Common sense?

I haven't written a "letter-to-the-editor" type of note to the media in a very long time, but today I wrote one to the "opinion page" of our local newspaper. It concerns the meteor seen in the sky over Alberta and Saskatchewan on November 20 of this year. Here's the gist of my (expanded for this blog) note:

On Tuesday, Dec.23, page B2 - "Metorite fall could yield scientific gold" - the article regarding the Nov. 20 meteor seen in Alberta/Saskatchewan (picture at left), I read with great interest, and a sense of sad dismay, that the more than 100 meteorites collected are all "...part of a 10-tonne, 10-kilometre-wide meteorite that broke up on impact with the atmosphere, spawning brilliant flashes of light that caught many eyes" (from the 9th paragraph in that article).

To begin with, a meteorite is defined as that part of a meteoroid which is found on the ground after travelling through the atmosphere. A meteoroid is the solid, original body before it encounters the atmosphere. The process by which this body disintegrates when it travels through atmosphere and which results in the 'brilliant flashes of light', and other associated phenomena (heat, ionization, occasionally sound) is called a meteor.

If the meteoroid (taken as a cube to make the basic calculations easy) had indeed been 10 km (about 6.2 miles) diagonally across, it would have had a mass of millions of tons (around 500 million - roughly equivalent to 1 trillion pounds); it would have struck the Earth almost totally intact, and caused a conflagration similar to what many scientists think happened on the Yucatan peninsula 64 million years ago, with the subsequent extinction of many species. If the 10-ton mass (about 20,000 pounds - i.e. about three GM Hummers) is taken as approximately correct, then the meteoroid that hit us, again taken as cube, would have been about 1.6 metres along each side. The meteorites shown in the newspaper's picture with Dr. Hildebrand appear to be of a "stony" nature - approximately 2.5 times the density of water. 10 tonnes of water is equal to 10 cubic metres of water, by definition - 1 cubic metre of water is equal to 1 ton. A 10-ton cube of water would measure about 2.15 metres along each edge. The "stony" equivalent cube of stone would therefore be 1/2.5th of 10 cubic metres, i.e. about 4 cubic metres. This would be a cube measuring about 1.6 metres on each side. How can one equate 500 million tons with 10 tons, or a cube of approximately 5.8 kilometers (5,800 meters) along one edge to 1.6 meters along the edge, or a trillion pounds to twenty thousand?

In reality, of course, the meteroid would not be a cube, but of some irregular shape. That makes calculations like these far more complex, but there is no getting away from the masses of material and the orders of magnitude involved.

What dismays me is the apparent incomprehension of and lack of innate feeling for the relationships between size, mass, weight and other physical characteristics and properties of the things that surround us, perhaps mixed in with lack of understanding regarding the metric system. It is as though common sense has left the authors and/or editors involved in the kind of published nonsense seen in the media far too often.

I gain little consolation from knowing that this kind of "innumeracy" is all too common. Not a month goes by in which I don't see such misrepresentation and misunderstanding in the newspapers or other media. Is this due to a lack of teaching in school?

This whole thing may be of no interest to anyone, but I had to vent my spleen here.

Merry Christmas

This year, we used only the top two/thirds of our artificial Christmas tree (Derek opted for a natural tree this year). We think it looks just as nice this year, and we did not need to move a lot of furniture to accommodate it. The heirloom decorations (many handmade) make it beautiful.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all of you!

The "full" Christmas tree

The tree this year



















A hand-made decoration. This one came from Erlyne's mother. Erlyne was a bridesmaid at our wedding, 44 years ago, and my wife and she are still in almost daily contact. She's family.

A quick year

It seems that each year goes by faster. It seems like last week that the previous winter was here. Right now, the snow is falling and I'll have to shovel some of it to clear the sidewalk. The grandchildren went off to school, taking along their snow slider board - they'll have a great time at school, where there is a small hill.

I have a theory why the years appear to go faster as you get older: each minute that goes by is a larger percentage of the rest of your life. So, enjoy what you can, you may not have the chance again.

the "meme"

Derek's post of yesterday asks to show a "meme", a picture on the 6th page of my flickr photostream, on this blog. Here is mine. I have no idea what the name means, or why it's called that. The closest word I can think of is the French word for "same" - même. So, perhaps it means something like "copied", but why the 6th picture on the 6th page?

