The Elephant in the Room

1. The Elephant in the Room Philip Edwards (ISAS 1994-2006) (ATNF 2006-)

2. HirabayashiakaHirax

3. Secret agent?

4. The thrash metal band Hirax was formed in California in 1984

5. The Language Instinct “The elephant’s trunk is six feet long and one foot thick and contains sixty thousand muscles. … Elephants are the only living animals that possess this extraordinary organ. Their closest living terrestrial relative is the hyrax, a mammal that you would probably not be able to tell from a large guinea pig.” Steven Pinker

6. HyraxinSagamihara! Several hyrax live in the small Zoo in Sagamihara Park, easily located by the optical pulsar visible from Hirax’s old offices.

7. The word "rabbit, or "hare" was used instead of "hyrax" many times in some earlier English Bible translations. European translators of those times had no knowledge of the hyrax, and therefore no name for them. There are references to hyraxes in the Old Testament.

8. Spain • Early Phoenician navigators mistook the rabbits of the Iberian Peninsula for hyraxes (Hebrew Shaphan); hence they named it I-Shapan-im, meaning "land of the hyraxes", which possibly became the Latin word "Hispania", the root of Spain's modern Spanish name España and the English name Spain.

9. “Blind monks examining an elephant", an 1888 ukiyo-e print by Hanabusa Itchō.

10. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; • the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; • the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; • the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and • the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe. • and the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan;

11. Kanreki

12. Elephants in Sagamihara!

13. Zou-san, zou-san O-hana ga nagai no ne Sou-yo kaa-san mo nagai no yo Little elephant, little elephant You have a long, long nose Yes, sir, my mother has a long nose too Zou-san Memorably performed by the JPL space-VLBI choir in the mid-1990s

14. Elephants in Japan

15. Elephants in India

16. Elephants, elephants everywhere!

17. Sumo

18. Kendo

19. The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396) APOD 010720

20. VSOP News 115 (19 May 2000) • SAGAMIHARA Sagamihara city, in Kanagawa prefecture, is home to the main campus of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). The astronomical links with the city were commemorated recently with minor planet (7435) being named "Sagamihara". The minor planet was discovered by K. Endate and K. Watanabe in 1994. The official citation for the naming of the minor planet notes ISAS's presence in the city and specifically mentions HALCA as being an ISAS satellite. …although (6390) bears the name Hirabayashi, there is no connection to the VSOP Project Scientist!

21. VSOP News no. 20 (15 Sep 1995) • A NEW CLASS OF RADIO SOURCE? The award for best joke of the SWG meeting goes to Esko Valtaoja. In describing the pitfalls of conducting a survey program without ground-based monitoring support, Esko gave the illustration of a new class of radio sources waiting to be ‘discovered’. These, he suggested, could be called HIghly RAdiating unknown sources -- HIRAXes!

22. Conclusions • Life is a journey into the unknown

23. Conclusions • Life is a journey into the unknown • And in trying to make sense of the unknown

24. Conclusions • Life is a journey into the unknown • And in trying to make sense of the unknown • And in randomly encountering elephants