Hermaphroditus:   Two genders, one body

Honestly, nobody on Olympus or below felt particularly optimistic about the marriage between Aphrodite, the loveliest goddess, and Hephaestus, the least lovely god.    Apart from the beauty disparity, their respective traits were hardly conducive to domestic bliss.   Whereas Aphrodite was cheerfully sensuous and promiscuous,  Hephaestus was dour, ill-tempered, and of a jealous disposition.    One must wonder how they could have possibly have embarked on a relationship in the first place.  Simple. Zeus arranged the marriage, himself, as he wanted to reward Hephaestus for having crafted so many implements for his fellow Olympians.   Naturally, Zeus did not take Aphrodite's opinion into account.    Soon after the nuptials, Aphrodite began a series of affairs with various mortals and gods.  As she was the divinely beautiful goddess of love and sexual attraction, Aphrodite experienced little difficulty in finding eager paramours.    While most of these trysts were silly little affairs, she actually fell in love with one of her lovers:  Ares, god of war.   Though his disposition was hardly more congenial that of Hephaestus, he was far more handsome and less possessive.     They embarked on a passionate love affair for quite some time until Hephaestus, who had long suspected his wife of infidelity, ensnared Ares and Aphrodite in a trap he had set in his bed.  As the couple lay hopelessly trapped -and naked- Hephaestus came upon them and invited the Olympians to gather around them.   He was hoping to avenge this cuckoldry by humiliating Aphrodite and Ares in front of the others.   Instead, on seeing Aphrodite sans apparel Apollo, Poseidon and Hermes all developed an intense passion for her.   While Apollo and Poseidon eventually forgot about their infatuation, Hermes persisted in it.      Unfortunately for Hermes, the lust was unrequited.   This rejection caused him to lapse into  such despondency, Zeus felt compelled to intervene.    While Aphrodite was bathing in the River Achelous, Zeus deployed an eagle to steal one of her sandals and deliver it to Hermes, who was then residing in Egypt.   As soon as Helius, the all-seeing Sun god, told Aphrodite of the sandal's location, she traveled to Egypt and encountered Hermes.    He offered her the sandal in exchange for carnal favors.  Such was the sandal's worth she reluctantly complied and in so doing conceived one son, Hermaphroditus,    Unsurprisingly, he matured quickly and became a stunningly handsome young man.      Many loved him ardently, but none so much as the naiad Salmacis.    One day Hermaphroditus bathed in a pool that Salmacis often frequented.   When she spied him lounging in the waters, she dove up through the pool and attached herself to him.   Hermaphroditus struggled to escape her grasp, but to no avail.     Salmacis then prayed to Poseidon to make them one forever.   He fulfilled her wish by literally conjoining them into one being possessed of both male and female parts.     Though powerless to disentangle himself from the naiad, Hermaphroditus prayed that any man who bathed in the pool would undergo a similar conversion.    Thus, that remote pool forever more retained the power to transform men into hermaphrodites.    How many men underwent this transformation remains unknown.  

THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM

207-780-4249   www.usm.maine.edu/planet

70 Falmouth Street   Portland, Maine 04103

43.6667° N                   70.2667° W 

Altitude:  10 feet below sea level

Founded January 1970

Julian Date: 24591138.16

2020-2021:  XXXI

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Remote Planetarium 109:  General Relativity V:   Questions

If matter and energy are the same, can energy affect space-time in the same way that matter does?  -L.M.

Matter is a form of energy,  However, unlike matter, energy lacks any inertia, or resistance to changes in its motion.    As matter possesses inertia, it will warp its local space-time regions in ways that energy cannot.  

A light beam's path is deflected by massive objects.  However, a light beam will not distort space-time, itself.

Let's pretend that the Sun vanished from the Universe in an instant.     Would Earth fall out of its orbit immediately or would it take some time?  -J.S.

This question pertains to gravity waves, a topic we'll be discussing in greater detail Monday.    The answer is that gravity waves travel at light speed.  So, for instance, if the Sun vanished from the cosmos instantaneously, Earth would remain under its gravitational influence for the next 8.4 minutes, the amount of time light requires to travel between the Sun and Earth.         Earth would then start to move along a path tangential to its previous orbit.

Is it true that in General Relativity, a massive object's gravitational influence doesn't extend infinitely?   -C.W.

Yes.  According to GR, a massive object's gravitational influence will not extend beyond the level of galaxy groups.      On scales smaller than these groups, spacetime exhibits similar behaviors to Newtonian gravity.    (From a Newtonian perspective, gravity is of infinite extent.)      However, at the level of galaxy groups, the galaxies are moving apart as a consequence of cosmic expansion. Moreover, this expansion rate is increasing due to the influence of dark energy.   At this level, spacetime wouldn't behave like Newtonian gravity.

A massive object's gravitational influence will not extend beyond the level of galaxy groups according to General Relativity.    

Will I really age faster if I live at the top of a building than in its basement?

-J.W.

Yes, but the effect will be slight.     A person at the top of a building will be farther from Earth than a person in its basement.  Consequently, time will be slower for the observer lower down in the building than higher up.    However, you won't experience that much more time than the subject farther down:  nanoseconds per year, only....hardly noticeable.

To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Daily Astronomer:

https://lists.maine.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=DAILY-ASTRONOMER&A=