Deception



For many a millennia the people on earth have thought as the Sun as a god or spirit who brings light and life to the earth. This great red beast comes up at dawn they thought, peaking it weary head above the horizon and casting a spell of light upon the dark landscape of night; and in the evening it slowly meanders back to the western horizon as it entrances us with an array of spectacular tones and vibrant colors. For thousands of years the mystery of the sun was explained by myth and legend but for a few the mysteries could simply not go unanswered.



Stars, have illuminated the dark night sky since the dawn of time. The people who have observed them however, always seem to find a different explanation for their intense luminance: some view it as a message from the gods as they find figures and shapes encoded in the various constellations, others, view it as path showing us where to travel by the positioning of the stars, while in modern time, scientists view them a source of study and supposedly find the answers to many a question from their endless expanse.



The link between these two entities remained unknown until the late 16th century when a new age of intrigue had hit Europe, a new age of reason; the enlightenment. Brilliant new minds like Galileo Galilee and Nicolas Copernicus began to ponder why the sun cast its light, and why those tiny specks of light shone in the dark night sky. The idea they came up with was ludicrous, and nearly cost these two men their lives but their facts were undeniable, what if the sun was really a star in our little solar system and we were simply rotating around it, ever turning?



It appeared we had all been deceived. Or had we? Is the sun really a star in our solar system and are these tiny specks of light really in galaxies, millions and billions of light years away. I tend to believe that this understanding is ever evolving. Some of the most basic understandings of science today were completely misunderstood a mere fifty years ago. So who is to say we are right? Who dictates what is inevitable truth? As Rene Descartes once stated, “our own senses are what deceive us most.” Our entire basis for understanding the universe, and all that is around us, is based solely on a simple refraction of light off of objects, as this is how we see. So how will we ever find definitive fact on the mystery of the sun and the stars, when we ourselves are potentially deceived by our own sight of the sky? But some mysteries were never meant to be solved…