John Lloyd Stephens
George Fox
Rebecca West
Act 7:59
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Luke11:51
From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
Frost in a window pane no. 2
This colorful capture of a frosted window pane captivated our editors and won this week's Creative Challenge: Macro Mystery
Chess: "John Lloyd Stephens" "George Fox" "Rebecca West"
John Lloyd Stephens (November 28, 1805–October 13, 1852) was an
American explorer, writer, and diplomat. Stephens was a pivotal figure in the rediscovery of
Maya civilization throughout
Middle America and in the planning of the
Panama railroad.
Early life
John Lloyd Stephens was born November 28, 1805, in the township of
Shrewsbury, New Jersey.
[1] He was the second son of Benjamin Stephens, a successful New Jersey merchant, and Clemence Lloyd, daughter of an eminent local judge.
[2] The following year the family moved to
New York City. There Stephens received an education in the Classics at two privately-tutored schools. At the early age of 13 he enrolled at
Columbia College, graduating at the top of his class four years later in 1822.
[3]
After working as a student-at-law for a year, he joined the
Law School at
Litchfield, Connecticut. He entered practice after finishing, and returned to
New York.
After 8 years, he embarked on a journey through
Europe in 1834, and went on to
Egypt and the
Levant, returning home in 1836. Stephens wrote several popular books about his travels and explorations.
Politics
He was recommended for the post of Ambassador to Holland in 1839, but politics prevented him from securing the post.
In 1846 he would be chosen as delegate from New York city to the State Convention of New York to revise the Constitution. He was responsible for the introduction and the adoption of a Conciliation Court at the convention.
Mesoamerican studies
Stephens read with interest early accounts of ruined cities of
Mesoamerica by such writers and explorers as
Alexander von Humboldt and
Juan Galindo.
In 1839, President
Martin Van Buren commissioned Stephens as Special
Ambassador to
Central America. While there, the government of the
Federal Republic of Central America fell apart in civil war. His
Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan gives a vivid description of some of those events which Stephens witnessed. Stephens and his traveling companion, architect and draftsman
Frederick Catherwood first came across Maya ruins at
Copán, having landed in
British Honduras (present-day
Belize). They were astonished at their findings and spent a couple weeks mapping the site. They surmised that this must have been built by some long forgotten people as they couldn't imagine the native Mayans as having lived in the city. Stephens was actually able to buy the city of Copan for a sum of $50 and had dreams of floating it down the river and into museums in The United States. They went on to
Palenque,
Uxmal, and according to Stephens, visited a total of 44 sites. Stephens and Catherwood reached Palenque in April 1840 and left in early June. They documented the Temple of the Inscriptions, the Temple of the Cross, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Foliated Cross.
[4] Of even greater importance, their book provided descriptions of several ancient Maya sites, along with illustrations by Catherwood. These were greatly superior in both amount and accuracy of depiction to the small amount of information on ancient
Mesoamerica previously published.
Stephens continued his investigations of Maya ruins with a return trip to
Yucatán which produced a further book.
His books served to inspire
Edgar Allan Poe,
[5] who also reviewed three of his travel books for the
New York Review and
Graham's Magazine.
Panama railroad
At the time England enjoyed a monopoly over the ocean navigation to and from the United States. Stephens obtained a charter from the state of New York, and incorporated the
Ocean Steam Navigation Company. The company acquired two steam ships, the
Washington and the
Hermann which made journeys to Europe.
When the
Panama Railroad Company was founded in 1849, Stephens was chosen to be Vice President. He visited
Panama and
New Granada to make arrangements for the laying of the railroad. On his way to
Bogotá, then capital of New Granada, he fell off his mule and was severely injured. He was never to recover from the effects of the accident. He returned to the United States, and was appointed President of the railroad company. He spent the next three years personally supervising the progress of the railroad. However, he suffered from a disease of the liver, and died after four months of illness at the age of forty-seven. He is buried in the
New York City Marble Cemetery.
Stephens is the subject of a biography
Maya Explorer by Victor Wolfgang Von Hagan, first published in 1947.
Bibliography
- Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land (1837)
- Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Poland (1838)
- Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, Vols. 1 & 2 (1841)
- Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vols. 1 & 2 (1843)
Cumberland Gap
Wapta Falls 
Frost in a window pane no. 2 
Old Orchard Ciel En Feu)
Grizzly Bear, Alaska
Posts
November 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pm This seems like a good time to ask a general question: so far as I can see, there is no credible alternative to the Big Bang; but it also seems that the Big Bang is not what it used to be. Where it once was mostly thought of as an absolute beginning of a singular universe from something like a mathematical singularity, it is now simply “the idea that the universe has evolved from a hot, dense, smooth initial state” without the implication that it was any way unique or inexplicable.
