darkness came quickly and there was no moon out to light our way or help to orient us. The trail wound in all directions along and on top of a range of mountains. Before long, my internal compass was confused from all the direction changes in the dark and I could not distinguish which way we were going. Unlike the early explorers on the ocean, I had a path I could follow and my desire to know which direction I was going was simply for my own peace of mind. As we continued uphill I could tell that we were approaching the top of a ridge because I began to see stars beside me as well as above. When we got to a clearing, we turned off our headlamps and I could identify the constellations with their main stars, as well as the Milky Way. Those stars that I had looked up at for years instantly told me which direction I was headed. Seeing these familiar patterns in the sky fixed my internal compass and soothed my feelings of anxiety. As I gazed at my stellar companions that dark night, I got a very brief glimpse of how those early explorers must have felt as they sailed in the darkness; hoping to avoid sea monsters or even the edge of the world.

Since my days in college taking that astronomy course, I have continued to look up at the night sky. It is a frontier that continues to deliver new and amazing information that helps us understand our universe and leads us to ask more questions. A few weeks ago, my old teachers, Voyager I and II showed up in the news again. This time is was to say goodbye. These spacecraft are expected to leave our solar system sometime during the next few months. They will drift past the edge, where no known earthly object has yet been. They are no longer able to take pictures but are still recording and sending data to Earth.

So remember that the nightly show is available to anyone who wants to step outside and look up. People have been looking up for longer then we can imagine, trying to find their way on a long, bleak night through unknown territory. Others have found comfort in the consistency of the night sky. So whether you are taking out the garbage or bringing groceries into your house, take a few minutes to look up and wonder about the light that left the stars thousands of light years before.

Books

Reading is a wonderful pastime.  There are scores of books written on a countless number of topics; so many that it is difficult to comprehend.  Often books take us places we have never been, and allow us to go through experiences we otherwise would not have encountered. With books we can even travel through time–to the past or the future, the choice is yours.  Occasionally a book will influence us so profoundly that the ideas trapped between the pages of print refuse to leave us once they have taken hold in our thoughts and ideas.  I recently found examples of two such books. Each one so profoundly influenced their reader’s ideas that they changed the individual’s awareness, understanding and endeavors. 

David Levy is an amateur astronomer, known for discovering over twenty comets so far in his lifetime. Levy has spent countless hours under dark starry skies and as a result has become quite expert in his knowledge of astronomy and has contributed a great deal to the field.  A book that profoundly influenced Levy and which he considers his Astronomy Bible is Leslie Peltier’s Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Star-Gazer.  Peltier, born in 1900 was also an amateur astronomer.  He spent his nights studying comets, novae and variable stars, much like Levy has done. Levy has read, reread and quoted from Peltier’s book so many times that his copy has been rebound with a dark blue leather cover and blank pages have been added which Levy fills with lists of each talk he has given and quoted from Peltier’s book; this has been nearly every talk he has presented.  Sometimes, when Levy attended an astronomy meeting the guest speaker failed to show up so Levy simply stepped up, with his Astronomy Bible in hand and gave a lecture, throughout sharing passages from Peltier’s pages.  These words have become such a part of Levy that he can speak at length about a topic he loves with the companionship of his favorite book and friend.  After learning of Levy’s never tiring interest of Peltier’s book I am interested in reading it myself to find what magic lies between it’s pages.

The author, David Roberts, also read an influential book.  Roberts has successfully written several books about mountaineering and exploration and is quite knowledgeable on the subject of Arctic and Antarctic studies.  One day a colleague told Roberts of a book, In the Land of White Death written by Valerian Albanov in 1928, which surprisingly Roberts had never heard of before. He searched out the text in his library and found a copy.  It had never been checked out once in the sixty-eight years it sat on the library shelf. As Roberts began reading the pages of this neglected text, he discovered that it contained the amazing account of Valerian Albanov’s story of survival in the Arctic.  Roberts was riveted to the unfolding of this tale however, one passage captured his attention more than any other and it changed the direction of his entire life for a time.  As Roberts read of Albanov’s desperate condition, he was drawn to Albanov’s mere mention that his team could be successful because he knew of a group of four Russian sailors who survived for six years in the Arctic in the 1700s.  Roberts had never heard of these four survivors in all of his studies of the Arctic and his mind could not escape the desire to learn more about them. Roberts spend the next few years, researching and making trips to Russia and the Arctic to find out the truth about these early unfortunate explorers.  The entire course of his life changed because of a simple paragraph in the book he had read.

As I have recognized the power that these books had on Levy and Roberts, I have wondered which books I would treat with such respect and admiration.  I have read many books in my life but wonder which ones have changed my thoughts, beliefs and possibly the course of my life.  What is a book that you have read which has profoundly influenced you in some way; one that you have read and reread throughout the years, one that you never stop learning from?

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Ferris, Timothy. Seeing in the Dark (New York, London, Toronto and Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2002) 157-159.

Roberts, David. Four Against the Arctic (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003).

Making Something out of Nothing

The downturn in the economy can be felt in many corners of the world.  Countless people are lacking extra resources to participate in activities that may be interesting or useful.  This past week I was reading in Timothy Ferris’ book Seeing in the Dark and discovered Edward Emerson Barnard, a truly destitute individual from the beginning, who did not let his economic situation prevent him from learning and contributing to society.

Barnard was born into an impoverished home in 1857, a few months after his father had died.  His mother was the sole provider for her family of two young boys and her only source of income was making wax flowers.  Needless to say, the family was usually hungry.  Once during the Civil War, a ship loaded with supplies sank near the Barnard home in Nashville, Tennessee.  Young Edward traveled to the shipwreck and was able to drag a box of hardtack out from the river. He proudly brought it home for supper that evening for his family to enjoy.

