It has been an eventful summer. Lots of opportunity for reflection. My father died in August and I had a good chance to float my philosophical canoe down some of life's white water. It held out well, but not without a bit of patching and some dramatic moments. Philosophically speaking there are two issues at the bottom of things: What is the world like and what are people like? Then there are the questions of how we relate to the world and each other. It's hard to simplify but there are a few things you can say at the outset -- things that seem far from obvious to most folks I run into. We do know a lot more about the "real world" than the ancient sages did. But, if we are smart, we know that what we know is  a drop in the bucket. The Universe remains mostly a mystery and with everything we learn we discover a host of new questions. While we grow in power and insight, we also become more full of wonder and humility. As far as we can tell, the Universe (out there) is i...

The first serious book I read as a child was Heinlein's " Red Plane t". Looking back to this charming time of my life, I remember thinking that we actually had space stations whizzing about the Earth. Along with an entire generation of "boomer" children, I hatched the dream of travelling to other worlds. Since then, Mars has become a place, a real location. In this excellent lecture, Professor Carolin Crawford tells us what we know about Mars now and how we learned it. video platform video management video solutions video player It is possible that a few people who watch this lecture will actually visit the Red Planet, although Crawford paints a bleak enough picture of the place that we can understand that she is not personally looking for a ticket to the Red Planet. />