Culture and Cosmos最新文献

{"title":"Sky: Atmospheres and Aesthetic Distance in Planetary and Lunar Environments","authors":"D. Madacsi","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0237","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0237","url":null,"abstract":"While much of Western aesthetics has been influenced by early concepts of ideal beauty and a later ideal of disinterested contemplation of works of art, some contemporary aestheticians argue for an aesthetics of environment itself, both built and natural. Sensory perception is by definition implicit to aesthetic perception, and an artist, working in an environment which not only is a source of sensory information but additionally may be a source of personal aesthetic experience, produces works which may have aesthetic value as reflections of aspects of an intelligible universe – aesthetic value which may be informed by the artist’s own aesthetic experience of environment. To the earthbound observer, that portion of environment referred to as ‘the sky’ is a subjective uniquely-framed window to the rest of the universe, individually cropped by local horizons and nearby physical/structural barriers. An individual’s sky field-of-view may vary from a restricted few degrees of visual angle defined by an opening in a rainforest canopy to the unrestricted panorama of sky seen from a mountaintop and viewable in its entirety only by fully turning ones gaze through all points of the compass. Though Earth’s clear night sky is essentially transparent, the daytime lighting of its atmosphere, whether cloudy or clear, blinds earthbound observers to extraterrestrial astronomical phenomena with the exception of those involving the sun, moon, and (somewhat briefly) the brightest stars and planets. Similarly throughout the solar system, the absence, presence, and properties of atmospheres will be fundamental determinants of aesthetic distance and therefore of aesthetic experience of planetary and lunar environments as well as of extraplanetary and extralunar astronomical phenomena.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114279378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Front matter, dedication to Ray White, Keynote Speakers and the Story of INSAP, including Nicholas Campion, ‘Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (INSAP IV)’","authors":"Nicholas Campion","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0101","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128366162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hawkins' Way: Rembembering Astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins","authors":"Hubert A. Allen, Jr.","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0203","url":null,"abstract":"Gerald Hawkins, who rose to fame in the 1960s as the author of Stonehenge Decoded, was due to have been a keynote speaker at the INSAP IV conference. As preparations were being made for the conference, the sad news was received that he had passed away, on his farm in Virginia. Stonehenge Decoded and other publications played a seminal role in defining the study of prehistoric astronomy and bringing that study to wider critical attention. He was fortunate to have lived long enough to see others take up the challenge of decoding human intellect embedded in ancient architecture. He was particularly interested in proposals for English Heritage's plans for a new Stonehenge Visitor Centre. The following tribute was prepared by his friend and colleague, Hubert A. Allen.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"114 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116182266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dusk and Dawn in Medieval Islam: on the Importance of Twilight Phenomena with Some Examples of Their Representations in Texts and on Instruments","authors":"Petra G. Schmidl","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0259","url":null,"abstract":"Dusk and dawn are one of the most important astronomical phenomenon used in Islamic ritual worship. They are connected with two of the five pillars of Islam, the fasting in Ramadan, and the ritual prayer. They are to be performed at the right time to be accepted. To know about dusk is necessary in Ramadan to determine the end of fasting, and about dawn to determine the beginning of fasting ‘when a white thread may be distinguished from a black’ (Sura 2,187). Further they are in need of determining three of the five daily ritual prayers in Islam, the evening prayer, the night prayer and the morning prayer. All of them are defined by twilight phenomena. These prayers rest on the Qur'an (see Sura 11,114, Sura 17,78 and Sura 50,39f) and the Sunna, the Hadith collections with the acts and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. These collection contain different descriptions or definitions of these prayer times. Most of them are phenomenological, for example ‘Do the morning prayer when the stars become indistinct!’ (Malik, Muwatta’, Wuqut al-salat, Wuqut al-salat (no. 6)). According to their position in Islamic religious duties dusk and dawn were widely discussed in different medieval Islamic astronomical sources, in texts and on instruments. On the one hand, in an astronomical tradition often called mathematical, the definition of these prayer times by twilight phenomena lead to exact and approximative methods to calculate time and duration of twilight by the angle of the solar depression below the horizon. These values are represented in tables and on instruments, especially on astrolabes. On the other hand texts on time keeping and the determination of the Qibla, the sacred direction in Islam towards Mecca, not written for the astronomical expert and probably produced in a legal context, so called folk astronomical texts, deals with the time and duration of twilight in two different kinds. First, there are rough approximative methods of determining the beginning, duration and end of dusk and dawn by the Lunar Mansions using them as a 'star clock'. Second, these texts contain detailed descriptions of the twilight phenomena in the morning and in the evening probably based on observations which are very useful to interpret the definitions given in the Hadiths. These descriptions are a beautiful example of an astronomical phenomenon which influenced the ritual worship of one of the three great monotheistic religions.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127766696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Star Imagery in Petroglyph National Monument","authors":"Hubert A. Allen, Jr., Terry Edward Ballone","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0205","url":null,"abstract":"Petroglyph National Monument, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, is dedicated solely to preserving an estimated 17,000 carvings on rock (petroglyphs) made by ancestral and historic Native Americans, early colonists and regional visitors. Among the images that recur along the 17 miles of volcanic escarpment is a four-pointed star, sometimes called the ‘star-being’ or ‘star-head’ by locals and park guides, as it usually involves some degree of anthropomorphism. This image may be as simple as a circle with four symmetrically disposed points and no other details to as elaborate as the basic star-head with facial features, crown and body with, perhaps, limbs holding objects – a cane, staff, or club. This project involved a photographic field survey of the ‘star-head’ image in the Monument. Two teams of two and three surveyors combed the escarpment rock (height ranging from 10m - 100m high) and identified and photographed approximately 100 ‘star-head’ images. Results include a classification of ‘star-head’ images according to level of detail, size of images, and associations with other petroglyphs and archaeological remains. The literature review discusses the possible role of this icon as a war symbol and a Venus deity and provides a rough time line of their creation and cultural associations.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124682495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lux et Tenebris: Etienne-Louis Boullée’s Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton","authors":"P. Ricci","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0253","url":null,"abstract":"In 1784 the visionary French architect Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728– 1799) designed a colossal monument to Isaac Newton (1642–1727) that was both a cenotaph and a planetarium. A tribute to Newton’s contributions to astronomy, the building was conceived as a microcosm in which the night sky would be visible by day and the daytime sky by night. Entering the ‘center of gravity’ of a vast hollow globe set in cylindrical tiers, the viewer would experience the virtual reality of the starry heavens created by natural light sparkling through shafts in the exterior of the masonry sphere. At night, the interior would be transformed into day by a luminous artificial sun suspended from the vault in an armillary sphere. Belonging to the brotherhood of freemasons whose motto was ‘lux ex tenebri’ or ‘light out of darkness’, Boullée believed in the mystical origins of knowledge. His monument was a vindication of Newton whose law of universal gravitation had been attacked as ‘occult’ by Leibniz and others. Boullée’s design can be traced to Archimedes, who was the son of an astronomer and the inventor of the first planetarium c. 250 BCE. Archimedes’ tomb in Syracuse was surmounted with a sphere inside a cylinder representing his discovery of the formulas for finding their volumes and surface areas. The Newton cenotaph was also a development of the Gottorp Globe (1654-1664), a revolving planetarium made of a pierced hollow sphere that held twelve people. Although the enormity of Boullée’s plan was impossible to construct in the eighteenth century, architects treasured his evocative drawings. More than 200 years later, the architect James Stewart Polshek acknowledged the Newton cenotaph as the inspiration for his design for the planetarium of the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126059157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bertrand Russell in Blue Spectacles: His Fascination with Astronomy","authors":"Holly J. Henry","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0221","url":null,"abstract":"Bertrand