Ex Astris Scientia

Working at Harvard in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as a “Computer”, Annie Jump Cannon cataloged stars using their spectra from photographic plates, in an effort to understand the mysteries and peculiarities of stellar spectra.

This was hard, detailed, nuanced work. By 1889, three years into her work, she had classified over 1,000 stars. By 1913, she could classify 200 stars an hour. She could classify three stars a minute, just by sight. Using a magnifying glass, she could classify stars down to 9th magnitude, 16 times fainter than the human eye can see. And she did this all with exceptional accuracy.

Over the course of her career, she personally classified more than 350,000 stars, accounting for a mind-boggling 98% of all contemporary stellar spectra classifications, a feat that wouldn’t be bested until the 1990’s with automated digital sky surveys.

Cannon used these classifications to develop the Harvard spectral classification system (O–B–A–F–G–K–M), organizing stars by surface temperature and physical properties.

It is hard to overstate just how foundational her work was to modern astronomy and astrophysics. Her classifications have enabled more than a century of breakthroughs in stellar structure and evolution, including the understanding of how stars change over time and how temperature, luminosity, and composition are related. The system underpins the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram, one of the most important tools in astrophysics, and remains embedded in modern research, from stellar population studies to galaxy evolution.

I don't think I speak much of spanish anymore, but in the nursing school training period I did there, I did manage to get by with making weird Tarzan sentences. I got a nosebleed at some point and startled another nurse. Not knowing the words "humidity" or "stress", I managed to string together: "This is ok. It is hot, it is cold, I have a bad day, I am sad, I have blood. This is normal for me." And she understood.

And sometimes you just say things weird, but it's better than not saying it. One time, I was stuck in a narrow hallway behind someone walking really slowly with a walker, and he apologised for being in the way. I was not in any hurry, but didn't know the spanish word for "hurry", but I did know enough words to try to circumvent it by borrowing the english "I have all the time in the world."

When I get my syllabus at the beginning of the semester from each class I put on some relaxing audio (I use ASMR but music, especially instrumental, might work as well) and just put all of my assignments into my planner app. The audio helps reduce the frustration of repetitive tasks. If I get too frustrated I can take a moment to focus on the audio, calm down, and then keep going.

The planner app I use is called School Planner and the icon looks like this:

The reason I like this app in particular is because it has a feature that allows you to have an agenda on your phone's home screen.

🎂 hbd to my tumblr revival and cheers to the latest experiment on my break.

My journal, recent pages.