Categories: uncategorized
Date: 30 April 2004 18:56:33
For the last little while, my bedtime reading has been two books, one called "How to get a PhD" and the other one called "The Research Student's Guide to Success". And every night I've settled down for a riveting read and thought how sad that was. Last night I decided it was really really sad, so I dug out a book I'd not read (did I tell you one of my weaknesses is buying books? but I never have any time to read them so I've a ton of unread ones tantalising me). The one I picked out was Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", which is basically Science for Simpletons. Don't let anyone fool you, I may have a BSc and be 5/6 of the way to an MSc, but I am NO scientist.
Anyway, having read the introduction and first chapter - it's great! My kind of book - full of amazing facts about how old and big and unknowable the universe is, in words of three or less syllables. I found myself stopping and thinking about things I'd just read and trying to get my head round them (which of course I can't seeing as it's the universe we're talking about here) and once again thinking just how amazing God's creation is. You know, a couple of years ago I had a heated discussion with a friend who believes in literal 6 day young earth creationism, and was talking about how all these unknowably huge figures and timespans and everything really speak to me of God's creativity. He said that if God couldn't create stuff in 6 days then he thought that was really shoddy. I confess I wanted to deck him - look at all the care and time and thought and creativity that has been put into those billions of years of existence, how can anybody call that shoddy? Eventually we agreed to disagree but gave ourselves permission to wind each other up about it on future occasions.
Anyway, back to the book. At one point he was talking about various Big Bang theories (by the way, did you know that the first theory of the Big Bang was by a priest?), and then quoted a cosmologist who said "These are very close to religious questions". No kidding.
Hmmm. I wish I was this enthusiastic when I read the Bible.
PS I got the job :D I have to commit to two shifts a month (though they can't guarantee to give me that much work). I'm really pleased, although it feels like I've now got even less time to do non-work/study things. Oh well. I've taken off most of next week and have a ton of gravel being delivered, so hopefully if the weather improves I'll spend a lot of time in the garden not thinking about anything important. And it's a very important wedding tomorrow (I'll see a few of you there!) - here's hoping for better weather.