CPNN

. EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article sent to CPNN from J.S. Sadin

In 2015 I needed to accurately reproduce a peace sign for a project. Searching the Internet for imagery I selected a thick lined peace sign posted on Wikimedia Commons representing the iconic image from the 1960s anti-war movement. A few measurements led to A Proportional Peace Sign specification enabling anyone to create a peace sign of any size. (image 1 below)

Later I learned the peace sign was originally created in 1958 by an English graphic designer, Gerald Holtom. It was adopted as the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo. Holtom based his design on a composite of the semaphore flag positions for the letters ’N’ (a downward facing ‘V’) and ‘D’ (a vertical line) for Nuclear Disarmament, all within a circle.

(click on image to enlarge)

In 2024 I heard NASA positioned the James Web Space Telescope on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun, at a location in space called Lagrange point 2 (L2), because L2 is a gravitationally stable point in space, which means it takes minimal fuel to keep the Web telescope (or any satellite) correctly positioned.

There are five Lagrange points on or near the orbit of Earth around the Sun. It turns out there are also five unique Lagrange points like this on and near the orbit of each planet in our solar system, and the orbit of every planet orbiting every star in the Universe, because the laws of physics defining Lagrange points are universal. (image 2 above)

Lagrange point history began around 1750, when Lagrange points L1, 2 and 3 were discovered by Leonhard Euler, a Swiss mathematician. The remaining Lagrange points, L4 and 5, were then discovered a decade later by Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the Italian mathematician, physicist and astronomer, who later worked out the details in his “three-body problem” essay, published in 1772.

Nearly two centuries later, in the late 1950’s, the post-war nuclear arms race was well underway. Average people began pushing back against the existential danger posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Gerald Holtom’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo could have been based on any number of things, but his creative decision to combine elements of the semaphore system used for nautical and emergency communication led to what eventually became the iconic peace sign.

It’s notable that these unrelated histories, separated by hundreds of years, produced remarkably similar symbols: one intentionally, the other inherently. Many of us might not even notice the differences; a coincidence that nearly defies explanation: What are the odds that a peace sign, a symbol representing the absence of war, would exist in every two-body system in the Universe?

Today, the changes we’re witnessing on the world stage are jarring and disruptive. The international rules- based order established eighty years ago by the U.S. after WWII is faltering, and mid-power nations are reconsidering security alliances thought to be iron clad. They know historically chaos can breed chaos, forcing some to begin rearming while Russia, China and America eye regional opportunities created by events, increasing the odds of conflict.

Life is the animate of the inanimate of the infinite, existing only on Earth. By any measure life is the most precious thing in the Universe. The next war this world is capable of delivering upon itself would be devastating to civilization and higher forms of life. And while the world will turn with or without us, we have a stake in humanities future for our children and their children’s children. All of us living today owe our descendants a peaceful clean planet, and peace is the precondition to equitably share the only world we may ever know.

A coincidental symbol resembling Holtom’s original may simply be a sign more peace is our only hope. (image 3 below)

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