Muir, Earth, and Turtles All the Way Down

Decorative Art by George Pettit

On Display at the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center, formerly LeConte Memorial Lodge, Yosemite, California

The quote from John Muir, emanating out of the image of Yosemite's LeConte Memorial Lodge near the top of the globe, is: "I have discovered that I also live in 'creation's dawn.' The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day."

About the Design

A well known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecutre on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun, and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady in the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told is is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate suppported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever young man, very clever," said the old lady. "but it's turtles all the way down!"

- from A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

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