Frustrating stories trying to teach astronomy/space

[Zeek64]

The reason that I joined this forum is so I have people to discuss astronomy and space exploration with. I find that unless you belong to an actual astronomy club, study astronomy, or are graced with friends/family thay paid attention in elementary school, you're really out of luck.

Am I the only one that has a difficult time explaining what a lightyear is to my friends?

Discuss :)

[Gillianren]

Almost all of my friends grasp the basics with very little explanation. Heck, one of them then went and explained one to someone else who is, shall we say, not the most intelligent person I know and certainly not the best-educated. It sometimes takes a little patience, but so does most teaching.

ETA--oh, yeah, and I didn't have to explain "lightyear" to any of my friends, because they already knew. So there's that.

[geonuc]

I don't think it's ever come up. But then, I have few friends that I'd discuss astronomy with.

BTW, isn't this section for BA stories?

[schlaugh]

I have had explain - to fellows holding masters degrees from well-respected universities - that the sun is a star. It's a matter of what you are exposed to in life and what holds your interest. In my experience, most people are quite satisfied that the sun simply comes up every morning. :)

[Argos]

BTW, isn't this section for BA stories?

Yep, for The Bad Astronomy stories, not mere bad astronomy stories. :) But it´s a nice thread.

[Ilya]

I have had explain - to fellows holding masters degrees from well-respected universities - that the sun is a star. It's a matter of what you are exposed to in life and what holds your interest. In my experience, most people are quite satisfied that the sun simply comes up every morning. :)
This does not speak well of "well-respected universities". At the very least, "Sun is a star" should be part of basic science requirements.

[schlaugh]

This does not speak well of "well-respected universities". At the very least, "Sun is a star" should be part of basic science requirements.

One would hope...but the evidence said otherwise.

[Zeek64]

I have had explain - to fellows holding masters degrees from well-respected universities - that the sun is a star. It's a matter of what you are exposed to in life and what holds your interest. In my experience, most people are quite satisfied that the sun simply comes up every morning. :)

I suppose you're right. It is all about what holds your interest but I've always figured that there is such thing as general knowledge and to me everyone should have a basic general knowledge of the universe amongst other things like physics, chemistry, biology, math, history, geography etc.

[billy2]

I suppose you're right. It is all about what holds your interest but I've always figured that there is such thing as general knowledge and to me everyone should have a basic general knowledge of the universe amongst other things like physics, chemistry, biology, math, history, geography etc.

Hmm. Isn't this what Dylan referred to as useless pointless knowledge. I'd rather know everything there is to know about, lets say, working with wood, than have very fragmentary knowledge on a thousand topics.

[Gillianren]

Hmm. Isn't this what Dylan referred to as useless pointless knowledge. I'd rather know everything there is to know about, lets say, working with wood, than have very fragmentary knowledge on a thousand topics.

The other is more likely to do you good in the long run; also, if you only focus on one thing, how do you know the rest isn't interesting?

[KaiYeves]

I have a problem finding people my age to talk to about space and astronomy. If only SEDS was bigger, and for High School, and with a more active forum...

[clint]

I have a problem finding people my age to talk to about space and astronomy. If only SEDS was bigger, and for High School, and with a more active forum...

I hate to be the pessimist, but it's bound to get worse :sad:
Once people get to my age, they tend to have long forgotten even the very few things they once learned about astronomy - and lost all interest, too.

[clint]

I have had explain - to fellows holding masters degrees from well-respected universities - that the sun is a star. It's a matter of what you are exposed to in life and what holds your interest. In my experience, most people are quite satisfied that the sun simply comes up every morning. :)

Yep, had that many times, too - very frustrating.
What's nice though, is catching that moment of amazement when suddenly they realize that what they are looking at every night are gazillions of other solar systems.

[Gillianren]

I hate to be the pessimist, but it's bound to get worse :sad:
Once people get to my age, they tend to have long forgotten even the very few things they once learned about astronomy - and lost all interest, too.

I don't know; it's often seemed, in my experience, possible to "catch" people of any age. You just need to tailor your hook right. There are some people, though, where it's not worth the effort.

