cosmology, the hadron collider and cosmetics

I was reading Mark Lawrence's blog post about the Large Hadron Collider and wanted to leave a comment reflecting on a cosmology course I once attended. I say attended, rather than studied, because my body was there but my brain was overwhelmed by the amazing concepts the teacher revealed to us - so much so that I wasn't even sure I'd remembered the name of the course correctly. In a half-remembered state, cosmology has scary connotations of astrology.

I looked in The Free Dictionary and found cosmology defined as

The study of the physical universe considered as a totality of phenomena in time and space.
2.
a. The astrophysical study of the history, structure, and constituent dynamics of the universe.
b. A specific theory or model of this structure and these dynamics

A visit to Online Etymology Dictionary surprised me with the connection between the words cosmos and cosmetics. It's strange how often we use words from a similar root without thinking of their history.
In ancient Greek kosmos meant 'orderly arrangement', but had another sense of 'ornament, decoration, dress'.

A glance at the Collins Contemporary Greek dictionary - you never know what you'll find on a shelf in this house - comes up with κóσμημα (kosmeema) meaning decoration or jewel, and, even more interestingly to me, κόσμιος (kosmeeos), decent, modest or proper.

It's encouraging to consider that, no matter how weird daily life might seem, we're living in a universe that is supposed to be orderly and decent. If only there were some way to communicate this rule to the chaos that surrounds us, we could get on with living a predictable life.

But then again, tomorrow the Hadron Collider may suck us into a black hole.