5 ms·

When I was 5 years old, I saw a pbs documentary about the Arecibo telescope. During a shot of a huge expanse of the telescope's metal, the narrator said somethi

by kgin 6y ago

When I was 5 years old, I saw a pbs documentary about the Arecibo telescope. During a shot of a huge expanse of the telescope's metal, the narrator said something to the effect of "as one gets closer to the equator the sun's rays are stronger and the metal becomes too hot to touch". This, combined with the fact that I had a globe with a raised ridge around the equator, caused me to assume (for many years) that the equator was literally a metal ring that encircled the entire earth.

mncharity 6y ago
That's delightful. The ecology of science education misconceptions is a wild and wonderful thing. My best laugh of yesterday was this page[1] from the Stanford Solar Center, saying "It is a common misconception that the Sun is yellow, or orange or even red."... now look the page header, and at the rest of the site. Gee, I wonder where students, including astronomy graduate students, might come by such misconceptions??? :) Literal lol. And yet, that's still doing better than many a colorful NASA and solar observatory outreach site, that don't even manage that sentence. I wonder, if a simple CSS radial gradient was available, to easily create a realistic image of the Sun, might people (someone; anyone) use that instead of the usual yellow circles and assorted misleading colorfulness? Something like [2], but for its suboptimal choice of white point (so whiter in the center), and maybe the rim edge isn't quite right. Perhaps homeschoolers might pick it up if it was posted... somewhere? [1] http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/SunDetermine.html http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/SunDetermine... [2] https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16622/need-help-simulating-solar-limb-darkening/16639#16639 https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16622/need-help-si...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Nition 6y ago
  I've noticed there seems to be a constant war over the main image on the Wikipedia page about the Sun. In 2013 there's no image[1]. In 2014 the Sun is yellow-orange[2]. In 2015 it's white[3]. In 2016 it's briefly orange again[4] before going back to white. At one point it's sort of eye-of-sauron[5]. Finally today there are two images, one white and one yellow-orange. Further down the page it's blue.[6] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=555453257 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=5554532... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=624691151 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6246911... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=688219191 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6882191... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=704237539 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=7042375... [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=646836907 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6468369... [6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
  - mncharity 6y ago
    Ha, interesting. I wonder if someone's done a site where one can easily scroll back and forth in time, watching WP articles change. Hmm, one might make a simple MVP radial gradient from a slice of that Sun_white[1] image. > constant war Well, there's varied esthetics. And misconception avoidance awareness (spotty) and prioritization (varied - some astronomy outreach knowingly does aphysical art thinking it more engaging). Wikipedia has Talk for memory - no permalinks, no "writers notebook". So content crafted with care and carelessness has similar editability. There's no "if you're going to change the Sun image, of course read the extensive easily-found backstory discussion of that" (maybe - I didn't check). When a misconception is widespread in books, editors come with book in hand. When misconceptions create confusion, errors are overlooked, and yet more misconceptions are created as people try to fill gaps, to reconcile incompatible conceptions. The Sun article's current "(its light is closer to white than yellow)" for example. So things roil. Misleadingly colored H-R diagrams providing cover for a simply broken Stellar_classification table. Errors engendering confusion, providing niches for more error. A Darwinian ecology of misconceptions, creating endless forms most wonderful. Or... well, a toxic sludge, and a tragedy of crippled human lives and potential... but that perspective can be demotivating. Science education content is really quite awesomely bad. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Sun_white.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Sun_whit...
    - efreak 6y ago
      Forget scrolling, I'd like to see it change as an animation. What I'd really like from Wikipedia is a git-blame (separated by periods in addition to line breaks) for identifying the time of unnoticed vandalism so I can see what else was modified at the same time and should thus be ignored.
Stratoscope 6y ago
That's a neat story! Here's mine from when I was about that same age. Grownups knew I was interested in science and physics. Sometimes they would ask me to explain what E = mc² means, and I had a ready answer: "When you accelerate matter to the speed of light squared, it turns into energy!"
headcanon 6y ago
I've got a similar anecdote from when I was around the same age. When I first heard about the American Civil War and the idea of the South seceding from the union, I had just seen this cartoon [1] and thought that they literally took a saw through the Mason-Dixon line to physically separate the regions, and the South would just float away. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiTM2HQ0g98&ab_channel=fukTroll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiTM2HQ0g98&ab_channel=fukTr...
selimthegrim 6y ago
I just remember its appearance in “The Arrival” as “el radio”
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  My bad, I must have remembered this line from Contact because The Arrival is set in Owens Valley

