The Universe: Expanse and Expansion

Abstract

I wish I could describe my innermost thoughts and feelings as I contemplated all that I had heard and all that I had seen at the University Observatory. Is there any limit to the incredible riches the night sky can yield? I remembered and repeated quietly what Edmund Burke, statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher all rolled into one, had written: Darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light. Nothing could be truer than that statement in the case of astronomy: darkness without which the stars had no visible existence and the stars without which some of the most sublime ideas could never have been inspired.