The roots of the eight-point star symbol are in early astronomy. The eight lines are symbolic of the four corners of space (north, south, east, and west) and time (two solstices and two equinoxes).
By the middle-ages, the eight-point star is widely used as a symbol in Islamic art. It is called khatim or khatim sulayman, seal of the prophets, as in signet ring. The phrase “seal of the prophets” is also used in the Koran and has particular ideological meaning for Muslims.
Abraham, the shared prophet of the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) lived in the Sumerian city of Ur. Excavations from Ur reveal early use of the eight point star, often in the form of an eight petal rosette used in jewelry or metalwork decoratation.
The Sumerians used an arrangement of lines as a symbol for both star and God. The linear eight-point star represented the goddess Inanna, Sumerian queen of the heavens and Ishtar (Astarte), the Babylonian goddess known as “The Lightbringer.” An eight-point star enclosed within a circle was the symbol for the sun god. The “Babylonian star-cult is the core and the archetype of subsequent astrology.”How does the pagan symbol for God/star transform itself into an Islamic symbol? What could the connection be between the Islamic use of the eight-point star and its uses as a symbol in Sumerian culture?
The number eight was important among Sufi mystics. “The octagon, with a ninth point in the center, is also central to the mystical symbology of Sufism. It is the seal or design which Ernest Scott says ‘reaches for the innermost secrets of man’. Meaning wholeness, power and perfection, this primary geometrical symbol is one which Sufis associate with Shambhala …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar
The current Islamic year is 1431 AH, from approximately 18 December 2009 (evening) to 6 December 2010 (evening).
Being a purely lunar calendar, it is not synchronized with the seasons. With an annual drift of 11 or 12 days, the seasonal relation is repeated approximately each 33 Islamic years.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/100723-buckyballs-largest-molecules-space-science/
Buckyballs have since been found in meteorites, Earth rocks, and candle soot. Nanotechnologists have stretched them into strong, light carbon nanotubes used in bike frames and tennis rackets. And now scientists are eyeing the molecules for superconducting materials and drug delivery.
But for decades the pure carbon spheres remained elusive in one of the places they were most expected: space.
The find - a previously unknown form of pure carbon - earned the team a Nobel Prize. (The element's two previously known pure forms are graphite and diamond.)
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/19/david-foster-wallace-s-personal-files.html
While many children are capable of conjuring imaginative tales, the grade-school Wallace has an unusual empathy for the adult double-bind of finding purpose in a job that also brings misery. The kettle hopes that a solution (“I come to you for advice”) may be found through the act of writing. All of this, heartbreakingly, is reminiscent of Wallace himself, the MacArthur-winning author of complex but emotionally gripping fictions such as Infinite Jest, who, after a lifetime spent battling depression, committed suicide in 2008.
Along with a complete Gutenberg Bible, some letters of James Joyce’s, and collections of Don DeLillo and Norman Mailer, this tale of a tea kettle in extremis now rests in the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center, as do more than 20,000 of Wallace’s other papers and books. The extended drafts of Jest and his already quite long magazine essays are all present and accounted for in Austin as well. But unlike, say, DeLillo’s papers, there’s next to no personal correspondence in the Wallace archive.
... the unfinished novel The Pale King (set to be published next spring). Less-obvious gems followed, such as Wallace’s teaching materials, and more than 300 heavily annotated books from his personal library.
Along with a complete Gutenberg Bible, some letters of James Joyce’s, and collections of Don DeLillo and Norman Mailer, this tale of a tea kettle in extremis now rests in the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center, as do more than 20,000 of Wallace’s other papers and books. The extended drafts of Jest and his already quite long magazine essays are all present and accounted for in Austin as well. But unlike, say, DeLillo’s papers, there’s next to no personal correspondence in the Wallace archive.
... the unfinished novel The Pale King (set to be published next spring). Less-obvious gems followed, such as Wallace’s teaching materials, and more than 300 heavily annotated books from his personal library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace Wallace committed suicide by hanging himself on September 12, 2008...
In an interview with The New York Times, Wallace's father reported that Wallace had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive.[9] When he experienced severe side effects from the medication, Wallace attempted to wean himself from his primary antidepressant, phenelzine.[10] On his doctor's advice, Wallace stopped taking the medication in June 2007,[9] and the depression returned. Wallace received other treatments, including electroconvulsive therapy. When he returned to phenelzine, he found it had lost its effectiveness.[10] In the months before his death, his depression became severe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwS5pEfcQNk
