Twinkle, twinkle, little star -
I know exactly what you are:
An incandescent ball of gas,
Condensing to a solid mass.Twinkle, twinkle, giant star -
I need not wonder what you are,
For seen through spectroscopic ken
You're helium and hydrogen.
-- Peter Marshall
(Quoted in Robert Ettinger's "The Prospect of Immortality." Ettinger says that Gene Lund credited it to Peter Marshall. I haven't been able to find a more direct source that confirms this.)
Edit: How do you force a line return so that a poem will read correctly? Thanks, fixed now.
Excellent! My kids get this version:
Twinkle Twinkle little star,
We all know just what you are,
You're a sun that's far away,
Far too faint to see by day
Twinkle Twinkle little star,
We all know just what you are
This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.