Riding the Cosmic Turtle

The tortoise swimming beneath time

The World Turtle story

According to ancient myths from places as far apart as China, America and India the world rests on top of an giant tortoise, with names from Akūpāra or Chukwa ( Hindu) to Ao ( China) and other long forgotten names.

It is also called the Cosmic turtle and all we know and understand is resting on its back as it drift through the sea of time, according to the legends

Modern physics has its own version of the “turtles all the way down” (Wikipedia) , with it own many sources of origin.

In short a scientist lecturing about the solar system are stopped by an little old lady, that corrects him…

Here in Stephen Hawkins (In a short history of time) version:

“He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!” ( link)

The “Turtles all the way down” has long been a popular name used for the theory of infinite regress. That no matter how much we zoom in there will be more realities and another sub-particle or turtle beneath.

I heard the story about the turtles a long ago and the image of the world bearing turtle stay with me, as I walk on

Keywords: logbook, storyline grid, storylinegrid, sketchbook, diary, notes

Log, text and illustrations by Frits Ahlefeldt. FritsAhlefeldt.com