A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
Each day's "Carpe Diem" moment is unique, but this one certainly stands out as an out-of-the-ordinary and unrepeatable experience. Just up the hill from the Villa Magnolia is the American Academy in Rome, which yesterday evening hosted its first inaugural "Galileo Night Lecture." The event commemorates the April 14, 1611 gathering of the Accademia dei Lincei on the site of what is now the "Casa Rustica" (pictured above), where Galileo demonstrated his improved perspicillum, which he then named a “telescope.”
The Academy's director, Peter N. Miller, known for his promotion of the humanities, began the evening by introducing both the speakers and the interdisciplinary theme "Physics as Aesthetics, Cosmology as a Historical Science: From Galileo to the Big Bang." The speaker was the rather accomplished David Spergel, who did as well as he possibly could in explaining some extraordinarily complex science in layman's terms (such as the word "lumpy" in place of "inhomogeneous"). My take-home lesson from Spergel was that we currently only know what 5 percent of the universe is composed of-- so-called "normal" matter, or atoms. The rest is 25% Matter and 70% Dark Energy (which drives the accelerating expansion of the universe and disturbs Spergel on the aesthetic level). When I asked him for a good introduction to cosmology, he recommended The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green, which I've already purchased on Audible. I also found this resource.
As a side note, I've been interested in space stuff since the moment, which I still vividly recall, when I first saw a photo of a beautiful nebula in my 5th grade textbook. My mother, on the other hand, has astrophobia (diagnosed by me!), and would always hastily turn off the radio as soon as the "space music" began on the public radio show "Stardate", which I find hilarious.
The respondent was the Italian Sauro Succi, who, among other accomplishments and titles, is the author of the beautifully entitled book Sailing the Ocean of Complexity, Lessons from the Physics-Biology Frontier. To my delight, Succi brought in some lines from Keats and Michelangelo's Pieta to illustrate various themes in his lecture, which was mostly concerned with the aesthetics of complexity.
Needless to say, my brain was literally throbbing for hours after my attempt to understand astrophysics. Just one more thing- I was fascinated by the speakers' awe of the universal laws of mathematics, which has made it possible for mere mortals to discover scientific truths that are otherwise unknowable. It inspired me to read this book, that has been gathering dust on my shelf for years.
Liturgical: Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter So they said to Jesus,
"Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."
Sanctoral: Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879), Lourdes, France
Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-1783),the "Beggar of Rome"-- a pilgrim recluse
Evodius (c. 69) was one of the seventy-two disciples Christ, and Catholic tradition has always held that he was the first bishop of Antioch after St. Peter. As bishop of Antioch, he was the first to coin the word “Christian” to refer to the disciples of Jesus.
Human: Birthday of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) – 1927
69 AD – after losing the battle with the armies of Vitellius at Bedriacum, Marcus Salvias Otho committed suicide to save Rome from further civil war. Vitellius then moved to Rome, where he proclaimed himself a new emperor.
73 AD – the Roman commander, Flavius Silva, took the Jewish stronghold Masada after the collective "suicide" of the defenders thus ending the Jewish uprising (according to the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, favored by Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Emperor Marcus Otho and later Nero).
Natural: Scientist Isaac Newton was knighted by Queen Anne– 1705. His greatest achievements (three laws of motion, universal gravitation, calculus, etc.!) here.
Quote: "Let unifying love be your measure; abiding love your challenge; self-giving love your mission!" - Pope Benedict XVI
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