Astronomy has not been easy for me. I had an inkling of this going in. I knew that I had a hard time getting myself interested in things who's direct effect I cannot see.
Ironically, considering the subject of my speech, the one area where I seem to do fine with the invisible or ineffable is in the humanities. If it has to do with people and the way we relate to each other I have no problem getting as abstract as possible.
Astronomy seemed to me about the farthest I could go from my comfort zone and that's one of the reasons I took the class.
It turned out this was only partially the case. I eventually found my way in by conceptualizing much of astronomy through the lens of philosophy. Astronomical discoveries had such huge implications they where often paradigm shatters in regards to how we perceive reality. Learning about these different ideas and contemplating there implications was a joy for me.
Even more fascinating to me was the level of abstract thought required to grok astronomical concepts. The idea, for instance, that we can know things through mathematics that we later find provable through our senses has some mind boggling implications as far as the power of the human mind goes. It's also a total trip to think about.
As we reach the end of the semester and I begin my review for finals I'm starting to realize just how much I'm going to miss learning about astronomy (not that I'll have to stop). I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of how to think about these things. Although, I'm still shaky on some of it, I feel like I've now got a much better grasp of the way things outside our atmosphere work. I'm hoping I'll be able to hold onto this and use it understand future developments in astronomy. I read a lot of science news. In the past I'd skip over anything having to do with astronomy of astrophysics, I'm hoping those days are done.
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