[R.A.F.]

Once people get to my age...

What age would that be??

[KaiYeves]

We sometimes compete with this school called John Glenn High in Cross Country, which gives me the chance to make all kinds of stupid puns:

Coach: "Tomorrow, we're racing John Glenn."
Me: "That'll be easy, what is he now, 80?"

Or

Coach: "Congrats, you guys beat John Glenn."
Me: "Does that make us Yuri Gagarin?"

And it really bothers me that nobody on my team gets them.

[clint]

What age would that be??

Only 40 - but pretty old from Kai's perspective, I guess ;)

Anyway, I remember discussing these topics all the time with my friends at high school.
Now I cannot find anybody interested anymore - that's why I linger around here on BAUT :)

[KaiYeves]

Only 40 - but pretty old from Kai's perspective, I guess
That's not old, you're 11 years younger than my dad.

[Hungry4info]

"Frustrating stories trying to teach astronomy/space... "

The CT subforum is full of that. lol.

[trinitree88]

I have had explain - to fellows holding masters degrees from well-respected universities - that the sun is a star. It's a matter of what you are exposed to in life and what holds your interest. In my experience, most people are quite satisfied that the sun simply comes up every morning. :)

schlaugh. Agreed. Part of it the lack of the use of the word Earthspin. Every parent teaches their kid....watch the sunset over those mountains, watch the sunrise with me, isn't that a pretty sunset? (the most photographed object on Earth). Yet it never sets or rises. Removing the illusion, to see the Earth spin, is the first step that 99.99% never take. It should be a word learned by all elementary school teachers, but it isn't. pete

[publiusr]

We sometimes compete with this school called John Glenn High in Cross Country, which gives me the chance to make all kinds of stupid puns:

Coach: "Tomorrow, we're racing John Glenn."
Me: "That'll be easy, what is he now, 80?"

Or

Coach: "Congrats, you guys beat John Glenn."
Me: "Does that make us Yuri Gagarin?"

And it really bothers me that nobody on my team gets them.

Great stuff. I love smack talk.

Ole Miss' routine against Alabama was from the Rockettes: "One, two three, kick--one, two three, kick."
Dennis Erickson was hit so hard it knocked the quarks out of him.
"One field goal attempt was so far right it almost hit Glenn Beck." Oh well, "the next time I throw a football it will be my first time."


On topic, the term Earthspin is quite useful. I remember being quite small and understanding the motions well. One little girl had problems understanding, so I held the globe and slapped it so it would spin and walked around a table (that was round and yellow no less) that I called the sun. With the other arm being the moon, I had that go around the globe. No luck.

[KaiYeves]

We probably need two separate terms for "sunrise" and "sunset". Maybe Nightspin and Dayspin.

[EricFD]

I don't have any one particular story about how hard it is to try to explain astronomy or physics or mathematics or whatever to someone else. I'm just posting this reply because I'm sick and tired of seeing my name each and every day in the same thread. LOL ;)

Eric

[Drunk Vegan]

On topic, the term Earthspin is quite useful. I remember being quite small and understanding the motions well. One little girl had problems understanding, so I held the globe and slapped it so it would spin and walked around a table (that was round and yellow no less) that I called the sun. With the other arm being the moon, I had that go around the globe. No luck.

If the opportunity ever presents itself again, you could use a flashlight or lamp to represent the table.

As the globe spins, you could clearly see the light moving across the surface, but the source of the light staying in one spot.

I remember years back when I heard they were going to deorbit the ISS only a few years after it was completed. My sister was there and I started ranting about how important having a manned presence in space was, if we were ever going to actually go out and explore other worlds some day.

My sister was puzzled - it turns out, she was convinced that we already did visit other planets on a regular basis.

[clint]

If the opportunity ever presents itself again, you could use a flashlight or lamp to represent the table.

As the globe spins, you could clearly see the light moving across the surface, but the source of the light staying in one spot.

That's more or less how my father explained it to me.
Earth was represented by an Orange, a table tennis ball was the Moon, and a flashlight represented the Sun.

