THE TURTLE AND THE STARS

A loosely ordered collection of essays on the role of science in establishing through observation what we have come to accept as reality.

The term “earthbound” of the subtitle is not casual; there is nearly as much content devoted to home planet phenomena—from gravity to Coriolis Force and other (mostly ignored these days) effects of its component rotational and orbital motions—as there is to what goes on in the sky. The special properties of light and the role they play in both personal and scientific discoveries gets attention in a section that is, appropriately, the most lucid in the entire study. The theme then becomes one of wonderment bordering on reverence—but not so much in awe of the actual phenomena available to earthly observers as of what scientists have been able to accomplish throughout history in explaining them. In between the celebrations of Kepler, Newton, and that ilk (with minimal mathematics), Upgren (Research/Yale; The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, not reviewed) weaves in enough odd facts to bring at least one or two new brain-twisters to most readers. For example: The Eiffel Tower is so constructed, says the author, that it actually weighs less than the air in a hypothetical cylinder big enough to contain it. As fascinating as this information may be, it sometimes skews off in seemingly random directions. Likewise do Upgren's persnickety impulses to defend science itself, as in a chapter devoted almost entirely to the persistence of the debunked belief that the full moon triggers irrational or criminal behavior. Another departure assails Creationism with effective but somewhat shopworn arguments. Upgren finally revisits the earlier introduced notion of “light pollution” with a heavyweight diatribe against thoughtless and ill-designed uses of high-intensity lighting, with plenty of examples.

Astronomer sees the light, and it's not all good.