Vast Distances: Five Thousand Years of Communicative Disasters in Astronomy

Aleks Scholz

Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences and arguably the oldest collaborative endeavor in the history of mankind. It is also the history of not being able to talk to each other, not talking to each other, ignoring each other, and destroying each other. This talk is about the evolution of the geographical, technological and psychological factors that prevent us from knowing more about everything.