Suspended In Space Like Salvador Dali And His Cats

The photo above is by an American photographer Philippe Halsman in a collaboration with the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and was taken back in 1948.

The theme of the photo - titled Dali Atomicus - is suspension. Dali himself, the three cats, the water, the bucket and a footstool are all suspended in mid air.

The picture was created as a reference to Dali's painting Leda Atomica - which can be seen to the right of the photograph behind two of the suspended cats.

A copy of the painting Leda Atomica is shown below and depicts Leda, the Queen of Sparta, with a swan - again all are suspended: Leda isn't actually sitting on the pedestal and the swan, together with an egg, stools, a book and set square all 'float' around the central nude figure.

The model for Leda was Dali's wife Gala.

Salvador Dali himself describes his painting thus:

"Dali shows us the hierarchized libidinous emotion, suspended and as though hanging in midair, in accordance with the modern 'nothing touches' theory of intra-atomic physics. Leda does not touch the swan; Leda does not touch the pedestal; the pedestal does not touch the base; the base does not touch the sea; the sea does not touch the shore ..."

As with atomic level particles we do not touch upon other things either unless, perhaps, by a meaningful coincidence or synchronicity.


In mythology Zeus raped Leda in the guise of a swan on her wedding night, while she slept with her new husband Tyndareus. This resulted in two sets of twins where one of each was immortal and the other mortal. Never trust a swan!

Other Random Posts:
23 Funny Children's Letters To God
Death Has A Preference For Birthdays!
The Bizarre 1914 Photo Coincidence

Is There Such A Thing As Time?

Is there such a thing as time? Most likely we'd answer that there must be, because we can watch it tick by on our clocks, but this may not be proof that it exists.

Time is the duration between events, we measure it astronomically with reference to the sun or stars. If, however, nothing moved and there was nothing that changed would there still be time? Kant maintained it is simply something we impose on to reality in order to make the world more comprehensible.

There is so much to think about, so many questions like: Does time have a beginning and an end? Does it flow in one direction and so on. It's mysterious stuff because it can sometimes appear to be manipulated. Here's something interesting ...

Let's imagine two identical clocks, both accurate and synchronised. Now let's place one on a spaceship travelling away from earth and the other somewhere safe and sound in a secure cupboard, let's say in your office. Now when the spaceship finally returns, guess what?

The travelling clock will show that less time has elapsed than the clock sitting in the cupboard. It's true.

On a simpler level we all notice how time flies when we are having fun. It's the same period, according to our watch, but if we are waiting for something, time drags. Get engrossed in an interest and an hour can tick by in an instant.

Time is an illusion, like the rest of life. It all depends on how we see it.

Further Reading:
The Journey To Immortality
Slow Down Your Heartbeats To Live Longer
Make Something Of The Moment

Are We Really Nothing At All On A Ride To Nowhere?

Sometimes it's easily to get puffed up with our own self importance. But, who the heck do we think we are?

We are really nothing at all. We have a life span that's not even the blink of an eye, compared with how long everything has been in existence - so we'll soon be forgotten.

And what are we? A minute bit of consciousness zipping along at 67,000 miles an hour, doing a daily twirl while riding on what is essentially a rock. And 'our' rock is only one little rock out of billions all travelling through what we call space.

Not really that impressive are we?

And to think we are the only bits of consciousness anywhere. That can't be right surely, what with all of those stars out there, but that's what the 'experts' would have us believe. There's just us and if we don't get a move on, we'll soon all be gone too.

Someone's got to be having a laugh. But who is that someone chuckling away?

If the atheists are right, there isn't anything out there having a smile at our expense. So, what are we worrying about? We might as well not care a damn, take what we want and have one big knees up while we can.

But despite this many people, for some reason, are caring and kind and will do a neighbour or family member a good turn. Some care so much for their friends, spouses, parents, sons, daughters, grandchildren they would lay down their own lives for them. But why? What's the point?

It may well be that, despite our almost comical situation - travelling on a fast rock and so on, there is something more. We tend to feel this inside, when we bother to look. We are something more than the blink of an eye.