Russell frequently formulated his epistemological investigations of the material world with examples drawn from astronomical phenomena. He persistently evoked images of stars and starlight, the planets, the sun, eclipses, even planetariums, to stage his arguments. This is true for early publications such as ‘Our Knowledge of the External World’ (1914) and ‘The Analysis of Mind’ (1921), as well as later works such as ‘An Outline of Philosophy’ (1927), and ‘Human Knowledge’ (1948). Russell was clearly fascinated by astronomy and cosmological phenomena. He notes that his interest in astronomy was inspired by his uncle, Rollo Russell, who lived in Bertrand’s childhood home, and whose conversations with Bertrand ‘did a great deal to stimulate [his] scientific interests’. The Honourable Rollo Russell ‘was a meteorologist, and did valuable investigations of the effects of the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, which produced in England strange sunsets and even a blue moon’. At a very young age, Bertrand knew something of the planets. He noted that, at about age five or six, he would wake early in the morning to watch Venus rise: ‘On one occasion I mistook the planet for a lantern in the wood’. ‘The world of astronomy,’ Russell later observed, ‘dominates my imagination and I am very conscious of the minuteness of our planet in comparison with the systems of galaxies’. Russell also once noted, ‘I have always ardently desired to find some justification for the emotions inspired by certain things that seemed to stand outside human life and to deserve feelings of awe…the starry heavens…the vastness of the scientific universe…’. This fascination with the stellar universe would be productive for Russell’s philosophical inquiries into the nature, and multiplicity, of physical phenomena. This paper will explore the importance of Russell’s analogies of astronomy for British literary writers such as Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. The paper will offer a reading of two fiction selections, ‘Solid Objects’ by Woolf and ‘Seducers in Ecuador’ by Sackville-West, against the backdrop of Russell’s fascination with astronomy.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128366732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Forward: INSAPIV in Oxford: A Summary","authors":"Rolf Sinclair","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0105","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"127 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132518890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Double Apollos of Istrus","authors":"W. Saslaw, P. Murdin","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0257","url":null,"abstract":"Istrus, a Greek colony of Miletos, on the western shore of the Black Sea, minted coins having an unidentified, unique image of two identical young male heads, one inverted with respect to the other. Earlier numismatists had several rather implausible interpretations for the symbol, but we suggest it may represent a total solar eclipse. There were three plausible eclipses visible just from Istrus and nearby regions in the classical world between about 450 and 400 BCE, when the coins are dated by numismatic criteria, of which the annular eclipse of 434 BCE was the most dramatic. The heads are, we believe, representations of the sun god Apollo. The inversion symbolizes the positions of the solar disk during the entering and exiting parts of the eclipse.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"88 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114504803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Desire, Heavenly Bodies, and a Surrealist's Fascination with the Celestial Theatre","authors":"John G. Hatch","doi":"10.46472/cc.01208.0219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46472/cc.01208.0219","url":null,"abstract":"In 1922, the German Surrealist artist Max Ernst produced a montage work that included a woman's bare buttocks protruding out of the rings of Saturn. It is, to say the least, an unusual combination of images, but one that addresses some very basic human impulses. Largely, it expresses Ernst's understanding that inscribed upon the night sky are some of our deepest held fears and fantasies. Ernst sought to generate contemporary re-phrasings of our mythologizing of the cosmos in a complex and often enigmatic way, drawing on such varied sources as Freudian psychology, late nineteenth-century symbolism, alchemy, and Surrealism. Ultimately, Ernst manages to weave an intricate, cryptically autobiographical narrative through such astronomical bodies and groups of stars as Saturn, the Pleiades, Praesepe, and Cygnus, to name but a few. This paper navigates some of the celestial imagery found in the work of Ernst between 1919 and 1934 in the hopes of demonstrating, in its own small way, just how rich a source astronomy has been for modern and contemporary art.","PeriodicalId":152044,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Cosmos","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126668359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}