3 ms·

Maybe not a useful term for science but what's wrong with a fun celebratory event? The general population isn't interested enough to tolerate news stories abou

Maybe not a useful term for science but what's wrong with a fun celebratory event? The general population isn't interested enough to tolerate news stories about every full moon but they aren't so uninterested as to want zero coverage. If people want to be reminded to go out and look up every once in a while and have a minor social event on the Internet where people are looking at and sharing photos and articles with friends and strangers from all over the world, supermoons and lunar eclipses happen at a frequency that's pretty good for that, and why not have a fun name as well?

gus_massa 11y ago
I don't think it's good to mix science and lies, even to make something more interesting to the people. Science tries to distil the true, it's not easy, it's full of error, it's full of egos and scientific politics, ..., but if the objective is not the true it's not longer science. For example, yesterday I saw a news coverage that discussed the relation between the lunar eclipse, the "supermoon" and the zodiac signs. (Do you know the zodiac signs are changing this night? Or it was yesterday? Anyway I think there are a few zodiac calendars with small differences at the borders.) Even if the zodiac thing makes the new more interesting, it's bad to mix it with the real scientific facts.
- furyofantares 11y ago
  I think I see two differences in perspective that may be leading to communication errors. First, I don't see lies OR the science here -- I don't see anyone trying to imply that this is scientifically meaningful, I just see people enjoying a group event of looking at the moon. I suppose I am not sure why it is on Hacker News, though. It's fun, and it is related to intellectual curiosities, but it is not an intellectual curiosity itself. And second, when you say "even to make something more interesting to the people", it makes me think we have a different perspective on the cause here. I'm not advocating pushing a supermoon agenda in the name of getting people interested. I'm observing that people are interested in this event and choosing not to shit on their parade. If they start telling me to make life decisions based on the supermoon or any other astrology, that is another matter. I do have a different opinion about the mercury retrograde events, for example -- those I see framed entirely in astrological terms by people who are not using the opportunity to look up or share pictures, who don't even understand why apparent retrograde motion occurs. I don't think that's the same thing.
dalke 11y ago
There's a quote attributed to Rutherford that “In science there is only physics; everything else is stamp collecting.” (See http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26219.html http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26219.html for a citation.) When I was in school we had to learn the organs of the body, the parts of a cell, and other seemingly arbitrary terms. This comes from an old tradition where "science" was roughly equivalent to "knowing names." I also grew up in an area where evolution was a contentious topic. The teacher only covered it for one day. But it's evolution which tied together the individual fields of 'botany' and 'anatomy' and 'bacteriology' into 'biology.' Evolution is what makes Rutherford's views wrong. Words like "supermoon" and also "blue moon" fall into that category of meaningless terms that sound scientific but are little more than numerology, and not backed by any deeper meaning. I have no problems getting together for a 'fun celebratory event'. I celebrate on New Year's eve like many others. I've been at fun celebratory events for meteor showers, and for other eclipses. What I have problems with is justifying it with essentially an arbitrary and meaningless definition. Why is a "supermoon" at the 90% size threshold? Why not 95% Or 99%? By comparison, the New Year is also arbitrary, but not meaningless, as the history of the calendar shows.
- mikeash 11y ago
  It's no coincidence that the people I see making a big deal about "supermoon" and that are also the people talking about crossing the galactic plane, how you need to be prepared for emotional problems as Mercury goes retrograde, and similar nonsense. To directly address the grandparent, there's nothing wrong with a fun celebratory event, but that's not what this is. If we could somehow turn it into one while retaining the term, I'd be fine with that.
  - furyofantares 11y ago
    Maybe we should just start celebrating Mercury retrograde ourselves. It's Mercury retrograde, and it's time to celebrate math and science and reflect on the past! Long ago, humans looked up and it was pretty obvious everything revolved around the Earth. But then a few things go backwards at regular intervals, what's up with that? Explained by gods, by platonic solids, by complicated cosmic gears, it was a long standing puzzle. But after much puzzling, there was a realization that everything is much simpler and makes more sense if the sun is the center of the solar system, leading to the predictive physics that drives technology today! Quite the revolution -- and that's no accidental pun, it's the origin of this secondary meaning of the word "revolution". How inspiring -- let's not let this inspiration go to waste, let's use it to reflect on our past relationships in our own lives, to revisit our past conclusions and see them in a new light, to have compassion for our past selves who had not yet not acquired the knowledge we have now. And while we're at it, let's celebrate the discovery that gravity is a force that drops off extremely fast -- proportional to the square of the distance between two objects. Great news for us, because it means there is less gravitational attraction between me and Mercury when Mercury is closest than there is between me and the person sitting next to me, giving me plenty of opportunity to look at Mercury and be affected only by its light and the thoughts it inspires in me rather than hurled out of the solar system or into the Sun.
hugh4 11y ago
Yes, but people are inevitably disappointed by the "Supermoon", which isn't really noticeably larger or brighter than it would be at any other time. If you woke up from a coma and looked at the moon, would you be able to tell if it were super- or not?
DanBC 11y ago
But people would be better if the moon isn't full. You get to see more on the moon, and you get to see more in the rest of the sky.
- sixbrx 11y ago
  This is a good point, for those who might be interested enough by the hoopla to be trying to see it through someone's telescope. Full moon is the worst time to view the moon through a telescope. Everything is washed out and lacks shadows that give the terrain a 3-D perspective.

