It may have been the first time science influenced the creation of art.

“Fire and Ice,” a short poem by Robert Frost, is inspired by a passage in Canto 32 of Dante’s Inferno and an encounter with astronomer Harlow Shapley. 

When Frost asked Shapley how the world will end, Shapley responded that either the sun will explode and incinerate the Earth, or the Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end up slowly freezing in deep space. 

Read on to see how Frost has woven this information into a poem - 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.