All in all, can one think of a subject more deserving of the philosopher's meditation than the enormous increase in the number of stars as well as in the number of cosmic radiations and energies whose record we owe to photography? Such breathtaking progress would, on deeper consideration, seem to suggest a truly odd prospect. Will it not be necessary henceforth to define the Universe as the simple product of whatever means we have at our disposal in a given era of bringing within the human ken events that are infinitely various or remotely distant? If the number of stars should strictly depend on whatever methods we invent to compute and number them, and if we reckon the future in terms of recent achievements, then it could almost be said that the numeration of the Universe is a function of time.
Valéry, Centenary of Photography
