As an astronomer, I have long had a professional aversion to waking up before dawn, preferring instead to see sunrise not as an early-morning treat, but as the signal that the end of a long night of work has come and it is finally time for overdue sleep.
The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
It was 2001, and though perhaps Arthur C. Clarke's predictions of space tourism and obelisks on satellites of Jupiter had not come true, it was finally time to get rid of the hundred-year-old technology of the photographic plates. To some, it was a sad day when the photographic plate handling system at the 48-inch telescope was dismantled, though anyone who had ever had to work in the absolute darkness of the nighttime dome, moving plates from their holders to the telescope to the darkroom, could not have felt too bad to see it all go.
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown is my latest non-fiction love (not quite a rival to Dan Ariely's place in my heart, but good stuff). Brown does an excellent job of talking to non-astronomers about his discovery, in 2005, of a tenth planet and the turmoil his discovery brought to the world of astronomy and the world at large, eventually bringing the number of planets in our solar system to eight rather than ten. I really really liked this book. Accessible, humorous, and personal. 5/5 stars
Interesting 56!
ReplyDeleteThanks for participating!
That does sound interesting. Thanks for participating in Book Beginnings!
ReplyDelete