Tag: Infinite In All Directions

• ‘Infinite in All Directions’, a science newsletter

  At 10 am (IST) every Monday, I will be sending out a list of links to science stories from around the web, curated by significance and accompanied by a useful blurb, as a newsletter. If you’re interested, please sign up here. If you’d like to know more before signing up, read on.

  It’s called Infinite in All Directions – a term coined by Freeman Dyson for nothing really except the notion behind this statement from his book of the same name: “No matter how far we go into the future, there will always be new things happening, new information coming in, new worlds to explore, a constantly expanding domain of life, consciousness and memory.”

  I will be collecting the links and sending the newsletter out on behalf of The Wire, whose science section I edit. And so, you can trust the links to not be to esoteric pieces (which I’m fond of) but to pieces I’d have liked to have covered at The Wire but couldn’t.

  More than that, the idea for the newsletter is essentially a derivative of a reading challenge a friend proposed a while ago: wherein a group of us would recommend books for each other to read, especially titles that we might not come upon by ourselves.

  Some of you might remember that a (rather, the same) friend and I used to send out the Curious Bends newsletter until sometime last year. The Infinite in All Directions newsletter will be similarly structured but won’t necessarily be India-centric. In fact, a (smaller than half) section of the newsletter may even be consistently skewed toward the history and philosophy of science. But you can trust that the issues will all be contemporary.

  Apart from my ‘touch’ coming through with the selection, I will also occasionally include my take on some topics (typically astro/physics). You’re welcome to disagree (just be nice) – all replies to the newsletter will land up in my inbox. You’re also more than welcome to send me links to include in future issues.

  Finally: Each newsletter will not have a fixed number of links – I don’t want to link you to pieces I myself haven’t been able to appreciate. At the same time, there will be at least five or so links. I think The Wire alone puts out that many good stories each week.

  I hope you enjoy reading the newsletter. As with this blog, Infinite in All Directions will be a labour of love. Please share it with your friends and anybody who might be interested in such a service. Again, here is the link to subscribe.

  2016.06.05

• Dying in a finite universe

  In his book Infinite In All Directions (2002), Freeman Dyson, one of the tallest intellectual giants of our times, attempts to rescue eschatology from the specious grip of religion and teleology with a mix of scientific reasoning and informed speculation. During this, when describing the big crunch, which is one way our universe could end, he moves smoothly from the rational track he has been sprinting on to a less exact but more pertinent and romantic description. In his words,

  There is a great melancholy in the picture of a finite universe, its force spent, its days of passion over, counting the hours remaining before it slides into oblivion. What will our last poets sing, whoever they may be, human or alien, as they watch the stars crowding together and streaming faster and faster across the imploding sky? Perhaps in their final moments they will remember the words of our contemporary, Ivor Gurney, echoing down the eons from the springtime of our species:

  The songs I had are withered
  or vanished clean,
  Yet there are bright tracks
  Where I have been,
  And there grow flowers
  For others’ delight.
  Think well, O singer,
  Soon comes night.

  I wonder if the universe will make this transition just as seamlessly, and the twilight of starstuff will prove to be just as pleasing, should it happen. Then again, to share Dyson’s conviction is to embrace naturalism for that’s all the beauty that we will see, and there is hope that it will be inexhaustible. Again, in his words and from the same book,

  No matter how far we go into the future, there will always be new things happening, new information coming in, new worlds to explore, a constantly expanding domain of life, consciousness and memory.

  2014.07.25