I’m not talking about formal models of the Big Bang, which, from my layman’s perspective, appear to be all over the place, but imaginative pictures that put the various equations in a context. What used to be physics’ answer to Let There Be Light is now spoken about more often as a stage in the on-going and perhaps interminable history of things, important to us for parochial reasons, but just another bubble in the cosmic champagne. The pictures matter, even though they are neither evidence or arguments in themselves, because they make some theories appear natural and plausible, others artificial and far fetched. What do you guys thinks about that.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm If Fred Hoyle was an advocate of the Steady-State theory, why would he work on nucleosynthesis in stars? Doesn’t the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis support the Big Bang theory by explaining how heavy elements could be created after the Big Bang?
I’m not arguing against anything you wrote; I’m just confused because you make it sound like Hoyle developed the idea of stellar nucleosynthesis *because* of his connection to the Steady-State theory.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:07 pm I was going to to write a longer comment — but now I’ll just second Jim Harrison, as I had the same thoughts while reading the post. The fact that it now seems unlikely that the big bang started from a singularity hasn’t penetrated very far into public consciousness. — “another bubble in the cosmic champagne…” - I liked that.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm joe– If you don’t believe in the Big Bang, how do you account for the existence of heavy elements? (Early BB proponents thought they could make all the elements in the early universe, but that turns out not to work.)
Jim– The Big Bang theory was always “the idea that the universe has evolved from a hot, dense, smooth initial state.” It’s to be distinguished from the “Big Bang” event itself, the singularity at the beginning of the universe — which was always speculative and mysterious, and remains so. The BB theory is in better shape than ever, as new observations help us understand how the universe evolved.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm From a pure layman’s perspective, comparing models like Steady State, which you seem to equate with creationism to things like eternal inflation, which seems to have some street cred in the scientific community, it is difficult to see why one is clearly more credible than the other from a strictly observational point of view.
Perhaps you can help clarify why I should semi-believe in eternal inflation but tell my local school board that they should no longer teach the Steady State model except in a history of science class.
I am not trying to be a wiseguy here. I just would like a brief case made based on observational evidence for Eternal Inflation and against the Steady State model. I realize they are not apples to apples. But in some ways to me Eternal Inflation somewhat echoes the Steady State model in a meta-conceptual** way.
e.
** meta-conceptual - word just made up for this post but is now being trademarked for future use
(tm) elliot tarabour 2008 all rights reserved.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:18 pm I think the big bang theory is right on. God spoke, there was a BIG BANG, and there it all was.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:40 pm Why must there have been only ONE big bang in the current universe (as opposed to others 13 billion light years or more distant)? Why not a few small bangs, creating different accelerations from various points?
November 17th, 2008 at 1:56 pm […] Het echtpaar BurbidgeHet begint langzamerhand een uitstervend ras van sterrenkundigen te worden: degenen die niet in de Big Bang geloven, de theorie dat het heelal met de oerknal is ontstaan. Eén van die sterrenkundigen is niemand minder dan Geoffrey Burbidge, die in 1957 (51 jaar geleden dus) samen met z’n vrouw Margaret Burbidge, Fred Hoyle en William Fowler een beroemd artikel schreef over nucleosynthese in sterren. Hoyle en het echtpaar Burbidge kennen we echter ook van de tegenhanger van de Big Bang-theorie: de Steady State theorie. Die stelt dat het heelal er altijd was en altijd zal blijven uitdijen. Niks oerknal, maar continue uitdijing in een eeuwig heelal. Als verklaring voor de door Edwin Hubble waargenomen uitdijing en de daaruit volgende afname van de dichtheid van het heelal geloofde men dat er continue materie in het heelal wordt gecreëerd. De steady state-theorie is niet door het echtpaar Burbidge opgesteld: hij is in maart 1948 onafhankelijk van elkaar door zowel Hermann Bondi en Thomas Gold als Fred Hoyle opgesteld als tegenhanger van de Big Bang-theorie uit onvrede met het feit dat er in die theorie een begin (een “scheppingsmoment”) wordt aangenomen. Maar Geoffrey en Margaret Burbidge zijn wel jarenlang dé verkondigers van deze theorie geweest en da’s deze week weer gebleken. De 83 jarige Geoffrey Burbidge heeft namelijk op arXiv een artikel online gezet waarin hij alle markante punten van de steady state weer eens eventjes op een rijtje zet. Hoe moet je de steady state-theorie anno 2008 inschatten? Valt er iets voor te zeggen? Mijn stelling is van niet. Ik vrees dat Burbidge en de weinige anderen tegen kosmische windmolens vechten. De aanwijzingen voor een oerknal 13,7 miljard jaar geleden zijn namelijk indrukwekkend en ik ga ze hier niet noemen, omdat ze al zo vaak in de astroblogs belicht zijn. Maar het mooie van wetenschap is dat zelfs met die stortvloed aan bewijzen en aanwijzingen je een andere mening kunt zijn toegedaan en dat je daarin wordt gerespecteerd. Niemand die Burbidge verbiedt om dat artikel te publiceren. Ook al is niemand het verder met hem eens. Beetje sneu, nietwaar? Bron: Cosmic Variance. […]
November 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm It’s a real puzzle to me how it is that someone like Burbidge (clearly a smart man) can still take the steady-state model seriously. Perhaps he is unconsciously strongly attached to it because it is his ‘baby’? If so he lacks the ability to be objective. If I recall, one of Sagan’s sayings in his ‘Baloney Detectino Kit’ is the idea that one should make every effort to *not* get too attached to an idea just because it is your own…
“And eventually support for the model will fade away entirely, opening the door for the next generation of heterodoxies.”
