Another Sense of Space and Time

Another Sense of Space and Time

Planetarium shows can add another dimension to our thinking. They allow us to make journeys in imagination far from the earth and to acquire a deeper sense of space and time than that provided by the world around us. These shows enable us to look back at mankind, to contrast human trials and endeavours with the impersonal cosmic background and, indeed, to lose sight of man altogether. Under their influence we find ourselves adopting a universal rather than local viewpoint. What we once called the physical universe, the universe of ordinary experience, is seen to be only a tiny part of a much greater complex. Man, and in turn, the earth, the solar system and the entire galaxy of stars, shrink almost to nothing. What we once thought was a long period of time in human affairs is seen to be no more than a fleeting moment. In astronomy a million years is as brief as the tick of a cosmic clock.

Since a major aim of a planetarium show is to inform, we must not feel overawed, and still less overwhelmed, but what we see and hear. Rather, we can appreciate more fully the accomplishments of men, and marvel that creatures so small should, in so short period of time, have discovered so much. We begin to echo the sentiments of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. “Two things,” he wrote, “fill my mind with ever new and even greater wonder and reverence, the oftener and the longer I allow my mind to dwell on them – the starry heavens above, and the moral law within me.”

A blue sky. The modern sky, whether real or artificial, is not so much a sky to look at as one to think about. Illustration: Elena

A Stirring Spectacle

The planetarium is a first-class medium for introducing young and old alike to the basic components and movements of the sky. But it is one thing to see a starry sky and quite another to be able to interpret its various parts in the light of modern knowledge. Appearances may greatly impress us, yet for all their grandeur they are only appearances. Our main concern in astronomy and, therefore, in what is shown in the planetarium, must be with interpretation and understanding, with causes and laws, and with the probable nature and structure of the universe of stars.

The modern sky, whether real or artificial, is not so much a sky to look at as one to think about. Visitors who come to a planetarium merely to see the sun, moon, planets and stars “perform” usually are disappointed. But those who turn both eyes upwards will have an experience as mentally stimulating as it is visually remarkable. As Dr. Philip Fox, first director of the Adler Planetarium, Chicago, once wrote: «Visitors come to see a stirring spectacle, the heavens brought within the confines of museum walls. Not a trivial plaything, a mimic aping firmament, but the heavens portrayed with great dignity and splendour, dynamic, inspiring, in a way that dispels the mystery but retains the majesty”.