Contemplation of Things Past
Abstract
On August 12, 1925, it was very hot in Philadelphia, the Perseid meteors raced across the sky, and my mother stopped shelling lima beans and went upstairs to her bedroom to give birth to me. At this point I skip over further details of this kind and get right to the central theme of my life. I didn't even know there was a theme until I was faced with the deadline for writing this essay. I assumed that I had just blundered along doing what seemed best at the moment. But now I see that what always seemed the best thing to do was also an opportunity to try to see further back in time than people had seen before and to contemplate about how it would be to have been there.
- Publication:
-
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
- Pub Date:
- 1998
- DOI:
- 10.1146/annurev.earth.26.1.1
- Bibcode:
- 1998AREPS..26....1W