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“When it got to be time to design the week—a period of time, unlike the day, month, and year, with no intrinsic astronomical significance—it was assigned seven days, each named after one of the seven anomalous lights in the night sky. We can readily make out the remnants of this convention. In English, Saturday is Saturn’s day. Sunday and Mo[o]nday are clear enough. Tuesday through Friday are named after the gods of the Saxon and kindred Teutonic invaders of Celtic/Roman Britain: Wednesday, for example, is Odin’s (or Wodin’s) day, which would be more apparent if we pronounced it as it’s spelled, “Wedn’s Day”; Thursday is Thor’s day; Friday is the day of Freya, goddess of love. The last day of the week stayed Roman, the rest of it became German.”
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“Once we lose our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe which dwarfs -- in time, in space, and in potential -- the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.”
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven't forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.”
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“On the scale of worlds—to say nothing of stars or galaxies—humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal.”
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“Perhaps the records will never be intercepted. Perhaps no one in five billion years will ever come upon them. Five billion years is a long time. In five billion years, all human beings will have become extinct or evolved into other beings, none of our artifacts will have survived on Earth, the continents will have become unrecognizably altered or destroyed, and the evolution of the Sun will have burned the Earth to a crisp or reduced it to a whirl of atoms.
Far from home, untouched by these remote events, the Voyagers, bearing the memories of a world that is no more, will fly on.”
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Far from home, untouched by these remote events, the Voyagers, bearing the memories of a world that is no more, will fly on.”
― Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Bryan’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Bryan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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