I say, have you ever found yourself in this situation? One's editor rings one up, offering one the chance to write a retrospective feature for the local journal. One graciously accepts without fully considering the dread task before one. That is to say, quite a bit happened this year, and summing it all up is actually rather difficult. A year-in-review piece is the sine qua non of any self-respecting publication this time of year, and the burden has fallen on my own humble, handsome shoulders.
Right, so we've swung around the Sun again, covering roughly 940 million kilometers at around 107,000 kilometers an hour—which is rather impressive, considering how little effort it cost us. Why, I don't mind telling you that I positively slept for parts of it. In fact, I didn't even bother to see if anyone was steering. Of course, after that mind-numbingly huge distance, we're still right back where we started, so you might regard the whole thing as a wash. But wait! Aha! There's a bit of a trick here...if you think really big, you'll realize that we've traveled quite a long ways around our galactic core.
The point of this rather long (and frankly unnecessary) metaphor is this: while things might not seem to get much better from year to year, there is some small consolation, some minute hope of progress. Our financial system might be tottering on the brink of economic collapse, but at least we can bid good riddance to the Bush administration in a few days.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to discuss The Election. Of course it was historic, and one feels ever so slightly privileged to have not only witnessed, but participated in it. That being said, it would be hopelessly naïve to believe that suddenly everything will be better in 2009. The United States has had an exceptionally bad president for the past eight years. I think Mr. Obama will be very good, but of course it is impossible to tell at this point. It looks as if we're stuck with Sarah Palin as a national figure for the foreseeable future, so even though the Democrats won, their victory came at a terrible price. On the whole, however, things are looking up. We end 2008 cautious, anxious, waiting for the change we were promised and so rapturously hoped for. I hope we will end 2009 with universal health care, with better infrastructure, with a better funded and more rigorous educational system. How likely any of that is, especially with the entire global economy auguring in on itself, is anyone's guess. Ultimately, history will have to judge (how often have we heard that glib retort as a defense of poor policies in the past!).
Outside the realm of politics, astoundingly exciting things are happening in the world around us. Science is forever pushing back the frontiers of our collective imagination, and 2008 was a good year for science. The Cassini probe is beaming back data from the moons of Saturn—entire worlds for us to explore beyond our own. Cassini completed its “prime” mission this year, but continues to explore Saturn in the course of other missions. Repeated, close flybys of the moon Enceladus yielded a host of stunningly beautiful pictures and priceless scientific data. Beneath its frozen surface, Enceladus boasts a liquid ocean, laced with organic compounds. We know this because our frail, superstitious, emotional branch of the chimpanzee family has built machines that can cross void and vacuum and tell us what's on the other side. To shamelessly borrow a line from Tom Hanks in Apollo 13, “it's not a miracle. We just decided to go.”
May I continue on this spacey theme? Will you indulge me? Then hop aboard my TARDIS and take a trip to Fomahault, a mere 25 light years away. This was the year that we first saw, with our own eyes, images of extra-solar planets. Scientists have found hundreds of the things, but hadn't directly imaged one until now (though sci-fi authors had imagined them). I'm absolutely fascinated by exoplanets. When I was a schoolboy in short-pants, it was still an open question whether any star (besides our own), in the entire universe, had planets orbiting it. When astronomers started discovering loads of them a few years back, I was understandably excited. Being able to actually look at a picture of one, and honest to goodness picture, is simply amazing. Even if all you can see is a speck of light. A series of pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope show the planet, Fomahault b, orbiting the star at a distance of some 11 billion miles. What a world.
And of course, this past autumn CERN completed the Large Hadron Collider, which promptly broke. At least we have something to look forward to for next year. Assuming it ever works properly, brainy chaps in Europe will probe further than ever before into the fundamental nature of physics and the tempestuous realm of the early universe.
I do hope you will forgive me for engaging in so much gushing enthusiasm for scientific pursuits. You're such a polite, indulgent reader for letting me go on like that. I'm quite aware that the great majority of end-of-the-year reflections focus a bit more on politics and entertainment, with maybe a bit of pop culture and a list of celebrity deaths. Certainly if you're looking for that sort of thing, there are plenty of places to find it. What draws you to The Modest Proposal, time and time again, is the light banter and rushed-to-meet-a-deadline stories. Happy New Year!
