wyatt@cfa.harvard.EDU (Bill Wyatt) (07/28/88)
> >> > And we could do the Launch to LEO in under 12 parsecs! > >> ....I hate to say it, but last time I looked, 'parsec' was a unit of length, > >> specifically 3.26 light years. B-) > > > >Tell that to George Lucas. He used it this way first. > > One more note: to paraphrase, Sagan said that Lucas should have hired some > out of work astronomer (any one of them) to get the interpretation > correct. The way I heard this, Lucas knew full well that a parsec is a measure of distance, not time. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to have Han Solo make an outrageous statement to Obi-wan and Luke thus showing what hicks they were (at least concerning space travel). It didn't some off right, and turned into a howler of a mistake. -- Bill UUCP: {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt Wyatt ARPA: wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu (or) wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu BITNET: wyatt@cfa2 SPAN: cfairt::wyatt