rjh@ihuxj.UUCP (Randolph J. Herber) (12/21/83)
According to the___ Astronomical____________ Almanac_______ for___ the___ year____ 1982____ by the Nautical Almanac Office, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. and Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, Royal Greenwich Observatory, London, on page M10 of the glossary: parasec_______: the distance at which one astronomical____________ unit____ subtends an angle of one second of arc; equivalently the distance to an object having an annual parallax________ of one second of arc. on page M2 of the glossary: astronomical____________ unit____ (a.u.): a unit of length, originally defined as the length of the semimajor_________ axis____ of the Earth's orbit_____. It is now defined dynamically by using Kepler's third law: n_^2 * a_^3 = k_^2 * (1+m_) where a_ is the semimajor axis of an elliptic orbit (in a.u.), n_ is the sidereal mean____ motion______ (in radians per ephemeris_________ day___), m_ is the mass (in solar masses), and the value of the Gaussian gravitational constant k_ is defined to be exactly 0.01720209895. As determined from this definition the semimajor axis of the Earth's orbit is 1.000000031 a.u. The underscored words and symbols were italized in the original text. Randolph J. Herber, Amdahl Systems Engineer, ..!ihnp4!ihuxj!rjh -- Randolph J. Herber, Amdahl Systems Engineer, ..!ihnp4!ihuxj!rjh, c/o IH 1C220, AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL 60566, (312) 979-6554 or AT&T Cornet 8-367-6554, or Amdahl Corp., Suite 250, 6400 Shafer, Rosemont, IL 60018, (312) 692-7520
rpw3@fortune.UUCP (01/04/84)
#R:ihuxj:-33600:fortune:9900014:000:1315
fortune!rpw3 Jan 3 14:52:00 1984
Sorry to be picky, but the astronomical term is 'parsec' (two syllables),
not 'parasec' (3 syl.). As defined in Webster's New Collegiate:
parsec: [par-allax + sec-ond] n. a unit of measure for interstellar
space equal to a distance having a heliocentric parallax
of one second [of arc] or to 206,265 times the radius of
Earth's orbit or to 3.26 light-years or to 19.2 trillion miles.
Parsecs are DISTANCE, not time, no matter what Trek says. One could go
so many parsec/sec (REALLY fast) or parsec/year (still a good bit faster
than light).
If Trek really says 'parasec' (pa-ra-sec), then it's a perfectly
acceptable made-up science fiction term that (from its construction)
must mean "a kind of second". Again from Webster:
para-: [Greek: akin to] prefix. 1. beside, alongside of, beyond,
aside from (parathyroid); 2. closely related to (paraldehyde);
3. faulty, abnormal (paresthesia), b. associated in a
subsidiary or accessary manner (paramedical), c. closely
resembling, almost (paratyphoid).
One can only guess that at high warp speeds time ain't what it seems
compared to the rest of the universe so time flies in parasecs???
Rob Warnock
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