the planetarium...

yesterday we went to the eise eisinga planetarium. science is not something i am normally all that interested in, but this place is amazing - it makes me wish i'd paid more attention in maths at school! the image below (which has changed colour for some reason...) shows the scale model of the solar system that a bloke named eise eisinga made on the ceiling of his living room. using only mathematics, he was able to calculate and create a scale model of the solar system as he understood it in 1774 (so no uranus or neptune), where the planets hanging from his ceiling orbit the sun hanging from his ceiling at exactly the same rate as the real planets do. his motivation was to address a theory being promoted at the time that the planets were going to collide, push the earth into the sun and cause the end of the world - his model demonstrates that could not happen. the model also includes a clock, calendar, moon rising and setting times and astrological seasons, and it's been running continuously (aside from repair work) since it was finished in 1781, making it the oldest and longest running planetarium in the world.



tomorrow we are heading off on our road trip to denmark. we'll be back next thursday, and i'm not sure what access i'll have to the internet while we're away, so i may not blog again until after then. hope you're all going well.

take care,
love em