The following four \u201cspace\u201d sonnets are in memory of Chinese astrophysicist, Fang Lizhi (b. 02\/12\/1936 – d. 04\/06\/2012) and Indian musician Ravi Shankar (b. 04\/07\/1920 – d. 12\/11\/2012).<\/p>\n
Fang Lizhi was a prominent Chinese researcher in astrophysics and cosmology. His liberal ideas inspired the pro-democracy movement leading to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Both Fang Lizhi and his professor wife had been in and out of Communist hard labor camps for speaking out about human rights since the late 1950’s. During the height of the Tiananmen crackdown he and his wife took refuge for over a year in the American Embassy in Beijing. With the help of Henry Kissinger and U.S. President George H.W. Bush they were able to leave China. Fang then taught at Cambridge, Princeton and finally the U. of Arizona and continued to speak out about human rights in China. Readers may like to read his book, Bringing Down the Great Wall: Writings on Science, Culture, and Democracy in China.<\/p>\n
Ravi Shankar, who also passed away in 2012, was born 95 years ago (04\/07\/1920) this Tuesday. I’ve often thought when they make the soundtrack to be played for future long distance space travel that sitar music by Ravi Shankar and Nikhil Bannerjee, sarod music by Ali Akbar Khan, bamboo flute music by Hariprasad Chaurasia, and other classical Indian music should be on board. Their classical Indian music is soothing, yet energetic; improvisatory yet contained within a musical form called ragas; engrossing and contemplative at once. It both rests and invigorates one’s mind. There will be a need for such music during the long passages in the darkness of space.<\/p>\n
Black Holes are Beckoning<\/strong> Rack em Rocko: Understanding Quantum Theory<\/strong> Kosmikophobia: Fear of Cosmic Phenomenon<\/strong> We are All a Bunch of W.I.M.P.s<\/strong> The following four \u201cspace\u201d sonnets are in memory of Chinese astrophysicist, Fang Lizhi (b. 02\/12\/1936…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[169,314,413,3560],"class_list":["post-198367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-china","tag-computer","tag-music","tag-ravi-shankar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThroughout the universe black holes are beckoning
\na bright star in the cosmos rises among them
\nStephen Hawking has done some reckoning
\nshedding light on the holes he explains them again
\nBlack holes reach their event horizon; Shelley wrote,
\n\u201cO\u2019er the faint cold starlight of heaven is thrown\u2026\u201d
\nHawking\u2019s computer assisted voice is rising
\nuniversal cosmic inflation has been shown
\nNuclear fusion in stars keeps the night awake
\nsuper nova, red giants, white dwarfs in division
\ncosmic symphonies play thru birth, marriage, and wake
\nM- theory is now in quantum superposition
\nSize, distance, numbers, it\u2019s almost beyond us to grasp it
\nwe must expand our minds in order to clasp it<\/p>\n
\nIn my trying to understand quantum theory,
\nI found Heisenberg\u2019s uncertainty principle,
\nthat it is impossible to determine the
\nposition and velocity of a particle
\nat the same moment. Which led me to more query.
\nSchrodinger took this theory into quantum mechanics,
\npast Einstein to TV and computer antics.
\nEinstein never accepted that the universe
\nwas governed by chance and said,\u201c God does not play dice.\u201d
\nThink of particles as waves and waves as particles.
\nUse Planck\u2019s constant and then leave out the articles.
\nPerhaps a cosmic nine ball billiard game would be nice
\nUse Occam\u2019s razor to cut out what you can\u2019t see
\nInterference will provide you with duality.<\/p>\n
\nYou were scared when you saw your first eclipse
\nThen awed by Aurora Borealis polar
\nLights till you learned their sole origin was solar
\nSun flare radio interference made you do flips
\nThen you read an article on particle physics
\nStepping outside you started to count shooting stars
\nBut thought you\u2019d get hit so you counted shots in bars
\nMost of us are freaked out by cosmic statistics
\nIn the accumulated power of photons
\nGo crazy about comets in the Oort Clouds
\nYou worry about whether black holes have burial shrouds
\nAbout Nutty Professors colliding with neutrons
\nCome back to earth get centered around gravity
\nCosmic hope equals Einstein\u2019s relativity<\/p>\n
\n(W.eakly I.nteracting M.assive P.articles)
\nAll over out there\u2014disappearing dark matter
\nFar beyond\u2014far beyond the outer most depths of space
\nWorks a fantastic macrocosmic mad hatter
\nHear the stellar pitter patter dancing taking place
\nOn a South Pole radio telescope we hear
\nA\u2019 la recherch\u00e9 du temps perdu\u2014we all hang
\nCataclysmic cosmic surfers\u2014hang ten\u2014No Fear
\nOf bending waves at the moment of the Big Bang
\nIts dark out there, we don\u2019t know what the matter is
\nA new old cosmological situation
\nSince Big Bang\u2019s rapid exponential little fizz
\nGravitational waves in cosmic inflation
\nUnderground linear accelerators glimpse
\nAll us galactic gimps limping towards W.I.M.P.s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"