Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Describe the sky

Over the course of four years in the 1970s, artist G. C. Haymes sent approximately 500 letters to a wide-ranging selection of high profile people as part of a project entitled Skymail. Enclosed alongside the letters were return postcards, upon which the recipients were asked to 'describe the sky'. Here is a reply received from Isaac Asimov:

An inverted blue (sometimes black) semisphere, in which, when blue, a yellow circle is pasted, and to which, when black, some thousand of tiny sparks are affixed. There is also a dim yellow circle more noticable against the black, but sometimes seen against the blue which changes shape and is sometimes round, sometimes crescent, and sometimes in between. Often the semisphere is obscured by moving white or gray clouds.

Source:

5 comments:

Anil Jagalur said...

This post could be part of "Keep it Simple".

Bravo! For both posts.

Simple enough?

Raj said...

Thanks, Anil.

Perfection is reached, as they say, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing else to remove.

Anu said...

Coincidence! I had visited your blog just a couple of days ago. When I opened it again this morning, there are three new posts, one of which refers to the book I am half way through (The greatest show on earth), another refers to an author whose book "The sun shines bright" (Asimov, 1981) I unearthed in a second hand book shop just a while ago and have started reading. Incidentally, the first paragraph in the first chapter by Asimov reads : "I love coincidences!The more outrageous they are, the better. I love them if only because irrationalists are willing to pin so many garbage-filled theories on them, where as I see them only for what they are - coincidences.
Coincidentally, Dawkins has written a wonderful essay on coincidences in his book "Unweaving the rainbow"! :)

Raj said...

Anu, you have spun a web of coincidences there. Now that you have revealed that you read Asimov and Dawkisn, I'll visit your blog more often.

Anu said...

I revealed a long time ago that I read Dawkins. http://walkamusing.blogspot.com/2006/05/audience-with-richard-dawkins.html
But well, you are pardoned for not visiting my blog because I wasn't writing anyway :)