This picture was taken during the "Symphonie of Fire" from the apartment balcony of our close, and longtime friend (she's part of the family) in West Vancouver, looking over English Bay, towards the False Creek area.

Winter again

At this time of year here, you take the nice days when you can get them. Today was such a day; my wife and I took the opportunity and went for a long walk (usually, we walk about half an hour per day, if weather permits). Our city has many nice parks, and there are a couple within reasonable walking distance. We chose Central Park (not the one of New York fame).

After we got home, the view out of our front window showed that our local mountains had been dusted with snow - the first signs of the coming winter. Time sure goes fast. You've seen similar pictures of the scenery on this blog before, but we never get tired of the view, even though we've lived in this house for 37 years. So, here is what attracted my attention today:


The pictures were taken through our front window with a Canon Rebel XT, set to an exposure time of 1/500th of a second, at ISO 800 "film" sensitivity, 75-300mm Canon zoom lens set to 255mm, at f 8.0 focal ratio. For those of you who want to know more about what these various settings represent, I recommend that you read Derek's ongoing dissertation about camera settings.

Interested ?

Many of you know that I've had an interest in Astronomy since I was eight years old. I seem to recall that the impetus for that came from a book my father was reading while in hospital - a couple of months before he died (that hospital visit then is one of the few concrete memories I have of him. He was also interested in astronomy - so, in a way, I believe that I'm honoring his memory). The book ("The Moon" - Nasmyth and Carpenter) was describing the theories of the cause of the huge mountain ranges and the thousands of craters which cover the Moon.

At that time it was unclear that the cause for their existence is the constant collisions of the Moon with the "space debris" still present in our solar system (ranging from minor planets, through asteroids and meteors, to the "shooting stars" which can be seen on any clear night when away from the light-polluted night sky of our cities). The book contained a picture of an artificial little crater, created by dropping little pebbles into half-dried mud - or some such method. What amazes me is that I remember the book (it was the German translation) so well, after more than 60 years - and that, when entering the English title and names of the authors into Google, the first hit was a direct link to some information about that book.

For some reason, the "crater" picture triggered my interest - and I'm still interested. Nowadays, I own several telescopes and binoculars, and can look at these craters at any time the Moon is in the sky. In those early days, the thought of owning a telescope did not even enter my mind; it was way beyond what we could afford financially. None-the-less, as soon as I could, I joined our local astronomy club, and I've been a member of one ever since.

My current affiliation is with the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. We welcome everyone to our monthly meetings, member or not, because one of our mandates is the promotion of an interest in astronomy and related sciences. Feel free to visit our meetings and participate in the public displays and use of telescopes to explore our place in the Universe. Here's a link to get further information:

http://rasc-vancouver.com/

There is hope.

I don't often make comments on political events, especially if they relate to another country, but yesterday's US election results give me some hope. The people of the US have chosen to return to the precepts which made the USA the beacon of freedom in the past, and which seemed to have been compromised lately.

There are unrealistic expectations of a "quick fix", of course, but the economic mess that the US financial system finds itself in was not created overnight, and won't be fixed in a day. What will be needed is perseverance and a return to saner principles of economics. In the past, those are what made the USA the great country it is - the people have chosen to return to those concepts; good for them, and, I think, for all of us.

The USA has shown much compassion in the past for people on the losing side. I am a beneficiary of that compassion - I grew up in Berlin during and after the war (think of the Berlin airlift), and was lucky enough to have lived in the "American sector" of the then divided city. That compassion has not changed, in my opinion. In addition, the American people are known to be great "adapters" of new ideas, wherever those ideas may have originated. Nowadays, due to the internet, televison, and other instant communications technologies (American inventions and adaptations, by and large), ideas are available from all over the world. It takes nothing more than an open mindset to consider that other people may have ideas which could be helpful.

Judging by the speeches given by both Barack Obama and John McCain (both of which I consider to be magnificent pieces of oratory), there seems to be a willingness to look for new ideas wherever they may be found.

For these reasons I think that the USA can again be a moral light that can guide us to a more tolerant world.