This Latin expression, carpe diem, applies to many a facet of life-some of which I write about in the following prose-poem.
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Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson set to work early in 1963 putting their radio astronomy receiving system together.  I had no idea at the time since I was 18 and studying nine matriculation subjects in the most demanding part of my formal education.  My interest in sport and girls back then far exceeded my enthusiasm for either physics or astronomy.   In the early months of 1963, as the Baha’is of the world were preparing to hold their first international election, these two American scientists, Penzias and Wilson, were most concerned about the quality of the components they were adding to the system they were developing.  It was a system they had been given to do their work and the existing components of that system had superb properties for the work they were engaged in.

These two men began a series of radio astronomical observations so as to make the best use of the careful calibration and extreme sensitivity of their system.  Of the various projects they were working on, the most technically challenging was a measurement of the radiation intensity from the Milky Way galaxy at high latitudes.1  This endeavor resulted in the accidental discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation.  Wilson gave a detailed description of the development of their system in his 1978 Nobel lecture.2    Their discovery established the Big Bang theory as the unquestionable and leading contender by far for the explanation of the origins of the universe.   For this discovery they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. -Ron Price with thanks to 1Arno Penzias, “Autobiography,” Nobelprize.org; and 2Robert Wilson, Nobel Lecture, 8 December, 1978.

The balance of opinion
was now shifting to the
Big Bang hypothesis,
just as the apex was finally
placed on this System and
that charismatic Force was
finally and fully given the
seal of good-housekeeping,
institutionalized in a unique
victory of consolidation
beyond the reach of our
understanding in these years
at the start of the tenth,
the tremendously long
final stage of history
which was finally off
and running, in the first
Plan launched to which
we were asked, yet again,
to: carpe diem--seize the day;
seize the day and go forward.1

1 This was an important part of the philosophy of the apostle Paul as expressed in  Philippians 3:7-16.  Carpe diem, seize the day, has been an important part of Baha’i philosophy as I have understood it in my life.  The Universal House of Justice wrote in its first Ridvan Message in April 1964: “we must seize the opportunities of the hour and go forward…..” Wellspring of Guidance, p.27.

Ron Price
March 26th 2006