Red Shift Painting

Red Shift noun ASTRONOMY 1. the displacement of spectral lines towards longer wavelengths (the red end of the spectrum) in radiation from distant galaxies and celestial objects. This is interpreted as a Doppler shift that is proportional to the velocity of recession and thus to distance. (Oxford) The phenomenon described in the above definition has been one of the primary tools used by humanity to understand our universe. It’s become a measurement with which to make calculations for exact distances, speeds and trajectories, albeit dealing in numbers so large that they loose all real meaning to us. For there is nothing scarier to us as a species than an un-measurable or unknown quantity. Just as the diver passes over the point between the observable spectrum and the abyss beyond, mankind throws itself from the proverbial ledge into the vastness of a universe that we still barely understand. Whether she is passing the limits of human knowledge or, for instance, a literal event horizon of a black hole, both are equally hostile to man’s insatiable thirst to quantify and categorise. Whether or not the truth of the matter fits in to the neat little boxes which we have constructed for it.