Right, since, well, Burbidge is quite old…
November 17th, 2008 at 2:48 pm Is there a reasonable difference between (1) ‘does not believe in the big bang’ and (2) ‘goes to great lengths to argue against the big bang in the interests of good science’?
What Burbidge believes is not really interesting, it’s whether his arguments hold up that’s the important thing.
Actually the whole question of ‘believing’ in a scientific context is quite subtle, I think.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm Of course, with arxiv, the dirty laundry of the living fossils is mixed in with real papers for all to see. Even if the paper is unpublishable, this will shamble around the internet as long as it can find a willing host.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing, but how to deal with crackpotism is something to think about.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:49 pm I’m over-whelmed. Or over-whelming. Some kind of whelmishness, for certain.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:43 pm There are also parallels between cosmology and the evolution debate over the question “how did it all begin?”
As Sean says, the Big Bang theory does not address the first cause or even that it might not be a unique event. In the same way, the theory of evolution does not address abiogenesis — how life began — or whether or not it was a unique event.
The evidence for both the Big Bang and evolution *is* overwhelming (despite what the naysayers claim) but the evidence for how it all started (in both cases) is, at best, extremely sketchy bordering on the non-existent.
Creationists like to conflate the two issues in an attempt to muddy the water for the whole field in the eyes of the general public. While it’s true that you can’t have the evolution of the Universe in general or life in particular without a beginning of some kind, the fact that we don’t know what that beginning looks like (and may never do so) doesn’t in any way invalidate or water down the mountains of evidence in support of both theories.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:57 pm It’s still the ultimate irony that Lemaitre originally proposed BBT, the primordial atom, as a way to provide scientific validity to creationism. An eternal universe just didn’t fit the narrative structure of monotheism.
November 17th, 2008 at 7:08 pm Elliot– I’m not sure what “semi-believe” means. Eternal inflation is a speculative idea about the early universe, which has some attractive features, but is far from established. It deals with an epoch about which we have very little evidence to decide things one way or another. The Steady State model concerned the current universe, made predictions, and they came out wrong. There is not much relationship between them. Remember, the primary feature of the Steady State theory is not “the universe is eternal,” it’s “the universe is unchanging” — in particular, it has always had the same temperature. That’s been ruled out a million different ways, and the remaining SS proponents have been forced to abandon nearly all of the original model.
Lily– There’s no reason why there couldn’t have been many bangs. Many of us are quite interested in the possibility, and have been investigating it.
John– I don’t think that’s right; Lemaitre always resisted drawing theological conclusions from the Big Bang. He proposed the idea because it was a consequence of general relativity.
November 17th, 2008 at 7:24 pm In the first few pages of this article, there is some useful history if you set aside Burbidge’s occasional polemical eruptions. For example, on page 5 he does answer the question posed above of what led Hoyle and B^2FH to found the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. Most of this history can be found in books, of course, but that does not make it uninteresting. But in the present paper, around page 7 we come to yet another Burbidgean idea for the origin of the CMB and for active galaxies, and the wheels come off.
Incidentally, as Burbidge points out one piece of evidence for stellar nucleosynthesis was Merrill’s detection of Tc-43. When I was a fresh-faced young postdoc at Santa Barbara Street, on the second or third day the great George Preston burst into my office and by way of introduction (his office was across the hall) announced “Did you know that this is the office in which TECHNETIUM was discovered in STARS??!”