It’s fun to look for meanings when there are none. We do it all the time. We chalk up athletic victories to such things as aura and mystique. Chance meetings with old friends must be the work of fate, something “meant to be.”
The list of variables willfully applied to any event can be so overwhelming that the 14th century English philosopher William of Ockham suggested that “entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.” Today, we call it Occam’s Razor. In modern terms it means that the simplest solution is usually the right one.
The ancients of various civilizations, without any scientific tools to decipher what they saw in the sky, gave names to the stars that seemed to mirror life on earth. Why not? They looked at the sky and saw the same gods and monsters, creatures of the land and of the sea that seemed to fill their everyday lives. Sometimes, their interpretations aligned with that of others. Often, they didn’t. Doesn’t matter. We now have a mishmash of names—Latin, Greek, Arabic—for all of the objects far beyond our planet. That’s fine; there’s room for all.
Throughout December, almost directly overhead, is a star that has puzzled many from across the globe. It’s in the constellation Perseus, a hero from Greek Mythology. The star is called Algol, an Arabic word for the head of the ghost, or ghoul. Some have labeled it the Demon Star. It is possibly the most well-known variable star. During a very stable cycle that repeats about every three days, it changes drastically to become three times brighter before dimming once again.
It wasn’t until the late 1800s that scientists were able to determine why the star acted so strangely. Before that, it seemed perfectly appropriate to attribute its rapidly altering appearance to something quite nefarious. But ultimately, astronomers came to the very sane conclusion that Algol wasn’t one but, rather, two stars trapped by gravity in an eternal dance. One orbits the other. Occam’s Razor indeed.
Every time the brighter of the two stars is eclipsed, or partially blocked from our view, by the other member of the binary system, the total light from both decreases. No need for mythology. No need for an occult tale. Does that make it more interesting, or less? When legend becomes fact, should we revert to the legend because there’s comfort to be had in all of those “hand-me-down” stories that have helped to explain the unexplainable?
It’s sometimes very hard to accept that something we’ve long believed in is simply not true, that all of the explanations that we’ve come to wrap ourselves within are no longer valid. There is nothing mysterious about Algol. That shouldn’t make us turn away. I would argue that the scientific explanation is actually more fascinating because it unveils the wonder of reality without any embellishment.
We go through many challenging moments in our lifetimes, and we try to find a semblance of reason and logic for each, though we sometimes fall short of that goal. In difficult times we may feel compelled to go beyond reason and logic. We certainly are experiencing difficult times right now with wars, famine, drought, and extreme weather, along with a wealth of disinformation about so many things.
That’s why, I think, Algol provides a worthy lesson. Mythology tells us that Perseus decapitated Medusa, she with the head of snakes instead of hair. Algol is the ghostly remains of that frightful sight, the head of the ghoul. However, there’s a lot more to that story including, at its core, themes of vanity, jealousy and revenge. Ah, the lengths we go to influence behavior, and the means we’ll use to succeed at that quest.
As we discover more of the science behind what we see in the night sky, we’re reminded, quite frequently, that truth can be hidden for any number of reasons. The men who discovered the answer to Algol’s ever-changing brightness found that truth wound up being the answer that made the most sense. It was that simple. If we are looking to make sense of things today, truth can get us there.