Thursday, July 10, 2008

Fireworks, SuperNovae and Legacy

Fireworks ShapeOn the 4th of July, I chanced upon a documentary about fireworks. What caught my attention was the modern technique in crafting specific patterns and shapes of fireworks in the sky (Katamono). Controlled patterns of shapes such as a heart or star can be lit up in the sky by arranging how the explosive pellets are arranged within the shell and its core.Eta Carinae
In essence, the shape of an explosion tells much about the explosive. I call it The Fireworks Principle. If we apply this principle to Astronomy, by examining the shape of a supernova we can probably know much about the qualities of the star that produced it. For example, the polar regions of the star that spawned Eta Carinae can be discerned from the two points where the bulk of stellar mass is ejected.
The Fireworks Principle is the same in terms of life: As we live, we are fashioning the core within that will someday explode as a "lifework" - the patterns will become apparent in due time. Our character and our legacy will persist even as this body, the temporary shell gives up the spark of life.
Each human life is a supernova in the making. The legacy we leave behind - the shapes of our lifesparks will tell much about the very core of our soul.


Links:
How Fireworks are made
Eta Carinae

2 comments:

Artemis Irascible said...

Interesting! So do you think other people's sparks become a part of our consciousness simply by existing, or must one make that decision?

metapsyche said...

I think so. The clue is in the Observer Effect - Observing something changes that which is being observed. I think its also true the other way : After observing something, the observer is never the same again. Perhaps it also applies when encountering other people's lifesparks: whether or not we choose to make that decision, an encounter with other people's sparks become part of our consciousness. Interconnectedness and causality: It's simply a feature of this universe that we can't escape.