Stephen Hawking // Credit: David J. Eicher
A very long trip from Milwaukee to Chicago to Madrid to Tenerife brought my wife, Lynda, and I to the second Starmus Festival in the Canary Islands by noon on Monday, September 22. This is a paradise, the African equivalent of Hawaii, exceptionally beautiful volcanic islands with one of the world’s greatest skies overhead. The only problem was that after the hourlong drive south from the airport to the Ritz-Carlton Abama resort, where the conference is being held, we had been going without any real sleep for more than a day — and the first day at Starmus was just getting started. Starmus is an international celebration of astronomy, science, music, and the arts, and it is being attended this year by more than 600 delegates, 100 press, and 100 exhibitors, for a total of some 800 people. The first Starmus, in 2011, had about one-tenth that many, so this event has grown explosively, in part from the media help of the
Astronomy magazine brand. Our magazine is the festival’s primary media partner.
Starmus is the brainchild of founder and director Garik Israelian, an astronomer at the Institute for Astrophysics in Tenerife. Some of his close friends on the advisory board are also prime movers at Starmus, and they include Brian May, astrophysicist and Queen founding guitarist; former Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space; and celebrated evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. The attendees this week include an all-star cast of astronomers, cosmologists, biologists, musicians, filmmakers, and more. The buzz is simply incredible, and much of it is created by the week’s most anticipated speaker, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
Lynda and I hit the ground running and made it into the front section for the opening ceremony, in which Garik welcomed the delegates along with local officials, and then we heard some wonderful opening remarks from Brian and Richard. An old acquaintance and a towering scientist, Robert Williams, former director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, chaired the first session. He introduced another Bob, this one a Nobel Prize winner, for the first talk. Robert Wilson described his 1964 discovery, along with Arno Penzias, of the cosmic microwave background radiation at Bell Labs in New Jersey. This was a remarkable turning point that validated the Big Bang theory of the cosmos.
I then delivered my talk, “Does the Universe Really Care About Itself? Communicating Astronomy in the 21st Century,” in which I lamented the quality of information about astronomy in TV programs and the general lack of support for science among the public. And also the abundant nonsense we see focused on unreality rather than reality, the challenge of light pollution, and the general lack of young people getting into serious subjects in this era. I did then offer numerous areas of exciting science that we can focus on in the future and offered a challenge to the group to rise to the occasion and remake a newer generation of space enthusiasts. I quoted Brian May, who wrote “This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us” — from the Queen song “Who Wants to Live Forever” — and challenged the room to make this moment ours to reinspire the world with science. The talk received a thunderous applause and great acclaim, and I was stunned when later in the afternoon Alexei Leonov and Richard Dawkins both referred to it in their talks.
I have to say how inspiring it is to see my friend Brian May again. Just as he had in Chicago at the start of Queen’s tour this summer, he blurted out, “David!,” gave me a big hug, and asked how our trip was. I noted we were short on sleep and asked Brian if he had yet recovered from the Queen world tour, to which he laughed and said, “From New Zealand? Not yet!” He was all smiles and was accompanied by his lovely wife, Anita Dobson.
After a break, Alexei Leonov made some inspiring remarks to the crowd, welcoming them in his native Russian and assisted by a translator. Richard Dawkins then described a huge amount about biology in his guide to what alien life on other worlds might be like, a fascinating and incredible talk that reflected much about forms of life on planet Earth. Katerina Harvati then delivered the final presentation of the day, which focused on her fascinating research on Neanderthals and their relationships to Homo sapiens, and much about our hominid ancestors. It was an amazing presentation!
We then broke for a while, and the whole group went down for a seaside dinner at a spectacular outdoor restaurant, accompanied by fine wines and a live band. We were fortunate to be joined by good friend Glenn Smith, a planetarium mastermind who runs SkySkan’s business in Munich, along with Richard Dawkins, Katerina Harvati and her lovely family, and Robert Wilson and his charming wife. We also had Stephen Hawking to one side of us and Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham on the other. It was a magical night, with much more news to come soon!
For all images from this trip, visit the
Online Reader Gallery.