For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and c… - Carl Sagan

A vida é apenas uma visão momentânea das maravilhas deste assombroso universo, e é triste que tantos se desgastem sonhando com fantasias espirituais.

The Pythagoreans were fascinated by the regular solids, symmetrical three-dimensional objects all of whose sides are the same regular polygon. The cube is the simplest example, having six squares as sides. There are an infinite number of regular polygons, but only five regular solids. (The proof of this statement, a famous example of mathematical reasoning, is given in Appendix 2.) For some reason, knowledge of a solid called the dodecahedron having twelve pentagons as sides seemed to them dangerous. It was mystically associated with the Cosmos. The other four regular solids were identified, somehow, with the four “elements” then imagined to constitute the world; earth, fire, air and water. The fifth regular solid must then, they thought, correspond to some fifth element that could only be the substance of the heavenly bodies. (This notion of a fifth essence is the origin of our word quintessence.) Ordinary people were to be kept ignorant of the dodecahedron.

We invented phonetic writing so we could put
our sounds down on paper and, by glancing at a page, hear someone speaking in our head — an invention that became so widespread in the last few thousand years that we hardly ever stop to consider how astonishing it is