Update: The end credits say the song text is an adaptation of the poem Stream of Life by Rabindranath Tagore.
Stream of Life
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in the middle of Siberia. The explosion was probably caused by the air burst of a meteor or comet fragment at a height of about 5 to 10 kilometers. The yield of the explosion is estimated to be the equivalent of between 10-15 megatons of TNT. About 2150 square kilometers of trees were flattened by the explosion. That is the same area as a circle about 52 kilometers in diameter. Humans were lucky that time since the area it impacted was very isolated. If the air burst had occurred over a major city hundreds of thousands could have died. This fortunately is rather unlikely, since cities cover such a small area of the Earth’s surface.
I just noticed that the latitude of the site of the Tunguska event is nearly the same as the place I live. If the impact had occurred roughly 6 hours later it could have hit 20 or so kilometers from where I am right now.
Author:Clifford D. Simak Genre: Science Fiction Why did you get this book? I like Simak. Did you enjoy the book? Yes. Was the author new to you? No. I have read several of his books before. Most recently The Cemetery World, Highway of Eternity and Way Station. Would you read something by this author again? Yes. Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. Anything else? Our hero returns from being diverted to a mysterious crystal world where an ancient race wish to sell the knowledge of two universes. The matter transmitter that diverted him sent sent his duplicate to the world he was originally traveling to. And now his other self has been killed in an accident. Our hero discovers he is officially dead. Now the people he has to try to sell the knowledge to want nothing to do with him. It would also help if he knew the price. The race on the crystal world have not yet informed him what it is. A tale of goblins and trolls, a ghost, a Neanderthal, a historian and her saber tooth tiger. Throw in Shakespeare on the run, a banshee or two and a painter from the past who apparently has met the ancient race, a touch of university bureaucracy and a couple of pub brawls and the stage is set to figure out how to sort out the mess. Number of pages: 190 Total pages for the year: 3590
Author:Clifford D. Simak Genre: Science Fiction Why did you get this book? I like Simak. Did you enjoy the book? Yes. Was the author new to you? No. I have read several of his books before. Most recently Highway of Eternity and Way Station. Would you read something by this author again? Yes. Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. Anything else? Mankind has spread throughout the Galaxy. The Earth ravaged by war has now become the graveyard to the galaxy. Our hero suspects there is more to Earth than the cemetery and wishes to create a work of art to describe Earth. The cemetery corporation feels threatened by this and attempts to stop our hero. Unfortunately for the cemetery corporation our hero has some sympathizers to help him out. Number of pages: 191 Total pages for the year: 3400
Book: 11 Title: The Terminal Beach Author:J.G.Ballard Genre: Science Fiction Why did you get this book? I bought this book years ago - look at the price on the cover - 4/6 - four shillings and six pence! England decimalized it’s currency on 15th February 1971. I digress. Did you enjoy the book? Sort of. Ballard is not exactly your run of the mill science fiction author. He is a member of the New Wave of science fiction writers. I prefer other New Wave authors. Was the author new to you? No. I have read this book before many years ago. Would you read something by this author again? Probably if I found something in my Science Fiction bookshop that caught my eye. Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. Anything else? A collection of twelve short stories. Most distopian in nature. They are more interested in the inner workings of the mind than the world the character is placed in. I dislike chaos and these tales probe into the disorder in our minds. They are disturbing - which perhaps explains their fascination. Number of pages: 224 Total pages for the year: 3209
Note on the application of machinery to the computation of very big mathematical tables.
The mechanical machine he proposed is called a difference engine and could be used to compute mathematical tables (for instance logarithmic tables - if you are old enough to remember such things). In the days preceeding computers accurate tables were importance in many scientific/technological disciplines. They were calculated by hand and often had errors.
The Science Museum in London has a replica of the Difference Engine.
This machine is one of the forerunners of the modern computer.
As such Charles Babbage is regarded as one of the creators of ideas that are fundamental to the principles of computing.
Author:Isaac Azimov Genre: Science Fiction Why did you get this book? I bought this book years ago. Did you enjoy the book? Yes. I first read this book years ago. Was the author new to you? No. I have read quite a few Azimov books and short stories. I have several of his books in my library. Last year I revisited The Naked Sun. Would you read something by this author again? Definitely. Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. Anything else? A collection of four short stories by Azimov. The collection was first published in 1967 but the individual stores were first published in the period 1951-1954. My favorite was Belief. This is the tale of a scientist who wakes up one day and can levitate. His problem is: how to get the scientific community to believe him and not treat him as a crank. These tales are showing their age. So this was more a trip down memory lane than anything else. Number of pages: 124 Total pages for the year: 2985
Book: 9 Title: Highway of Eternity Author:Clifford D. Simak Genre: Science Fiction Why did you get this book? Because I like Simak’s work. Did you enjoy the book? Yes. I first read this book many years ago. Was the author new to you? No. I had previously read this book, Shakespeare’s Planet, The Goblin Reservation, Cemetry World and Way Station. Would you read something by this author again? Definitely. Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. Anything else? Simak’s last published novel. He philosophizes about the universe and out place in it. This quote by one of the characters on the people of his time seems ominous:
The rest of the people completely abandoned the old values. They rejected technology, which in many ways, had served them in good stead and could have served them better if they had bothered to develop a stronger ethical code. They walked away from progress. In all fairness, I must say that progress, in certain instances, was detrimental. Yet it lifted us from beasts to a fairly reasonable and decent society…
I see such tendencies in our own times.
Number of pages: 289 Total pages for the year: 2861
Book: 8 Title: Way Station Author:Clifford D. Simak Genre: Science Fiction Why did you get this book? Because I like Simak’s work. Did you enjoy the book? Yes. I am not sure why but this is one my all time favorite science fiction books. I have read it many times. Was the author new to you? No. I had previously read this book, Shakespeare’s Planet, The Goblin Reservation, Cemetry World and Highway of Eternity. Would you read something by this author again? Definitely. Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. I revisit this book every now and again. Anything else? A study of loneliness. A civil war veteran is employed as the caretaker of an interstellar way station. Though living a life in lonely seclusion he is getting more and more noticed. Things come to a head as problems of both Earthly and galactic sources tower up. In one of the subplots a traveler has died while at the way station. Out hero is instructed to dispose of the body “as if he was one of your own”. He does this and marks the grave stone with this epitaph:
Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the Universe.
I like that a lot. Something about it resonates in me.
Number of pages: 189 Total pages for the year: 2572
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