the astrolabs
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
After school, we go to the Astrolabe!
I’m 10 years old. My father’s heavy navy binoculars aren’t just for seeing far. It’s a good excuse to spend the evening outside: I can see that there are indeed seas and mountains on the moon. Saturn’s rings, on the other hand, can only be seen in the pages of “Science & Vie”.
The pages of the Astrolabe in 1991
In 1990, Bernard Amsalem, the Mayor of Val de Reuil, asked me to think about a project.
The Ville Nouvelle is home to over 50 nationalities. I suggested an astrolabe, an invention to which all the peoples of the world have contributed.
And it hasn’t killed anyone.
At the Centre National Art et Technologie in Reims.
When the hand points the bronze arrow at the star or planet, the Astrolabe indicates the name. But the screen adds the most important information in my opinion: the distance. And then, forget the km! The Astrolabe de Val de Reuil displays the “Time it takes for light to reach us ”!
The Place de la Poste in Val de Reuil and the stamp (2001)
The Place de la Poste in Val de Reuil and the stamp (2001)
The Place de la Poste in Val de Reuil and the stamp (2001)
Strolling across the sky, we learn that at the speed of light, the Moon is one second away. The CM2 class realize that the light that left the North Star this morning will arrive here long after they’re dead. And that the light reaching us tonight from the big Betelgeuse left when the Cro-Magnons were hunting mammoths in what would one day be the school playground.
Astrolabe in Square Dupleix, Paris.
I feel I’m repeating myself a bit… It’s another story of light and time… Light received with the Astrolabe… Light created with the Luchrones…
But the earth is not forgotten: it will be the project of the following years.