The First Epoch

In the shadow of Pushkin's Golden Age, Russia's eighteenth-century culture was relegated to an obscurity hardly befitting its actually radical legacy. Why did nineteenth-century Russians put the eighteenth century so quickly behind them? How does a meaningful present become a seemingly meaningless past? Interpreting texts by Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Pushkin, Viazemsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and others, Luba Golburt finds surprising answers.

The dawn of the first stars, galaxies and black holes signaled a fundamental milestone in our Universe’s evolution: the Epoch of Reionization. The light from these galactic ancestors began spreading out, ionizing virtually every atom in existence. Our Universe transitioned from darkness to light, from cold to hot, from simple and boring to the wondrous cosmic zoo we see around us today. Despite its importance, observations of reionization have been few, and their interpretation has been highly controversial. Fortunately, this is rapidly changing. We will soon enter the "Big Data” era of this mysterious epoch, driven by an upcoming wave of observations with state-of-the-art telescopes as well as new sophisticated analysis tools. The aim of this volume is to summarize the current status and future outlook of the reionization field. We bring together leading experts in many sub-disciplines, highlighting the measurements that will illuminate our understanding of reionization and the cosmic dawn: (i) 21cm interferometry; (ii) high-redshift quasar spectra; (iii) high-redshift galaxy surveys; (iv) primary and secondary anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background; (v) high-resolution studies of the metal content of early galaxies. We seek a roadmap to interpreting the wealth of upcoming observations. What is the best use of limited observational resources? How do we develop theoretical tools tailored for each observation? Ultimately, what will we learn about the epoch of reionization and our galactic ancestors?

In Astrological terms, the prenatal epoch starts at the moment of conception. According to the author, "the prenatal epoch is a certain moment of time, occurring approximately at the commencement of the gestative period... when the degree ascending on the eastern horizon, and the longitude of the moon thereat, interchange with the longitude of the moon and the degree ascending at birth, or their respective opposite points." (pg. 19) What this means is that your prenatal moon was your birth ascendant, and your prenatal ascendant is your birth moon, or the opposite points in the zodiac. There are four possibilities: If the natal moon is above or below the horizon at birth, and if it is increasing or decreasing in light. So what good is this? For one thing, it helps explain infant abnormalities, as well as infant mortality, in cases where there are no other astrological factors. It also aids in reading charts for multiple births: Twins, triplets, quads and quints. Closely allied to the Prenatal Epoch is the Law of Polarity, or sex. Properly calculated, the Prenatal Epoch will not only confirm the sex of the individual, it will also serve to rectify the birth-time itself. Unlike other methods of rectification, where absurdly large time changes can result, Prenatal Epoch calculations correct minor errors in clock-time, thus enabling greater precision in forecasting.