Starchild: The Human Meanings of the Big Bang Cosmos

Creation stories are the foundation of human identity. Over the last century science has discovered a dramatic new creation story, a universe that began with a Big Bang and that has evolved into extraordinary order, into galaxies, planets, life, and brains. This new creation story gives human life many new meanings. Our bodies embody all of cosmic evolution. In us the chaotic energies of the Big Bang are now weaving cells; in us a spiral galaxy has become spiral DNA; through us a blind universe can recognize itself at last. With a deep sense of wonder, with the personal, poetic style of literary nature writing, Starchild explores the Big Bang cosmos, and the lives of the people who discovered it. Starchild turns facts and abstract theories into something real, personal, and powerful; it turns ideas into identity. When seen in the context of an immense, evolving cosmos, life becomes a rare gift. Starchild celebrates the universe's long journey into life. "I love your writing. How wonderful it is to have imagination and to see into the past. You are a very talented writer and I am sure your probings into the universe bring you great joy. "Fireflies" is beautiful. I have underlined so many passages I especially liked that it is practically all underlined. I am sure that Dr. Eiseley would have been delighted." Caroline Werkley, longtime assistant to Loren Eiseley "Beautiful. It used to be the style for poets to write knowledgeably about science, relating it to humans and the human condition. I am thinking of Lucretius and Milton. I doubt that people will care much about science unless people like you relate it as you have done. I am grateful." Robert R. Wilson, founding director of Fermilab, on the chapter "The Particle Accelerator"