Stuart Clark Makes Kepler and Galileo Live Through Fiction

Image courtesy of Simon Wallace, http://www.meltingpotpictures.co.uk

The way Stuart Clark describes the fascinating lives of Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, he could almost be talking about the plot of a novel.

Oh, wait – he is. Clark recently gave a talk at the Isobel Bader Theatre in Toronto, promoting his new novel, The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth, the first in a trilogy about the lives of perception-changing scientists. Clark didn’t do a reading, but just described the facts behind the events in the book. And despite a dose of jet lag (he’d just flown in from London, England), he kept the audience riveted. Did you know it was Kepler’s interest in astrology that led him to the discovery of his three laws of planetary motion? Did you know Tycho Brahe kept a pet elk in his castle, free to roam the entire place and eat from the table??

Clark, a well-known astronomy journalist with a PhD in astrophysics, has planned his trilogy not merely to try interest people in science and those who practise it. He wants to illustrate just how dramatically society’s entire view of what the universe is and how it works was changed by a few pivotal scientists. So in his next novel, The Sensorium of God, he’ll feature Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley, and The Day Without Yesterday will complete the trilogy with the lives of Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and George Lemaitre.

Clark frames the explorations of Kepler and Galileo as part of the quest for the Theory of Everything. Any lay person who follows popular science through books, articles, or documentaries will recognize that phrase. Scientists today are still trying to find that one, all-encompassing theory that will explain everything from the behaviour of the most fundamental particles of which the universe is made, all the way up to the behaviour of gigantic galaxies and stars.

But when Kepler and Galileo began, their society believed they already had the Theory of Everything: astrology. Kepler was trying, in fact, to establish principles for the movement of heavenly bodies so astrologers would have better data with which to work. And many other scientists who studied the stars were working to an extremely religious agenda, trying to find a way to sync their imperfect calendars with the actual seasons, so the dates of religious events and rituals would occur at the right time of year. As Clark told his audience, when Galileo was forced to read a prescribed recantation, he refused to read the part where he confessed to being a bad Catholic. He simply was not, and the church ultimately agreed.

Clark described both the times and surroundings these two scientists lived in, as well as the development of their thought. He moved from events to theory, and back again, with delightful ease. And all his explanations were easy to understand, no matter what he described. It’s not hard to see why he moved away from the world of academic research into that of astronomy writing. He brings alive the subjects he describes, so almost anyone can understand them. He currently writes for the European space Agency as the senior editor for space science, was formerly the editor of Astronomy Now, and regularly writes articles for such publications as The Times, New Scientist, and BBC Sky at Night.

Clark is in Toronto (with a few days in Montreal) for two reasons. First, he did this talk and a colloquium as part of the outreach of the newly-established Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. The institute does experimental research, but also conducts outreach into the community, to educate and share the passion of astronomy. It’s a testament to Dr. Clark’s qualifications and his skill in handling his subject that a work of fiction would be considered an opportunity for scientific outreach.

He’s also here for the International Festival of Authors, to promote The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth simply as a work of fiction. Whatever discussions he might engage in, or whatever readings he might do, his audience is due for a treat. His novel straddles science and and fiction the way he himself straddles science and journalism. And on either side of that divide, his writing makes the subject intriguing and understandable.

Tim Flannery: We May Save the Planet Yet. Or Not.

Environmentalists, take heart. Sure, the world may be about to end – but not yet. And if Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery is right, there’s actually time to save it, and there’s even a strong likelihood we’re going to. This is the message of Flannery’s latest book, Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet, and that’s what he told an appreciative audience recently at the Appel Salon in the Toronto Reference Library. Interviewed by journalist and TVO host Allan Gregg, Flannery acknowledged the foreboding evidence he described in his earlier book, The Weather Makers, but he’s seen and done a lot of things since he wrote it, and has found astonishing reasons for hope.

It’s all because evolution isn’t “survival of the fittest,” after all, says Flannery. Rather, the evolutionary mechanism is more cooperative and collaborative. This view may contradict Darwin’s to some degree, but it has just as long a history. Alfred Russell Wallace, who developed evolutionary theory at the same time as Darwin, saw nature not as a bloody competition but as a system of cooperation and collaboration. And James Lovelock, who more recently propounded the Gaia Philosophy, sees things the same way. The world is a system that self-regulates, each part of it collaborating to create the optimum conditions for life, and survival.

