Seems that astronomers have found a planet orbiting within a star's "habitable zone." Very big news. Exciting stuff.
Wednesday night, a young lady in my graduate seminar on the Great Depression brought this story up. I was pleased to see that there were people outside of astronomers and science geeks who knew this kind of story was important.
Then my pleasure came crashing down. I want to re-iterate that this was a graduate seminar. Those present hold bachelor's degrees from accredited universities. The first question that was asked was quite reasonable when you consider the critical techniques of history, something these people are trained in: "How do they know?" I supplied the answer: they know how hot these kinds of stars are and they know how far the planet is from the star. Then came another question that caused me to start worrying: "How do they know?" Oh, christ, I thought. I answered: All stars of this type have common characteristics, that's why they are classed together. And the planet's distance from the star is estimated by the amount of gravitational tug the planet exerts on the star; it's mathy, I added.
Here's where is got bad. "Why don't they send a robot thingy to look at it? Or the Hubble Telescope? Or the space shuttle?" I was stunned. These questions weren't coming from just one person and there wasn't anybody in the room who seemed to be as shocked at their ignorance as I was. I stuttered something about inter-stellar distances being enormous and then I just stopped talking. They had dismissed me. They weren't listening anymore because I had started using science words and I had already told them that there was math involved.
I've wondered in the past why people weren't more excited about the fairly regularly appearing stories about the discovery of extra-solar planets. Now I know: they haven't the faintest idea what it means. They are utterly pig-ignorant about the universe. They know fuck-all about how far away things are. Conway? About 35 miles. Does the shuttle fly higher or lower than that? I dunno. How far away is the sun? Nearer or further than Jupiter? I dunno. How long does it take light from the sun to get to earth: seconds? mintues? hours? I dunno. How long does it take light to get to the earth from the nearest star? seconds? minutes? hours? days? years? I dunno but surely not years. How could it take years?
Grrrr.
We get the government we deserve.
1 comment:
I suggest that next time you just say, "They won't send the shuttle because the space aliens that run the Vatican are afraid it'll expose their secret mind-control conspiracy to steal our women."
Unless you say it with a smirk, they'll believe you.
Or you could just go with the standard: "You kids get outta my yard!"
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