Abstract
We have seen a dazzling array of human responses to the power of stars. Civilizations have invented creation stories, constellation tales and have attempted to connect the stars to their life on the Earth in many ways, ranging from stories to scientific investigations. In each culture, the response to the stars mirrored the environment, history, and belief system of the people and provided a means to bind them together.
With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started – it would still be up to God…
Steven Hawking (Hawking 1998)
Superstrings and butterflies are examples illustrating two different aspects of the universe and two different notions of beauty. Superstrings come at the beginning and butterflies at the end because they are extreme examples… They mark the extreme limits of the territory over which science claims jurisdiction. Scientifically speaking, a butterfly is at least as mysterious as a superstring
Freeman Dyson (Dyson 1989)
There is a thing confusedly formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
Silent and void
It stands alone and does not change.
Goes round and does not weary.
It is capable of being the mother of the world
(Lao Tzu, from Lau and Whalen (1969))
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Penprase, B.E. (2017). Concluding Thoughts. In: The Power of Stars. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52597-6_10
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