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Philae
–the probe, from the Rosetta spacecraft has landed on comet (after some initial
hiccups it has finally anchored on the comet, this was confirmed few minutes
back). It is an amazing achievement, considering the odds: a comet hurling at
tremendous velocity, and then to negotiate it as also land on what is
essentially a gravityless body. It took ten years of journey to reach this
comet. It is mindboggling effort. Brilliant. I
am reminded of an ancient Chinese saying “May you live in interesting times”.
I
also happen to see Interstellar , the
Hollywood movie the other day. The last movie I saw in a theatre was Gravity, so comparison is inevitable. I remain a big fan of Gravity, it had a tremendous impact on me. The scale of
Interstellar is impressive. Some of the visuals and conceptions are riveting (frozen
clouds were exciting so was passing through wormhole as also black hole). I keep
an eye on Christopher Nolan’s efforts after his Inception –another of path breaking movies. Interstellar has some
amazing ideas, but I am bit concerned about the intent. It seems we have moved
from adaption and mitigation to abandonment, climate change is being referred
to ‘dust that land on corn problem’ (?!! btw I am intrigued by American obsessions
with cornfield), as also wild west acknowledgement ‘we are pioneers not
caretakers’. I am not at all impressed, and I would absolutely agree with George
Manbiot of the The Guardian here.
In
the meanwhile IPCC has come out with devastating report on Climate change, they
haven’t minced any words. They have stood up to their responsibilities. We are
quite grateful to them. The other day US-China too have taken some encouraging
steps. Let us see how things are going to concretize later next year at Paris. I
had become quite a cynic in recent times (look at the stupid people in Australia,
with an equally harebrained leader to match…I am not even able to recall his
name…never mind he doesn’t matter, these are minor nuisance in blink of time),
there seems to be some rays of hope.
