In order to properly assess the position of man in the universe and to some extent moderate our “instinctive” egocentrism, we may have to emphasize the role of galaxies and stars – these “cold fires, which, however, are still able to burn the stigma of insignificance on people.”

H. Shepley, “Of Stars and Men”.

Reading Harlow Shepley’s book “Of Stars and Men”, I was delighted with this phrase (taken in quotation marks and, obviously, quotes)!

Whom?

Probably from the letters of Friedrich Nietzsche in 1880-1885.

A brilliant phrase that represents a FUSION of science and art, literature, because it speaks about astronomy and the position of man in the universe, but the style is an example of the best literature.

Another example OF HOW TO WRITE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES!

This is, of course, a complete utopia, but one should still strive for it.

Although, there is also a serious danger here: Given the innate, stupid human predilection for the primacy of FORM over CONTENT, one can easily imagine that an article by a talentless idiot, sent to a talented and highly qualified LITERARY editor, will receive such an excellent stylistic embodiment that it will create the APPEARANCE of truly original and thoughtful work among scientific readers!

Attention! DANGER!

The solution to this problem can be a triple control: First, a qualified specialist reads the original work, written in the usual gray and poor language of scientific leaders, and if he finds it of high enough quality, ONLY THEN transfers it to “literary processing.” And then he reads the resulting “work of scientific art” again.

Well, what to take from UTOPIA???

Another aspect of this interesting book is its title.

In the original English, it sounds like this:

“Of Stars and Men”.

The Russian translation of “Stars and People” sounds very ordinary, impersonal and indifferent.

They say, dear readers, read another popular book on astronomical topics…

It’s called something ordinary.

But the author, an astronomer, a person who thinks and feels EMOTIONALLY about his occupation in astronomy, has a DIFFERENT meaning for the book: “About stars and people”, which immediately gives a lively personal coloring to both the book and its subject matter, namely:

About humanity’s place in the universe and about the place of the universe in people’s thoughts, feelings and worldview!

I would like to emphasize right away that I am not an astronomer and I am certainly not an expert on the intonational subtleties of the English language. I am conveying only my own, purely personal perception.

In general, this book immediately sounded musically in my mind, similar melodically to two other excellent books: “The Sum of Technology” by Stanislav Lem and “Nerve, Muscle and Synapse” by Bernard Katz. What is CONSONANT in these three books?

THE PROCESS OF THINKING! Honest thinking. The authors think out loud, rather than repeating some memorized truths, imposing new dogmas on us.

And another association that arose with my old note “What is the difference between any textbook 2” from seven and a half years ago. There I cite a very interesting thought by Charles Peguy, expressed by him in 1909. Charles Peguy was a poet and journalist, a socialist by conviction, a Dreyfusard, a Catholic (Roman Catholic Church) and a French nationalist.

I quote her a second time: “There is nothing more opposed to the functions of science,” – Peguy wrote in 1909, – “than the functions of teaching, because science requires eternal concern, and teaching requires unshakeable confidence!”

Then I was delighted with his exact phrase, but now I thought a little differently:

This is true if we proceed from the tenets of teaching that came to us and were carefully preserved by us, even from the cave of the cannibal shaman: TO GIVE KNOWLEDGE, INFORMATION.

Fundamentally wrong dogmas!!!

It is necessary to teach a completely different way:

The ability to process any acquired knowledge! This is much more important, because it does not develop a dull, “mechanical” and thoughtless memorization of certain “truths”, but just teaches thinking and love for this interesting and often very difficult process.

THAT’S WHAT the books mentioned earlier are GOOD FOR:

THEY ARE THOUGHTFUL, not categorically assertive and driving dogmas into consciousness.

“Listen, Esprit,” the reader will exclaim irritably, –WHAT are you writing about? About Shepley’s book, or will you “Spread your thoughts along the tree” of your associations?”

The reader is right !

I apologize for such a long “preface”! The enthusiastic me…

I’m going back to the book!

I read 45 pages from a 152-page brochure.

So far, it’s a complete disappointment! My enthusiasm was only enough for the first few pages, which were really interesting and PROMISING.

But in the future, they will NOT FULFILL these “promises”.

An association immediately arose with Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (based on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche).

The beginning, a couple of minutes, is powerful and very interesting.

You immediately think: WHAT’s next? Probably something beautiful?!

And then there is the empty, more or less consonant strumming of musical sticks suspended from a tree branch and, when they collide with each other under gusts of wind, producing certain consonances, without meaning, without content and without purpose.

I felt exactly the same way now.

I hope I was mistaken. But for now, there’s nothing more to write about!

5 IV 2025