marcw@sri-unix (12/10/82)
I want to thank all of you who sent in your favorite astro-
nomical misconceptions, the response was great. So great
that I hesitate to submit all the replys to the net for fear
of raising the ire of those who hate 300+ line articles. If
there is enough interest in a complete copy of all the
responses, let me know and I will post it to the net.
Interestingly enough, there were not many duplications (you
all have different misconceptions?). Space craft "woosh-
ing", stars moving behind a space craft and Pluto's unusual
orbit (sometimes the eighth and other times the ninth
planet) were the most commonly duplicated responses.
My thanks to Gene Spafford (spaf.gatech@UDel-Relay) for
pointing out my own intellectual chauvinism; one persons
misconception may be another persons fact. This is under-
scored by the example of Mercury's rotation. It was once
held as "fact" that one side of Mercury always pointed
toward the sun, it is now believed (more correctly, we hope)
that this is not the case. It is a bit presumptuous to tag
ideas as "misconceptions" without acknowledging our own
fallibility.
James Turner (mitccc!jmturn) asked to have the "winners"
posted. Rather than posting all the replies (for space rea-
sons noted above) I'll post *MY* favorite from each person
who replied. The people and their "misconceptions" are
listed in the order in which their response reached me.
***********************************
David Wright (cornell!ddw)
Rockets work by pushing against the atmosphere.
***********************************
Lew Mammel, Jr. (ihuxr!lew)
You could do a whole series of impossible appearances of the
moon. A good one would be the moon as it appears in the
northern hemisphere (upright "face"), with penguins in the
foreground.
***********************************
Rich Amber (tektronix!rich)
Some of the "what's wrong with this picture" things I like are
things like photos printed backward in magazines that mislead
the people. Things like a night view with half moon on western
horizon and brightly lit portion facing up (obviously
impossible). And paintings of Saturns rings that give the
impression they're solid.
***********************************
Jeff Bradford (tektronix!tekcad!jeffb)
A mis-concept I had was that the southern cross was the
analog to the north star; i.e. it marked the south pole.
***********************************
Roger Wells (tektronix!tekid!rogerw)
Velikovsky was a creationist [I know, this isn't astronomical,
but don't tell him. (Well, he's dead anyway.) Amazing though,
the number of people who assume because he disagreed with
standard science, he automatically agreed with anyone else who
disagreed with standard science. Matter of fact, evolution
plays a part in his so-called theory.]
***********************************
Phil Karn (eagle!karn)
The crescent moon with stars between the "points".
***********************************
Don Lynn (lynn.es@parc-maxc)
I have heard people express the thought that astronomers spend
their time trying to find new stars. This is as absurd as
geologists looking for new grains of sand. In fact, the
numbers show it is worse. The real searches are for stars or
groups of stars with distinctive properties (the observational
astronomers), or for theories that explain such properties (the
theoretical astronomers).
***********************************
Steve Strassmann (straz@mit-oz@mit-mc)
Measuring the distance to stars by timing round-trip reflection
of light off of the star's surface (one friend of mine, a
respected tailor, thought "they" use sonar!)
***********************************
James Turner (decvax!genradbolton!mitccc!jmturn)
I would have to say my favorite piece of knowledge "everyone
knows" is the 'fact' that Pluto is the ninth planet from the
sun. Of course, the right way to phrase this is really "Pluto
is *usually* the ninth planet from the sun..."
When I handed the collection of responses over to the plane-
tarium folks, they informed that, while production of the
show is being started now, it takes a long time to write the
script, research and film the graphics, produce the sound
track, develop the special effects and so on. Thus the show
is not scheduled for performance until early next spring.
So, if anyone out there didn't get a chance to submit their
favorite "misconceptions", feel free to do so, it may still
be possible to incorporate them into the show.
Thanks again to all who responded,
Marc Wells
via uucp: ...!{dec | ucb}vax!teklabs!marcw
via CSNET: teklabs!marcw@tek
via ARPAnet: teklabs!marcw.tek@rand-relay