I must have been 5 or 6 years old, and I still remember my utter astonishment about that revelation :lol:
(at first, I was convinced he was joking - how could the entire Earth rotate right under my feet???)

[publiusr]

My sister was puzzled - it turns out, she was convinced that we already did visit other planets on a regular basis.

That is what is most sad of all. Some days I wish I had never watched sci-fi. It just gets your hopes up. Even after I read "The Science in Science Fiction" I was convinced that spaceflight would catch on, and we would have a better wold at least.

[KaiYeves]

A lot of people focus on the optimistic predictions that failed to come true, but people made pessimistic predictions as well. In one book from just after Sputnik's launch at my school library (We have a lot of old books), a Soviet scientist was saying that he doubted anyone would walk on the moon until 2000!

If I hadn't been in the library, I would have laughed my head off.

[EricFD]

Oh my, where do I begin?

[EricFD]

Oh, I think I have started here: http://www.bautforum.com/science-technology/80891-geology-discussion-28.html#post1621486

[clint]

In one book from just after Sputnik's launch at my school library (We have a lot of old books), a Soviet scientist was saying that he doubted anyone would walk on the moon until 2000!

Without the cold war paranoia that estimate might have been very realistic.
I don't think the Apollo program would have passed any normal safety standards and cost/benefit analyses.

It seems to me that during the space race, normal sensitivity to factors like cost and risk was literally suspended.
All that mattered was 'getting there first'.

That's also one of our challenges now that we are planning to go again:
nobody wants to assume those extraordinary levels of risk and cost anymore
(the other challenge is finding a really compelling purpose beyond just landing another person).

[KaiYeves]

But the point is, we shouldn't focus only on the optimistic predictions that failed to come true and forget that ones like that were made by prominent scientists as well.

[clint]

Ok, let's be positive, here's one that has exceeded my wildest expectations: the confirmation of hundreds of exoplanets!
That didn't seem very likely 30 years ago. Let alone starting to analyze the composition of some of their atmospheres (!)

[Barabino]

but the exoplanets are definitely out of reach... it's so tantalizing...

[dgavin]

I think i lucked out in school (with the excpetion they never discovered my dyslexia)

For a time in the 70-80's Oregon schools had elective courses like Astronomy and Aerospace, Computers, and other technology/science related classes. They were also one of the first to school systems to abandon 'Expanding Earth' text books in favor of Plate Techtonics. I remember that happening between the third and fourth grades. The teacher even explained -why- the older teaching was no longer correct. (And yes that means i'm a few years older then Clint) It was a good example for me of how the sciences tended to change as new information was leaned. Something i never forgot.

But I certainly have tried to have to explain light years to people, which at times can be frustrating. I find starting with the time 8 minutes of sun to earth helps, and then the time of sun to jupiter, and then sun to Proxima Centari.

[Tog]

I have an ongoing one. The person that owns the place where I work (and has fired people for no reasons we can determine) has developed an interest in astronomy. He calls every night and asks me about the same things over and over. Some of his questions are things like:

"What if we had 100 Hubbles up there?" He asks this about 6 times per week.

"If I had a really clear night with the best amateur scope on the market, how would that compare tot he Hubble for image quality?"

"We already know about everything there is to know about the solar system, so why are they wasting money on more probes?"

Oh, and he's a die hard creationist, so any probe that might be looking for clues to early life, and other places in the universe it might be, are a waste of time and money. Money that could be used to put more Hubbles in orbit.

[publiusr]

Hey, he might be Palin's speechwriter! Go easy on him, and keep talking him up on Ares 5 and the big scope that can put up there.

[redshifter]

We sometimes compete with this school called John Glenn High in Cross Country, which gives me the chance to make all kinds of stupid puns:

Coach: "Tomorrow, we're racing John Glenn."
Me: "That'll be easy, what is he now, 80?"

Or

Coach: "Congrats, you guys beat John Glenn."
Me: "Does that make us Yuri Gagarin?"

And it really bothers me that nobody on my team gets them.