gus_massa 11y ago

I don't think it's good to mix science and lies, even to make something more interesting to the people. Science tries to distil the true, it's not easy, it's full of error, it's full of egos and scientific politics, ..., but if the objective is not the true it's not longer science. For example, yesterday I saw a news coverage that discussed the relation between the lunar eclipse, the "supermoon" and the zodiac signs. (Do you know the zodiac signs are changing this night? Or it was yesterday? Anyway I think there are a few zodiac calendars with small differences at the borders.) Even if the zodiac thing makes the new more interesting, it's bad to mix it with the real scientific facts.

furyofantares 11y ago
I think I see two differences in perspective that may be leading to communication errors. First, I don't see lies OR the science here -- I don't see anyone trying to imply that this is scientifically meaningful, I just see people enjoying a group event of looking at the moon. I suppose I am not sure why it is on Hacker News, though. It's fun, and it is related to intellectual curiosities, but it is not an intellectual curiosity itself. And second, when you say "even to make something more interesting to the people", it makes me think we have a different perspective on the cause here. I'm not advocating pushing a supermoon agenda in the name of getting people interested. I'm observing that people are interested in this event and choosing not to shit on their parade. If they start telling me to make life decisions based on the supermoon or any other astrology, that is another matter. I do have a different opinion about the mercury retrograde events, for example -- those I see framed entirely in astrological terms by people who are not using the opportunity to look up or share pictures, who don't even understand why apparent retrograde motion occurs. I don't think that's the same thing.

dalke 11y ago

There's a quote attributed to Rutherford that “In science there is only physics; everything else is stamp collecting.” (See http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26219.html http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26219.html for a citation.) When I was in school we had to learn the organs of the body, the parts of a cell, and other seemingly arbitrary terms. This comes from an old tradition where "science" was roughly equivalent to "knowing names." I also grew up in an area where evolution was a contentious topic. The teacher only covered it for one day. But it's evolution which tied together the individual fields of 'botany' and 'anatomy' and 'bacteriology' into 'biology.' Evolution is what makes Rutherford's views wrong. Words like "supermoon" and also "blue moon" fall into that category of meaningless terms that sound scientific but are little more than numerology, and not backed by any deeper meaning. I have no problems getting together for a 'fun celebratory event'. I celebrate on New Year's eve like many others. I've been at fun celebratory events for meteor showers, and for other eclipses. What I have problems with is justifying it with essentially an arbitrary and meaningless definition. Why is a "supermoon" at the 90% size threshold? Why not 95% Or 99%? By comparison, the New Year is also arbitrary, but not meaningless, as the history of the calendar shows.

mikeash 11y ago
It's no coincidence that the people I see making a big deal about "supermoon" and that are also the people talking about crossing the galactic plane, how you need to be prepared for emotional problems as Mercury goes retrograde, and similar nonsense. To directly address the grandparent, there's nothing wrong with a fun celebratory event, but that's not what this is. If we could somehow turn it into one while retaining the term, I'd be fine with that.
- furyofantares 11y ago
  Maybe we should just start celebrating Mercury retrograde ourselves. It's Mercury retrograde, and it's time to celebrate math and science and reflect on the past! Long ago, humans looked up and it was pretty obvious everything revolved around the Earth. But then a few things go backwards at regular intervals, what's up with that? Explained by gods, by platonic solids, by complicated cosmic gears, it was a long standing puzzle. But after much puzzling, there was a realization that everything is much simpler and makes more sense if the sun is the center of the solar system, leading to the predictive physics that drives technology today! Quite the revolution -- and that's no accidental pun, it's the origin of this secondary meaning of the word "revolution". How inspiring -- let's not let this inspiration go to waste, let's use it to reflect on our past relationships in our own lives, to revisit our past conclusions and see them in a new light, to have compassion for our past selves who had not yet not acquired the knowledge we have now. And while we're at it, let's celebrate the discovery that gravity is a force that drops off extremely fast -- proportional to the square of the distance between two objects. Great news for us, because it means there is less gravitational attraction between me and Mercury when Mercury is closest than there is between me and the person sitting next to me, giving me plenty of opportunity to look at Mercury and be affected only by its light and the thoughts it inspires in me rather than hurled out of the solar system or into the Sun.

hugh4 11y ago

Yes, but people are inevitably disappointed by the "Supermoon", which isn't really noticeably larger or brighter than it would be at any other time. If you woke up from a coma and looked at the moon, would you be able to tell if it were super- or not?

DanBC 11y ago

But people would be better if the moon isn't full. You get to see more on the moon, and you get to see more in the rest of the sky.

sixbrx 11y ago
This is a good point, for those who might be interested enough by the hoopla to be trying to see it through someone's telescope. Full moon is the worst time to view the moon through a telescope. Everything is washed out and lacks shadows that give the terrain a 3-D perspective.