If we enquire within, we might just discover that there's more to us than meets the eye. Finding out what that is, could well be why we are here, right now, at this precise moment.

Enjoy the ride, even when it gets bumpy.

Other Recent Rambles:
A How Did It All Begin Ramble
The Tortoise And The Big Crunch Prior To The End Of The Everything
Memories Of The Future

The Red Rose Seen In Space

This is one of those photos that blows my mind - a red rose in space.

It's not a red rose, of course. It's a photo from NASA.

A star ended it's life with a powerful explosion. The shock waves heated up the dust and gas clouds surrounding the supernova causing them to glow, thus creating this beautiful red cloud- and this is the red rose.

And, to quote NASA: "Much of the material from that original star was violently thrown out into space. However, some of the material remained in an incredibly dense object called a neutron star. This particular neutron star (too faint to be seen in this image) is moving inexplicably fast: over 3 million miles per hour! Astronomers are perplexed over its absurd speed, and have nicknamed the object the Cosmic Cannonball."

Sort of puts life into perspective, doesn't it?  Here we are little specks of dust, full of self  importance, with lives on earth that are over with a blink of the Universal eye.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Could Time And Space Eventually Prove Immortality

I'm no scientist but the possibilities of time and space fascinates me. Sometimes I get the feeling that we could use these to prove immortality. The patterns are probably out there. As Einstein said, 'God does not play dice with the Universe.'

There is the Special Theory which talks of the lives of twins. If one twin stays on earth while the other takes a flight into space, at close to the speed of light, time will go more slowly on the spacecraft. If the spaceman twin returned to earth after say ten years he will be only five years older - but his twin will have aged ten years. The twin in space will not have felt any different to his twin on earth. There is a time dilation in space.

To take it to a more extreme example. If one twin sets off to the nearest star, 4.3 light years away, and travelled at 98 per cent of the speed of light the journey would take him 8.775 years - but his twin would have aged 43.2 years.

If for the same journey one twin travelled at well over 99 per cent of the speed of light, when he returned everyone he had ever known would be dead.

This may appear to be just theory but it has been proven in part. In July 1977, for example, accurate atomic clocks were placed aboard a U.S. satellite and sent into orbit. On their return the clocks were compared with a similar clock at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. The satellite's clocks had slowed down by a small amount. Time had therefore passed more slowly on the satellite.

I realise that what I have written is very simplistic, but if we can accept that time can be manipulated then immortality and such things as seeing into the past or future are all possible. Well, perhaps.

Graphic: Cleonis

There May be Alien Life Forms In The Earth's Atmosphere

It is generally thought that the first forms of life appeared on earth some 3.8 billion years ago. Many religious traditionalists, of course, may well disagree. But how life started is one of the big debates for mankind.

One theory is that life was brought to earth from somewhere else in the galaxy. Some astrobiologists say that the seeds of life began as microbes carried here, perhaps on an asteroid or comet which then collided with our planet.

Scientists are now about to put this idea to the test. They are about to start a mission to see if any forms of life are surviving on the outer fringes of the earth's atmosphere.

The European Space Agency, along with British scientists, are launching a balloon carrying specialised instruments to search the stratosphere for bacteria and other micro-organisms.

One of the research team, Clara Juanes-Vallejo explained, "There are theories that life on Earth came from space, so we need to know that life can survive the conditions of space for this to be true.

The environment in the stratosphere is very extreme. It can get down to -90 degrees C and is a near vacuum. There is also a lot of harmful radiation as there is not the same level of protection as we get from the atmosphere.

If we know that life can survive in such an extreme environment, then it could also survive in places like Mars or on asteroids.

If we find microorganisms up there, there are a number of ways it could have arrived. It could have come from space itself, or it could be from our own volcanoes that have projected material up there."

It is hoped that microorganisms will be collected and to then establish if these may have arrived from other parts of the galaxy.

All good stuff but it still can't really establish how life began. Okay, it could be proven that life did come to earth originally from somewhere else - but from where? And how did life start in that particular part of the galaxy? From what point did anything start, or maybe there was never a beginning ... we simply exist.

There are so many questions and beliefs. It will be interesting though to hear what the scientists come up with.