Originally shared by Rajini Rao
The Cosmos: Macro versus Micro
☼ The images on the left are night views of brightly lit metropolitan cities taken from the International Space Station. On the right, are fluorescent images of neurons. Like a neuron, the city seems to have a cell body, branching dendrites and a main axon like highway extending out.
☼ The ancient Greeks of the Neo-Platonic school of philosophy saw the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level). In their philosophy, Man is in the middle.
☼ Did you know that the word cosmos (Greek, κόσμος) means "order" and is the conceptual opposite of "chaos"? In Mandarin Chinese, cosmos and universe are both translated as 宇宙 yǔzhòu, which means "space-time".
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
-William Blake
Source: http://infinity-imagined.tumblr.com/page/6
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