Clever! :clap:

[closetgeek]

I hate to be the pessimist, but it's bound to get worse :sad:
Once people get to my age, they tend to have long forgotten even the very few things they once learned about astronomy - and lost all interest, too.

I go through that, too. Not only do they lose interest, they treat you like you are somehow smaller for thinking it is worth talking about. This is, really, the only place where I find people with common interests.

I can't wrap my head around large measurements like light years and parsecs (I know what they are but the distances just become nonesense in my head). One of the things I like to do is convert them to miles just to actually see numbers in the trillions and quadrillions. About a week ago, I was just looking through Hubble pics and saw M87. I decided to see the length, in miles, of the jet coming out of the galactic core. When I came to the final number I found it fascinating that I was looking at a picture of an object that was over 29 quadrillion miles long. I put the pic up and the explaination of what it was along with the length, in miles, on my facebook and the replies were, "Huh?" "You need to get a life" and one telling me that my lack of genius and zest for ** is awestriking. I even got a private mail calling me pretentious. No, taking the time to play with those numbers is not improving me, nor is it making me a better person but everyone has silly things they do with idle time. I can understand not getting it or not being interested but why the aggression?

[clint]

I can't wrap my head around large measurements like light years and parsecs (I know what they are but the distances just become nonesense in my head). One of the things I like to do is convert them to miles just to actually see numbers in the trillions and quadrillions. About a week ago, I was just looking through Hubble pics and saw M87. I decided to see the length, in miles, of the jet coming out of the galactic core. When I came to the final number I found it fascinating that I was looking at a picture of an object that was over 29 quadrillion miles long. I put the pic up and the explaination of what it was along with the length, in miles, on my facebook and the replies were, "Huh?" "You need to get a life" and one telling me that my lack of genius and zest for ** is awestriking. I even got a private mail calling me pretentious. No, taking the time to play with those numbers is not improving me, nor is it making me a better person but everyone has silly things they do with idle time. I can understand not getting it or not being interested but why the aggression?

Might not be as sexy or fashionable as cars, football or celebrity gossip.
Nevertheless, I for one find it much more interesting ;)

BTW, I had a very similar experience on Facebook:
every time I write something trivial (like "I'm really tired" or "my feet are aching") I get half a dozen answers in no time.
However, nobody has bothered to comment (yet) when I linked this video about possible life on Enceladus (http://www.ted.com/talks/carolyn_porco_could_a_saturn_moon_harbor_life.html ) a few days ago.

Mainstream interests are so frustratingly and scarily trivial...

[KaiYeves]

Have you seen that comic strip where the old man has a smartphone and he types "I just farted.", and you see all these replies saying "Hey, me too!"?

The caption is "Why Some People Should Not Be Allowed To Use Twitter".

[DippyHippy]

LOL!! I think some people should not be allowed on the internet, period.

[karadan]

I'm the only person in my office (35 people, open plan) with such a deep interest in cosmology. I had to explain a light year to one of my female colleagues the other day and it just wouldn't sink in. She's lovely but her interests are all about celebrity magazines and reality TV. I guess even though a school curriculum will include various aspects of science to all children, some may simply have zero interest in such subjects and will therefore not retain any knowledge of these things.

[danscope]

I think the root of some disinterest in science and the mechanical world is that people are too easily swayed when some fool says to them...
" yeah..... you don't need to know that stuff. No sense filling up your head with stuff you're nevah gonna need .... " .
This is the universal excuse for lazy people to out-right reject the foundation of their education: A belief in yourself and your ability to learn
along with the interest and reccognition of every opportunity to learn. It remains as the fundamental difference between the
honed intellect and the .....shrug...... non-intellect, uninterested and talentless zombies who try to pass themselves off as educated .
Just don't let them work on your brakes or babysit your children.
"and there shall be a wailing in the night and a gnashing of teeth".
The future shall be well and bright for the person who labors at his continuing education... in all areas, always aware of opportunities to improve themselves. The success of such people is most high .
" I can not live without books . " --- Thomas Jefferson