Who is the center of the universe?

Natural History, Dec, 2002 by Peter Brown

It takes work, as the shrinks put it, to "de-center." While I'm burrowing through, say, the fascinating details of Neil deGrasse Tyson's column about the history of the Copernican principle in astronomy (see "Delusions of Centrality," page 28), it's hard to remember that the Copernican principle applies to me, too. Only after I come up for air, after too many nights preoccupied with the minutiae of Natural History, do my family remind me that there is a world beyond the office. (To the tune of the Sesame Street song "People in Your Neighborhood," they chant, "Oh, who is the center of the universe?")

There's a lot to be said, of course, for focus and undivided attention--the upside of thinking that whatever you're doing at the moment is the most important thing in the world. It's just that the downside is self-absorption. Equally so, there's plenty to be said for the human propensity to assume that we live on a remarkable planet, at an extraordinary time in evolutionary history. We're special. But what the Copernican principle says, fundamentally, is: Not so fast. Where we live and when we live are not remarkable, from any physical point of view. We're not so special, after all. That's a hard one to swallow; at bottom, I think, it's a big part of what a lot of people don't like about science.

But the Copernican principle has also been immensely fruitful for a band of smart apes confined by a brief lifetime and a vast universe to an infinitesimally small patch of space-time. And it's the Copernican principle that will enable you to take the armchair voyages we have in store for you in this issue. With Juan Luis Arsuaga ("Requiem for a Heavyweight," page 42), you'll visit a band of proto-Neanderthals who found shelter in a Spanish cave 400,000 years ago--thanks to the fact that rates of radioactive decay at that time were much the same as they are today. (If Arsuaga's story whets your appetite, be sure to visit "The First Europeans: Treasures from the Hills of Atapuerca," a new exhibition that opens at the American Museum of Natural History on January 11, 2003.)

With Kenneth A. Nagy, you'll explore the insides of a tortoise's burrow in the desert Southwest--in fact, the insides of the tortoise itself--courtesy of the laws governing the chemistry of minerals dissolved in water (see "Dry, Dry Again," page 50). You'll go back in time 370 million years, to a coral reef preserved in what is now an Australian cliffside (see "Dodging Mass Extinction," by Rachel Wood, page 58)--thanks to experiments with what happens to rocks and shells under extreme heat and pressure. You'll even take a journey back 12 billion years, to the most distant known galaxies (see "Universe by Number," by Charles Liu, page 74), thanks to spectroscopists who have matched the spectral lines in hot gases on Earth with the spectral lines emitted by those incredibly faraway objects in space.

Deny the Copernican principle, and miss such a show? You might as well commit the ultimate solipsism and reject the Golden Rule.