Barnard described his growing up years as “so sad and bitter that even now [he] cannot look back on it without a shudder” (Ferris, 227).  He had very little education – two months to be exact – and as a result had few acquaintances since his efforts were spent simply surviving. To lighten his heart, he would lie out in an old wagon bed and look up at the stars. He studied them for hours and even befriended a few favorites.  One was a bright summer star, directly overhead – Vega. Barnard did not know the star’s name however, because of his lack of schooling.

When he was nine years old, after survived a cholera epidemic that had seized the town, Barnard obtained employment with Van Stavoren’s Photographic Gallery.  There he spent his days cranking a set of wheels to keep a large roof-mounted camera aimed at the Sun to captured light, which was used to make prints of photographic negatives.  After a long day’s work, Barnard walked home in the dark – looking up at the stars.

Barnard worked for the photographic gallery for seventeen years, all the while increasing his knowledge of optics and photography.  Using this knowledge he gathered discarded items and built his own telescope.  Barnard studied the sky for hours with his invention but still lacked any understanding of what he was actually observing.  One day a friend needed two dollars, which was a large sum of money to Barnard, but he loaned it to his friend anyway, never expecting to see it again.  As a security for the two-dollar loan, his friend left Barnard a book.  Being angry about the exchange, Barnard did not bother to look at the book for some time.  When he finally thumbed through it, months later, he found that it was Thomas Dick’s text The Sidereal Heavens – a book about astronomy!  Barnard poured over the star charts in the book and soon found the names of the stars he had befriended as a child.

Barnard continued to observe and sky and began reading extensively, he hired a math tutor and eventually earned a degree in mathematics from Vanderbilt University, where he continued on as an instructor. After teaching for some time he was hired by Lick Observatory when he showed up at the observation domes that were under construction.  There Barnard declared that he had quit his teaching job, sold his house and would work for free if he could just be given a chance to observe through the huge telescopes being built.  Barnard’s keen vision and hard work led him to countless discoveries and honor in the field of astronomy.  He published over 900 papers and observed features on the face of one of Jupiter’s moons, Io, that were not confirmed until the spacecraft Voyager flew by one hundred years later.

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Ferris, Timothy. Seeing in the Dark (New York, London, Toronto and Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2002) 227-229.

Risks of Running

             I am a runner.  I started running several years ago to get into better shape but it has turned into an activity I look forward to each day.  I also enjoy reading books about other runners and discovered Shanti Sosiendki’s book Women Who Run.  As I read the introduction, I was startled to learn that it has only been just over 35 years that women have been allowed to legally run in marathons in the United States because it was believed that if a woman ran that far her uterus would fall out.  As a result it was not until 1984 that the Olympics even had a marathon event for women (Sosienski, xix).  Today tens of thousands of women run in marathons every year  - and not one of them has lost their uterus.

            It is interesting to look back and see how limits have been put on women throughout history.  Another example of false information stopping women from being more a part of the world is the story of the amazing woman, Henrietta Swan Leavitt.  Henrietta lived in the 1800s when it was believed that our Milky Way galaxy was the center of the universe and the most significant object in it.   However, during this time larger telescopes began to look further into the heavens finding more accurate information.  One of these larger telescopes was located at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This telescope took photographic negatives of the night sky that were created as the telescope was aimed into the heavens and “its light focused onto a large glass plate coated on one side with light-sensitive emulsion” (Johnson, 10).  Henrietta was employed at the Harvard Observatory as a human computer, and it was her job to count and study the stars on these photographic plates.  Miss Leavitt and other women spent the day examining the tiny dark dots on the white background of space, and recording their observations in a ledger book.

                  Previous to her employment at the Harvard Observatory, Miss Leavitt attended Oberlin College and Radcliffe Academy taking various courses covering a wide range of fields of study.  Shortly before her twenty-fourth birthday in 1892, she graduated with a certificate saying she had completed a number of curriculum courses.  If she had been a man during this era, the courses she successfully completed would have earned her a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard.

            These women or human computers were not allowed to actually view the sky with the telescope at Harvard Observatory because it was “assumed that night-long vigils in a frigid dome required a masculine physique” (Center for the History of Physics).  However, this did not stop Miss Leavitt from contributing to the field of astronomy.

            As Miss Leavitt spent hours studying the star patterns on the pieces of glass, she eventually discovered a way to measure the distances of far away objects in the universe. She determined that there was a relationship between the brightness of variable stars or Cepheids, (those who change in brightness) and how long they remained bright.  Her discovery meant that Cepheids could be used as “cosmic measuring posts” for objects far beyond our solar system to determine how far away they actually were from the Earth.

            It is interesting to note that while Miss Leavitt made her “universe changing discovery” by studying photographic plates, she was able to do more to advance astronomy than some of the male astronomers of that era. 

            An example of this is the astronomer William H. Pickering, brother of Edward Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory.  William had the luxury of looking at any time, through one of the best telescopes available; however, his theories were not as notable as Miss Leavitt’s.  He had developed an assumption that the dark patches on the Moon were due to seasonal swarms of migrating insects (Bryson, 163).

            In 1912 Miss Leavitt’s findings were published in a Harvard Circular under the name of the director of the Harvard Observatory, Edward Pickering.

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Bryson, Bill.  A Short History of Nearly Everything.  Random House, New York, 2005.

Center for History of Physics. Women in Astronomy. http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/ideas/island.html “Island Universes”. (accessed 11 September 2009).

Johnson, George. Miss Leavitt’s Stars. W.W Norton & Company, Inc., 2006.

Shanti Sosienski, Women Who Run (California: Seal Press, 2006).