Astro and Aniket
My fascination with the universe and astrophysics.
Photos from Joshua Tree, CA
Time Sink
Astrophysics is the endless time-sink of choice for me, and getting lost in learning and musing is the way I explore my creativity. It captivates me with its expanse of absurd and mind-bending ideas it has relating to space and time. Perhaps the fact that it is constantly unexpected and totally bizarre is the reason humankind has pursued its understanding for so long. Astrophysics is beautiful precisely because of approaching incomprehensible scales or concepts and pursuing their calculation, their laws, their science.
There is a magic to it, yet it is a “magic” that we can attempt to understand and predict.
To observe is more than to see, it is to know what I do not know, but imagine regardless.
Scale
The sheer scale of space, perhaps something we can never truly comprehend, provides limitless opportunities for dreaming and searching. Exploring the science of space takes me into other academic realms, specifically, the arts and humanities. As such, I love observing, with my eyes or a telescope, in a desert or a suburb, alone or in company. Observing such a thing is more than just seeing pinpoints of light dusted across a black sky––it is seeing the possibilities, seeing the other worlds, seeing other ideas. To observe is more than to see, it is to know what I do not know, but imagine regardless. In astrophysics, there is always the understanding that I cannot comprehend all that I seek.
Saving my view
Despite that, astrophotography allows me to capture what I can see––and bring with me a source of imagination. When I’m lucky enough to drag my family out to the hills and the countryside, I photograph something which inspires imagination for other worlds. No matter what I capture, it is a reminder of the practically limitless possibilities beyond what we interact with in our own world. Astrophotography has been another way that space has expanded my academic realm as well as my thoughts on the universe and our place within it.
Fueling Imagination
When I need to fuel my imagination, I turn to find new sources of wonder––given a limitless dream, I search for new scenes. I look at Dr. Katie Bouman, who led the algorithm development behind the first black hole image, or Neil deGrasse Tyson, who writes of astrophysics and its past. I explore astrophysics through online content and courses, docuseries, books and textbooks. Each new topic explored is a new aspect of the dream and prompts me to consider space from a new perspective. With each new topic, different physical laws connect to one another and to their relevant phenomena.
Each new topic of astrophysics is more than a new chapter––my captivation comes from how each topic can expand into its own volume of anything from history to philosophy.
Philosophy
Sometimes, the new perspective is literal. Geometric topology showed me new dimensional perspectives to look at space. As a tool to model the universe, topology enabled me to think of space with the concept of cyclic universes––ones that expanded and collapsed in Big Bangs and Crunches. These discussions of universal expansion and collapse led me to deeper considerations, ones of free will versus determinism. Do the positions of atoms in the Big Bang control our brain chemistry, dictating our choices? Does consciousness remain constant across universes? Would each universe follow the same path? Each new topic of astrophysics is more than a new chapter––my captivation comes from how each topic can expand into its own volume of anything from history to philosophy.