Why Stars Explode

Abstract

In the sciences, the excitement of discovery is a beginning, not an end in itself. It must be followed by a period of growing distinctions, a period of observation and classification, before new concepts can be established and new questions formulated. As I walk through a museum, I’m astounded by the amount of effort people have devoted to this seemingly secondary task of collecting and classifying. Yet where would science be without it? Fossils, known since antiquity, were not immediately recognized as extinct species—people thought of them as one-of-a-kind monsters, or discarded experiments of the Creator. Only when naturalists had learned to identify and classify a wide range of life forms both living and extinct, could Darwin promulgate an acceptable theory to explain the place of fossils in the history of life.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

—Dylan Thomas