by kgin 6y ago

mncharity 6y ago

That's delightful. The ecology of science education misconceptions is a wild and wonderful thing. My best laugh of yesterday was this page[1] from the Stanford Solar Center, saying "It is a common misconception that the Sun is yellow, or orange or even red."... now look the page header, and at the rest of the site. Gee, I wonder where students, including astronomy graduate students, might come by such misconceptions??? :) Literal lol. And yet, that's still doing better than many a colorful NASA and solar observatory outreach site, that don't even manage that sentence. I wonder, if a simple CSS radial gradient was available, to easily create a realistic image of the Sun, might people (someone; anyone) use that instead of the usual yellow circles and assorted misleading colorfulness? Something like [2], but for its suboptimal choice of white point (so whiter in the center), and maybe the rim edge isn't quite right. Perhaps homeschoolers might pick it up if it was posted... somewhere? [1] http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/SunDetermine.html http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/SunDetermine... [2] https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16622/need-help-simulating-solar-limb-darkening/16639#16639 https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16622/need-help-si...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Nition 6y ago
I've noticed there seems to be a constant war over the main image on the Wikipedia page about the Sun. In 2013 there's no image[1]. In 2014 the Sun is yellow-orange[2]. In 2015 it's white[3]. In 2016 it's briefly orange again[4] before going back to white. At one point it's sort of eye-of-sauron[5]. Finally today there are two images, one white and one yellow-orange. Further down the page it's blue.[6] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=555453257 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=5554532... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=624691151 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6246911... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=688219191 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6882191... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=704237539 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=7042375... [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=646836907 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6468369... [6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
- mncharity 6y ago
  Ha, interesting. I wonder if someone's done a site where one can easily scroll back and forth in time, watching WP articles change. Hmm, one might make a simple MVP radial gradient from a slice of that Sun_white[1] image. > constant war Well, there's varied esthetics. And misconception avoidance awareness (spotty) and prioritization (varied - some astronomy outreach knowingly does aphysical art thinking it more engaging). Wikipedia has Talk for memory - no permalinks, no "writers notebook". So content crafted with care and carelessness has similar editability. There's no "if you're going to change the Sun image, of course read the extensive easily-found backstory discussion of that" (maybe - I didn't check). When a misconception is widespread in books, editors come with book in hand. When misconceptions create confusion, errors are overlooked, and yet more misconceptions are created as people try to fill gaps, to reconcile incompatible conceptions. The Sun article's current "(its light is closer to white than yellow)" for example. So things roil. Misleadingly colored H-R diagrams providing cover for a simply broken Stellar_classification table. Errors engendering confusion, providing niches for more error. A Darwinian ecology of misconceptions, creating endless forms most wonderful. Or... well, a toxic sludge, and a tragedy of crippled human lives and potential... but that perspective can be demotivating. Science education content is really quite awesomely bad. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Sun_white.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Sun_whit...
  - efreak 6y ago
    Forget scrolling, I'd like to see it change as an animation. What I'd really like from Wikipedia is a git-blame (separated by periods in addition to line breaks) for identifying the time of unnoticed vandalism so I can see what else was modified at the same time and should thus be ignored.

Stratoscope 6y ago

That's a neat story! Here's mine from when I was about that same age. Grownups knew I was interested in science and physics. Sometimes they would ask me to explain what E = mc² means, and I had a ready answer: "When you accelerate matter to the speed of light squared, it turns into energy!"

headcanon 6y ago

I've got a similar anecdote from when I was around the same age. When I first heard about the American Civil War and the idea of the South seceding from the union, I had just seen this cartoon [1] and thought that they literally took a saw through the Mason-Dixon line to physically separate the regions, and the South would just float away. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiTM2HQ0g98&ab_channel=fukTroll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiTM2HQ0g98&ab_channel=fukTr...

selimthegrim 6y ago

I just remember its appearance in “The Arrival” as “el radio”

selimthegrim 6y ago
My bad, I must have remembered this line from Contact because The Arrival is set in Owens Valley