God’s Black Box

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder

This is a 54″ Rubik’s cube consisting of a middle 18″ x 18″ x 36″ rectangular box, and (25) individual 18″ x 18″ x 18″ cubes suspended and attached to each other with 1 1/8″ ring magnets. (45) 16″ x 16″ cube surfaces are covered with (15) photographs, repeated (3) times, taken with the Hubble telescope. All of the photographs are in the public domain with authors attributed.

“It turns out to be very difficult to devise a theory to describe the universe all in one go. Instead, we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories. Each of these partial theories describes and predicts a certain limited class of observations, neglecting the effects of other quantities, or representing them by simple sets of numbers. It may be that this approach is completely wrong. If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation. Nevertheless, it is certainly the way that we have made progress in the past. The classic example that tells us how the universe changes with time. (If we know what the universe is like at any one time, these physical laws tell us how it will look at any later time.) Second, there is the question of the initial state of the universe. Some people feel that science should be concerned with only the first part; they regard the question of the initial situation as a matter for metaphysics or religion. They would say that God, being omnipotent, could have started the universe off any way he wanted. That may be so, but in that case he also could have made it develop in a completely arbitrary way. Yet it appears that he chose to make it evolve in a very regular way according to certain laws.”

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. UK, Bantam Dell, 1988, pg. 23

1. Lagoon Nebula: By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68436940
2. Bubble Nebula: By NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team – http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1608a/ (direct link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73813054
3. Horsehead Nebula: By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25666692
4. Mystic Mountain Nebula: By NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) – http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13/image/a/ (direct link)http://spacetelescope.org/images/heic1007a/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10105802
5. Perseus Galaxy Cluster By NASA’;s Goddard Space Flight Center/Stephen Walker et al. – Gigantic Wave Discovered in Perseus Galaxy Cluster; see also https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/scientists-find-giant-wave-rolling-through-the-perseus-galaxy-cluster, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69017125
6. NGC 4298 & NGC 4302: By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58194559
7. Monkey Head Nebula: By ESA/Hubble & NASA – http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1106a/, Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2174
8. Westerlund: By NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team – http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/a/warn/ (image source); see also http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1509a/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39769712
9. Veil Nebula: By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43887792
10. Orion Nebula: By ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA – http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1006a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22447251Domain
11. NGC 6302 (also known as the Bug Nebula, Butterfly Nebula, or Caldwell 69) is a bipolar planetary nebula in theconstellation Scorpius.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6302#/media/File:NGC_6302_Hubble_2009.full.jpg
12. Eagle Nebula: By Göran Nilsson & The Liverpool Telescope – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63296062
13. :V838 Monocerotis as seen by the en:Hubble Space Telescope in November 2005.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V838_Monocerotis_light_echo_(HST,_November_2005).jpg
14. NGC 2070: NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O’Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee – http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/32/image/a/ (direct link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8819141
15. Whirlpool Nebula: By NASA and European Space Agency – http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050428.htmlSOURCE OF 2ND VERSION: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0506a/ also bigger versions up to about 12000×8000 pixel available, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3863746