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twin sun / days we did not live w/ Zhao Yanxian |
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@Atelje Zivi, Zagreb
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A few years ago, after cleaning out my grandparents's house after their death, my family found a big bag filled with my grandfather's writings. Being fond of writing myself, I had an interest in those texts and thus the bag was donated to me. I've spend days reading all those loose pages, booklets and notebooks filled with diaries, observations and stories. Some texts were written in shaky handwriting, for instance accounts of the visits of his children and grandchildren, of which there were many. Some were typed with a typemachine, for instance accounts of WWII, where he was placed in a working camp. |
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One text stood out in particular, though. It was the text my grandfather wrote about his view on the history of the universe. It was written on a long piece of graph paper folded into ten sides, the front side just empty squares, the back corresponding text. Each side of paper represents a billion years (the age of the universe had been conveniently rounded down to 10 billion years), each square approximately 1,6 million years. Of the 62500 squares on the frontside of the graph paper, only the very last one was partially painted red – my grandfather explains on the backside that that's how long humanity has existed.
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The last page of writing is dedicated to what my grandfather saw as the big problems humanity was facing, especially climate change. My grandfather did not quite know what to make of this problem – this text was written before the year 2000 –, but had heard a compelling theory on the radio: that the heating up of the earth was due to the return of the twin sun. According to this theory, every 100 million years or so this twin sun would get pretty close to Earth, heating it up to dangerous levels, contributing for example to the extinction of the dinosaurs. |
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