1/1/02

With the Holiday Season barely behind us, and the New Year Now upon 
us, we tend to be more "Mystical" and "Celestial" than at other times.

The following article therefore seems unusually appropriate timewise, 
and also again serves as another reminder of the almost completely 
ignored legion of geniuses that were spawned by Southern Italy and Sicily,
especially during the time of the Bourbons.
     
Jim, can't resist inserting a (justifiable?) "barb" at the Bourbons, and 
opines:

The government of Southern Italy and Sicily, as I see it, did not reflect
the high level of intellectualism and enlightenment that was available in 
their realm.

[RAA: Some would argue that this is "because" of the Bourbons, not in 
"spite" of the Bourbons]
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FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
Dr. V. V. Raman

In the memorable year of 1789 when the French Revolution exploded,
Giuseppe Piazzi furnished his observatory in Palermo, Sicily, with new
equipment. His was the southern-most observatory in Europe. From here,
exactly two centuries ago: on 1 January 1801, while painstakingly cataloging
the stars, Piazzi stumbled upon an object unrecognized by any human eye
until then. He described it in Italian as "la nuova stella scoperta il 1
gennaio 1801 nell'Osservatorio di Palermo: the new star discovered on the 1
January 1801 in the Observatory of Palermo". It turned out to be the first
asteroid to be observed by any human being. Piazzi named it Ceres, the
patron goddess of Sicily.

The astronomer William Herschel called it an asteroid (star-like object).
More exactly, it is a planetoid, for like the planets of our system it is
orbiting the sun. The current technical term for it is small or minor
planet. But the original etymologically inappropriate name persists in
popular books and in the media.

More than a hundred thousand asteroids are whirling around; the vast
majority of them are in the region between Mars and Jupiter. About seven
thousand of them have been individually spotted, named, and cataloged. The
thousandth asteroid that was discovered (in 1923) was named Piazzia in honor
of Piazza. Other asteroids bear such names as Gaussia, Washingtonia, and
Rockefellia.

Asteroids are for the most part amorphous chunks of rock, from a fraction
to a few miles across. It was once speculated that they are perhaps
splinters from what may have once been a wholesome planet which, for some
reason, was blown to smithereens. All this stony junk is now cluttering
the calm void of interplanetary space, like smoke in clean air from the
exhaust of a truck, yet trapped by the gravitational pull of the sun.
These bits of planetary debris constitute what is picturesquely described
as the asteroid belt. If they are countless in number, they are also meager
in mass: it is estimated that the combined mass of all asteroids will barely
equal five percent of the moon.

As petty planetoids way out there, they are mere astronomical oddities,
like a bunch of minute insects buzzing in the white zones of the Antarctic.
Like fleas and flies, these cosmic chips are okay as long as they are far,
very far away. But should they happen to come to our vicinity, we better
watch out. And astronomers calmly inform us that there are about eleven
asteroids whose paths lie within our earth's orbit. These Aten asteroids (as
they are called) are potential threats to our survival. Minuscule as they
are in mass and size (in astronomical terms), they carry stupendous kinetic
energy because of their horrendous speeds. Any encounter with them would be
deadly.

There was an age in which, viewing the world from a different framework, our
ancestors feared distant stars, planets and comets because they believed
that celestial bodies control our fates and fortunes, and forebode
disasters. A Latin poet put it very simply: Astra regnunt homines (The stars
rule men). Recall Kent's words in Shakespeare's King Lear: "The stars above
us govern our conditions." The word disaster simply means bad star.

After the rise of modern science, one used to laugh at such fears. And now,
ironically, enriched by scientific knowledge, we have reason to be
frightened once again, not by mammoth and majestic stars, but by little
pebbles in the cosmic sea.

Little did Giuseppe Piazzi realize to what fears his innocent discovery
would lead us someday. Knowledge can sometimes be frightening.

= . = . = . = . = . = . = . = . = . = . = .. = . = . = . = .= . = . =
http://www.capital.net/~soialban    http://www.capital.net/~mancusoj
Italian-Amer.interests site               Personal Construct Psychol. site

James C. Mancuso
Emeritus Prof. of Psychology      Department of Psychology             
Univ. at Albany  SUNY                    Albany, NY 12222