Across the Universe: interesting article

Treasures reveal themselves everywhere. You just need to keep your eyes open and be open to finding them.

Yesterday, while beginning my forever Metro Ride (King St. to Shady Grove, check it on Metro Map if you think I am exaggerating), I found a Smithsonian Magazine that someone discarded. The April 2009 issue contained the most interesting article I have read in years: Forensic Astronomer Solves Fine Arts Puzzles.

Astrophysicist Don Olson breaks down the barriers between science and art by analyzing literature and paintings from the past

"Olson solves puzzles in literature, history and art using the tools of astronomy: charts, almanacs, painstaking calculations and computer programs that map ancient skies. He is perhaps the leading practitioner of what he calls "forensic astronomy."

For example, he was able to pinpoint the exact date and location where Ceazar's Roman Legions landed the coast of Britain (uh, invaded actually), by referencing a combination of a description of the event in a soldier's journal and researching the alignment of the sun and moon during that same period.

I always thought that the famous painting "The Scream" was an abstract work of art with it's bright and organgey sky. This professor concluded, by researching Munch's writings, the painter recalled a night where he took a walk near a fjord and viewed a sunest as "a flaming sword of blood slashed open the vault of heaven—the atmosphere turned to blood—with glaring tongues of fire...and truly I heard a great scream."

The professor then did the following:

"In Oslo, Olson located the road featured in a sketch for the painting. Details in it—a cliff, a road with a railing and an island in a fjord—indicated to Olson that Munch must have been facing southwest when he drew it. Olson concluded that the painting's blood-red sky was no metaphor but the extraordinary aftereffects of the 1883 eruption of Mount Krakatoa in Indonesia, which sent so much gas and ash into the atmosphere that skies were darkened or colored worldwide for many months."

Interesting! The Magazine included photos of actual paintings and historical events, so the print version allowed me to review the paintings while reading along. Though the online version does not, you can Google the titles of works to get an idea of what he is talking about.

To me, this practice is a form of time travel, in a way. Man, I wish I knew physics better...or physics at all.

Read it!