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Showing posts from November, 2002

The Ultimate Sky

by Joel Marks Published in Sky and Telescope 104:5 (10), November 2002 Every fall semester when I am teaching my philosophy classes, which are mostly sections of introductory ethics, I am reminded of Immanuel Kant's exclamation, "Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe … the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." For this is the season when M31 rises to the top of the sky for all to see on a clear dark night, and I cannot resist telling my students all about it and, conditions permitting, taking them outside to see it. The reception I receive is both gratifying and discouraging. There is no question that most of the students enjoy the break in routine from arguing about right and wrong. They are in fact genuinely curious about the stars. And the story I have to tell them has got to be at least tied for first place as the greatest ever told: How the very same Immanuel Kant whom we study in the philosophy course was one of the first