With the busy holiday season upon us I’m afraid I haven't
had enough time to write an inspired column. Instead I’d
like to share with you something that has inspired me for
many years. I first read this when I was in High School
and was so taken with it that I typed it up, framed it and
hung it on my wall.
I still find this very moving.
It will a history illuminated only by the
reds and infrareds of dully glowing stars
that would be almost invisible to our eyes;
yet those somber hues of the all-buteternal
universe may be full of color and
beauty to whatever strange beings have
adapted to it. They will know that before
them lie, not the millions of years of
which we measure the ears of geology,
not the billions of years that spans the
past lives of stars, but years to be counted
literally in trillions.
They will have time enough, in those
endless eons, to attempt all things, and
gather all knowledge. They will not be
like gods, because no gods ever imagined
by our minds have ever possessed the
powers they will command. But for all
that, they may envy us, basking in the
bright after glow of Creation; for we knew
the universe when it was young.
From Profiles Of The Future
Our galaxy is now in the brief springtime
of its’ life — a springtime made glorious
by brilliant blue-white stars as Vega and
Sirus, and on a more humble scale our
own sun. Not until all these have flamed
through their incandescent youth, in a few
fleeting billions of years, will the real
history of the universe begin.
by Sir Arthur C. Clarke
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Angela C. Byers
Copyright © 1996 - 2006 Angela C. Byers