RIP Sir Patrick Moore

Patrick was a unique human being, who will always be fondly remembered. May he shine brightly in the heavens!

He was one of a kind, and will be sadly missed. I was fortunate enough to meet him on many occasions, and remember those encounters with great fondness.

you are very lucky to have met him ZZPlural....... can you tell us any more about that?? such an incredible man...... places a vase of beautiful wild flowers :)

:( i avoid the new so this is a bit of a shock really sad this guy was up there with my science heroes along with Sagan

@tankgirl Many moons ago I studied astronomy & physics at university. PM was a guest lecturer who came once a week, always full of enthusiasm. It was in the days before the internet, and he would buzz off to JPL frequently, bringing us back slides of the latest images from the Voyager probes. Great stuff. He marked quite a few of my essays, and always took great care to read every word. He was an inspiring man.

you are So lucky ZZPlural!! to attend a lecture with him must have been so incredible I heard he was quite an eccentric! :) [i]“I'm only a four-dimensional creature. Haven't got a clue how to visualise infinity. Even Einstein hadn't. I know because I asked him.”[/i] Patrick Moore Moore lied about his age in order to join the RAF and fight in World War II at the age of sixteen, and from 1940 until 1945 he served as a navigator in RAF Bomber Command, reaching the rank of Flight lieutenant. He first received his flying training in Canada, during which time he met Albert Einstein and Orville Wright while on leave in New York. [img]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/12/9/1355069241035/Sir-Patrick-Moore-in-2006-008.jpg[/img] and to be able to see the latest slides from Voyager!! from a researcher at the time... wow [img]http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/patrick-moore.jpg[/img] I have always been VERY jealous of a good friend of mine who went to a lecture to hear Richard Feynman.. another one of my most favorite people!!! [img]http://www.bshs.org.uk/travel-guide/wp-content/uploads/Richard_Feynman_-_Fermilab.jpg[/img]

Agreed! Feynman was a top man. He had a way of making the inexplicable understandable. And he played the bongo drums! Patrick was quite right about not being able to visualise space-time. You can have a stab at it, but you're never really going to get close. The thing is, our biology means that we're very good at appreciating the particular environment in which we live, but the universe – and the bigger picture – does not concern itself with our foibles, at a particular medium-size scale, on a flat, low-gravity, low-speed, cool planet. These conditions are extremely unusual. Once you start moving to any of these conditions in the extreme, 'reality' becomes something completely different. Ultimately, we seem to exist in a place that is driven by mathematics, which is full of perfectly logical – but bizarre – outcomes. And while our heritage means that we can easily 'visualise' important things like a monkey falling out of a tree, there's no visual comprehension to be had for the universe itself. We don't have the mental apparatus to 'see' what's going on for the most part. Even Feynman, possibly one of the most brilliant of men, said that quantum mechanics, for example, is not only stranger that you imagine, it's stranger than you [i]can[/i] imagine. I stopped worrying about this kind of thing a long time ago! I'll never understand what's going on. And nor will you. Because 'understanding' is one of those things that is peculiar to our little environmental niche. There's no reason why the universe should itself make itself understandable. In fact, why should it? It's just – magnificently – what it is.

zzplural, poetry in a nutshell there. Despite the human condition being to forever question, there are things which are better left unanswered - making them all the more wondrous.

I know Ive posted this before in another thread, but........ I think it is perfect after your posts ZZPlural and ZetaReticuli :) [b]When I heard the learn'd astronomer[/b] When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman