Full Moon in Virgo — March 16, 2014, 17:08 UT

The Full Moon in Virgo on March 16, 2014, conjoined a trans-Neptunian minor planet named Logos. This proved to be a Logian moment, as on the following day the media announced a spectacular discovery: the scientists have found the signal left in the sky by the rapid expansion of space that occurred just fractions of a second after the Big Bang.

Heraclitus (ca. 535 – 475 BCE), a Greek philosopher, claimed that everything originates out of the logos.

58534 Logos is a binary object with an orbital period of almost 303 years. A binary planet consists of two objects that are similar in mass and orbit to one another. Each orbits the other around a gravitational balance point that is between the two. The point is called the center of mass, or the barycenter. The pair may have been born like twins, or may be produced by a collision, where a single body is split in two. The number of trans-Neptunian binaries (TNBs) with known mutual orbits has expanded fast in recent years.

58534 Logos was discovered in 1997 and its binary companion Zoe in 2001. The name of the pair comes from the creation myth of the gnostic traditions. The Greek word logos is commonly translated as “word”, but it can mean “speech”, “plan”, “formula”, “account”, and “reason”. Ancient philosophers used the term in different ways. The name Zoe means “life”.

Heraclitus established the term logos in Western philosophy. His main doctrine was the unity of opposites. He thought that all things are composed of opposites, and because the opposites are at strife with one another, all things are in constant change. The change is governed by logos, a principle of order.

In English, the word logos is the root of “log” (as in record) and of “logic.” Logic is a special area of philosophy and it has many branches. In ancient times the motivation for the study of logic was to learn to distinguish good arguments from bad ones, and to become more effective in argument. Logic is the essence of critical thinking, which is not necessarily anything critical in the negative sense of the word. Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally. It enables one to analyze, evaluate, and restructure one’s thinking. Fair-minded critical thinking requires intellectual humility, empathy, integrity, courage and other intellectual traits. Critical thinking without these traits may result in clever, but manipulative thought serving unethical purposes.

In later times formal logic has been studied in the context of mathematics. The development of formal logic and its implementation in computing machinery is the foundation of computer science. Computers can be used as tools for logicians, and logic is essential for scientists.

The following persons have a Sun-Logos conjunction in their chart:

Rene Descartes (March 31, 1596 – Feb. 11, 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer. He is credited as “the father of modern philosophy”. Analytic geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, has been attributed to Descartes. He is also regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences. Descartes had a Sun-Logos conjunction in Aries.

According to a study carried out in Helsinki in 2013, Esko Valtaoja (June 20, 1951 – ) is the most notable Finnish scientist. He is an astronomer and writer, who works as a professor at the University of Turku. He has ability to present complex scientific theories in a manner that is both understandable and entertaining to the general audience. Esko Valtaoja has a tight Sun-Logos conjunction in Gemini.

Louis Braille (Jan. 4, 1809 – Jan. 6, 1852) was a French educator and inventor of a system of reading and writing for use by the blind, known worldwide as braille. The system consists of a code of small raised dots that can be felt on paper. Louis Braille himself had gone blind in his childhood. Braille’s Sun-Logos conjunction was in Capricorn.

Thomas Alva Edison (Feb. 11, 1847 – Oct. 18, 1931), the American inventor, who patented over a thousand inventions, had a triple conjunction of the Sun, Mercury and Logos in Aquarius. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention. In his youth, before his career as an inventor and a businessman, Edison was a telegraph operator.

Galileo Galilei (Feb. 15, 1564 – Jan. 8, 1642), the Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, has been called the “father of science”. Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. He wrote: “Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe… It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures.” Galileo’s Sun-Logos conjunction was in Pisces.

Another scientist with the Sun-Logos conjunction in Pisces, was Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – Apr.18, 1955). His name has been synonymous with genius. He developed the general theory of relativity. Einstein also came up with the idea of gravitational waves, the subject of the sensational science news in the last couple of days. He predicted that violent events should trigger gravitational waves, which would set space rippling. Direct evidence to prove his theory has been missing so far. The astounding findings, which were announced just after the Virgo Full Moon, are offering the first direct evidence of those waves.

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