This means, Flannery says, that the world is more like a body than a competition. And after all, you don’t really find the bladder, spleen, and lungs competing viciously to see which can defeat the others and be the last organ standing. Instead, they all work together so all will survive. As Gregg suggested, “Evolution is on our side, then.”

And we are gradually seeing the development of that kind system, where the world is the body and we ourselves are the brain. As Flannery says, there’s a great coming-together in our economics, our slowly unifying belief systems, connections in communication – and even our genetics will slowly merge as we continue traveling and intermarrying. Humans are emerging out of a “warring tribes” state and evolving into the world of an integrated “superorganism.”

It’s not that this definitely will save the planet, you understand. But the conditions are coming into existence in which we finally can. In fact, Flannery says – and this is both thrilling and very frightening – for good or ill, our living generation is the one that will finally choose, and take whatever action we’re going to take. Or not take.

This is a good news/bad news scenario for Canadians, though. While Australians are beginning to make big strides in reducing their carbon footprint, with even the Indians and Chinese starting to move toward green technologies, the same can’t be said forCanada. Gregg asked, “Is our reputation really that bad in the world?” To which the extremely well-travelled Flannery replied, “Sadly, it is.” With Stephen Harper in charge, in fact,Canada’s part in saving the world has not just diminished, but plummeted.

But if Flannery is right, the human race in general may yet save the planet, and just happen to drag Canadaalong with it. That’s the primary message of Here on Earth, and that was his emphasis to the enthralled crowd throughout the interview and the Q&A afterward. It’s possible for humanity to evolve to a point of integration with the earth, to its ultimate salvation, or to continue as we have been, and doom it altogether. And those who are alive today will know what choice humanity made before they pass on.

More of Austin Clarke, Please

I learned one important thing last night at the first event in the One Book element of April’s Keep Toronto Reading festival: ask author Austin Clarke a question, and you’ll probably get a lengthy, meandering anecdote in response. But it will always be fascinating, and you’re likely to learn something about Toronto or perhaps Clarke’s native Barbados that you’d never known before.

It’s kind of fun, the idea of getting an entire city reading the same book for a whole month. Of course, realistically, no one can get a whole city to do that, but Toronto certainly tries. And one of the primary features of the One Book that gets chosen each year is that the city of Toronto itself features prominently.

The same holds true for this year’s selection, More by Austin Clarke. As he described during an interview with Tina Srebotnjak last evening at the Toronto Reference Library, the novel takes place in Toronto – as a matter of fact, in a neighbourhood just south of where I live myself – and deals with the immigrant experience. How does someone whose entire range of cultural norms and social cues has been left behind manage to know or even recognize themselves in a wholly new context? These are issues with which Idora, the main character of the book, must struggle, as Clarke himself struggled three or four decades ago as an immigrant to Toronto.

In a very small way, I can relate to this dilemma, having come almost exactly a decade ago from conservative Calgary to liberal Toronto, and having had to reinvent myself as a Torontonian. This is why I love books like More, or the very first One Book chosen in 2008, Michael Redhill’s Consolation. I love discovering the many layers and facets of this city.

Trey Anthony reads from "More"

Clarke certainly gave the audience some of those last night. One of his anecdotes took us to the jazz clubs in his early days here, virtually all of them now closed. But he could remember that this one was owned by So-and-So from Hungary, “and his wife used to bake cakes,” while that one was where he first saw this or that musician. Mister Clarke gave us a snapshot of Toronto-then compared to Toronto-now. And I got nostalgic for all the history that I’d missed.

The evening was rounded out by selected readings from More, by actress and writer Trey Anthony, and the Mike Murley jazz trio regaled us with music to suit the mood of the book, both before and after the interview and readings.

I plan to go to several other events during this Keep Toronto Reading month. But this introduction, with the reminiscences and insights of Austin Clarke, reminded me why I love Toronto, and added yet another layer to my understanding of my adopted city.