About
29
Jun
“I was sitting writing on my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were jumbling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation; long rows sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke.”
Frederick Kekulé writing about his discovery of the structure of benzene
The Sleeper
The Mule
Pirate
szabo
scientists
cavendish
piper
This is also a well known symbol (by who I’m not quite sure? People from the past….. and future?) of the Milkyway. The main body (disc) of our galaxy that sweeps around us being the body of the snake and a cluster or bump of stars where the centre of the galaxy (black hole) resides is the head eating the tail. I’ll try and find a pic.
The Norse would recognise it as Jormundgand – the World Serpent. One of the fearsome children of Loki, the Midgardsormer lies at the bottom of the oceans, girdling the Earth with it’s tail gripped in its mouth. Earthquakes and tsunami result from the slight movements of its slumbering form. At Ragnarok it will rise from the deep and join it’s father/mother as the forces of chaos battle the armies of the Gods in that epic last battle. Read the Voluspa for the whole story