[MD] Age of Wonder

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

All,

I was reading a short review of Richard Holme's new book, Age of Wonder, in
Newsweek, and came across this referring to the "golden age" of scientific
innovation (Issue August 3).

"Such fraternization between poets and scientists wasn't uncommon. Poetry and
science weren't wholly separate yet: they were seen as complimentary ways of
piercing the veil of everyday phenomena."

In describing the effects (a Copernican revolution of sorts, as Pirsig would
likely call it) of aerial ballooning on how people conceptualized the Earth,
the reviewer writes, "The early aeronauts suddenly saw the earth as a giant
organism, mysteriously patterned and unfolding, like a living creature." Poets
wrote about the earth using an imagination that would end in the fruition of
placing humans in space. "For the time being," the reviewer wrote, "it was left
to the poets to go where the earthbound scientists could not."

Thought some would find this interesting.

Arlo