The Poetry of the Stars with Midge Goldberg and Yun Wang

We often hear about the music of the spheres, but why not the poetry of the stars? In this episode Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome poet/astronomer/cosmologist Dr. Yun Wang and poet/author Midge Goldberg, editor of “Outer Space: 100 Poems” that includes Yun’s poem, “Space Journal: Serendipity.”

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a possible candidate relativistic tidal disruption event. Put another way, in a galaxy far, far away, a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is possibly shredding a star, creating a brightening flare of radio emission. Naturally, given our guests, Chuck and company reflect on the idea of a black hole as a metaphor.

Moving on, Dr. Wang discusses her exploration of our universe and her eventual goal of modeling a billion galaxies in 3-D. She and Chuck briefly address whether universal expansion will continue forever, as some posit, and whether dark energy is truly a cosmological constant or not.

Then it’s poetry time! Midge recounts her journey to create “Outer Space: 100 Poems” and how she eventually connected with Yun, who not only contributed her own poem to the book but also translated a poem by Du Fu, who Chuck explains is one of the two greatest poets of the Tang Dynasty in China. The other is Li Bai, composer of “Night Thoughts,” the only poem Dr. Liu can recite by heart in Chinese, which he proceeds to do before also reciting the English translation he wrote.

Midge talks about choosing poems from around the world, drawn from ancient cultures up to modern day poetry about landing on the moon, and describes some of their age-old, shared themes.

For our student question, William asks, “How can poetry be used to communicate astronomy research?” Midge points to an eponymous poem about “Olber’s Paradox” she included in the book which taught her about the paradox. You’ll learn about the first scientifically reasonable answer to the paradox, which Midge points out, was written by none other than Edgar Allen Poe!

Yun explains how she almost unintentionally mingles her science and her poetry in her writing, after which she reads her poem, “Space Journal: Serendipity.” To answer William’s query, she dives into the actual science and astronomy research that is embodied in every word of her poem.

Does Chuck find an opportunity to talk about the holodecks in Star Trek, Schrodinger’s Cat, and other equally geeky subjects? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Come back in two weeks for the rest of Chuck’s interview with Dr. Yun Wang and poet/author Midge Goldberg.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Yun Wang and her many scientific and poetic publications, see her bio page at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech): https://web.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/wang/.

To learn more about Midge Goldberg, visit her website: https://www.midgegoldberg.com/ or follow her on Twitter at @MidgeGoldberg.

“Outer Space: 100 Poems” is published by Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/outer-space-100-poems/7D8D674BE0C7215CCC9FD0284044B819

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