4 ms·

> solar radiation Stellar radiation. Solar implies our own local star, Sol.

• thaumasiotes 7y ago
  More intuitively, solar radiation would be radiation from the planet's local star, its sun. Radiation from our star would be stellar radiation. We're here; it isn't.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • dragonwriter 7y ago
    “Sol” is the name of our star, not whatever star happens to be closest to a given planet.
    • thaumasiotes 7y ago
      So what? The name of those little points of light in the night sky isn't "stella", but they give off stellar radiation. It's solar radiation by reference to the concept of the sun, not by reference to an entry in an astronomical catalog somewhere.
      • dragonwriter 7y ago
        > The name of those little points of light in the night sky isn't "stella" Well, yeah, the generic name for them is exactly that (well, in Latin, but that's also where Sol as the particular name for ours comes from.)
        • thaumasiotes 7y ago
          In terms of Latin, sol is just as generic as stella is. (Modulo the fact that there is only one sun.) If you want to object that "Sol" is the name of an individual star, and that "solar radiation" is named after that name, in spite of the capitalization, rather than deriving from the Latin word, then you can't really make your arguments based on what the words mean in Latin.
          • dragonwriter 7y ago
            > In terms of Latin, sol is just as generic as stella is. (With the caveat that there is only one sun.) We can argue over whether the idea of a generic label for a class that by definition has exactly one member is coherent, but I don't think that's necessary: stars that aren't the sun are stella and aren't sol, whether you take the latter to mean “Aren't the single particular entity named ‘Sol'” or “Aren’t one of the members (of which there are exactly one) of the class whose members are designated ‘sol’”. There's a reason they are “extra-solar planets” and not “other-solar planets”.
            • thaumasiotes 7y ago
              It was a class with one member at the time Latin was spoken. It's the same class now, but with many members. Once you admit that the sun is an example of a star, "sun" becomes a deictic reference. Note that "Sol" is not the English name of our sun. We call it "the Sun", at the same time that we're happy to say that planets in other stellar systems have suns of their own. "Sol" is a name internal to academic astronomy, much like the name "bufo bufo" for what are actually called "toads".
            • swarnie_ 7y ago
              Great job guys, pedantically arguing over a word and missing the whole point of the article =)