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The Moon as our constant companion
0:00It is our constant companion.
0:03Influencing many aspects of our culture, thought and being.
0:08Ever-present in design, art, music, science, technology, religion.
0:13But what is the Moon?
0:14It depends who you ask.
What is the Moon?
0:17The ancient Mesopotamians would speak of Nanna,
0:19the god of the Moon and creator of all things.
Ancient and modern ideas about the Moon
0:23While a present-day cosmologist might describe the
0:25stabilising influence of our Earth's tilt.
0:27And most of us picture the Moon as being
0:29closer than it actually is.
0:33Strangely, the Sun is 400 times
An "unlikely coincidence" about the Sun and Moon
0:35further away from the Earth than the Moon,
0:38and is 400 times its size.
0:40This means that, viewed from the Earth, they appear to be exactly the same size.
0:45Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov described this
0:48natural quirk as "the most unlikely coincidence imaginable".
0:53These correlations didn't go unnoticed
the Moon's effect on the tides and our state of mind?
0:56by early stargazing cultures.
0:57Notably,
0:58108 is an auspicious number for Hindus who count 108 marma points
1:02or sacred places in the body.
1:05Many believe the Moon affects our bodies
1:07We know its push and pull affects the tides, and we are organic creatures
1:11made largely of water who evolved in an ecosystem reliant on this celestial neighbour.
1:16What about the Moon's effect on our state of mind?
1:18The word lunacy is derived from the Latin word lunaticus, meaning moonstruck.
1:23Statistics do show a consistent rise in crime rates around a full Moon.
1:27Scientists prefer to attribute this to convenient light levels for the
1:30plying of nefarious activity.
1:32And it's not only our minds in question.
1:34The perceived connection between fertility and the cycles of the Moon goes back a long time.
1:38Perhaps that's just because the lunar and menstrual cycles correlate so closely.
1:42In the ancient world,
1:43the Moon was generally personified as male, with the shift of female
shift to Moon being seen as female
1:46deities and ideas happening more recently, relatively speaking.
1:52Then there's the melancholic reflective Moon.
the Moon in art
1:55Around the turn of the 18th
1:57Century as we adjusted to the brave new world of science and discovery,
2:00artists became increasingly focused on our place in the natural world.
2:04Paintings from the likes of Caspar David Friedrich and Joseph Wright of
2:08Derby turned to the Moon as a central theme.
2:11Often with small human figures their backs to
2:13the viewer in quiet reflexion.
2:18Finally in July 1969, we successfully landed two men on the Moon and we
the Moon landing in 1969
2:25discovered what she'd been silently gazing upon for all this time.
2:32So what is the Moon?
2:33Male, female, a life support system, inducer of madness, a conspiracy, a symbol of peace.
final reflections
2:39What if it's all these things, embodying
2:42all the light and shade of human experience?
2:47It seems the Moon is whatever we choose to see.
2:51A constant reflexion of us.