Conciousness raisers!

rccaulfield

Anyone have any that help raise perhaps an awareness of astronomy being relevent to everyday life? Most people i know see it as something which has nothing to do with everyday life and is a serious waste of time.
Heres the most obvious one that i use-i call the sun our nearest star instead. It always gets a funny look and it's hard to believe it but people really don't think of it is a star at all and if they do, they think of it as different to the stars that are out at night. Other way of doing it would be to call the stars at night suns!

dublin_daveyboy

rccaulfield wrote: »

Anyone have any that help raise perhaps an awareness of astronomy being relevent to everyday life? Most people i know see it as something which has nothing to do with everyday life and is a serious waste of time.
Heres the most obvious one that i use-i call the sun our nearest star instead. It always gets a funny look and it's hard to believe it but people really don't think of it is a star at all and if they do, they think of it as different to the stars that are out at night. Other way of doing it would be to call the stars at night suns!

i know what you mean,theres a lot of people that live their whole life without ever knowing anything about what the sun really is and how its one of billions in our galaxy,

its just the way of the world,everyone for their own.

riffmongous

rccaulfield wrote: »

Anyone have any that help raise perhaps an awareness of astronomy being relevent to everyday life? Most people i know see it as something which has nothing to do with everyday life and is a serious waste of time.

Whenever I get asked in an interview why I did my MSc in meteorology after a bachelor in Astrophys I always say its because I wanted to do something that was practical and actually useful :pac::pac:

I'm thinking maybe solar flares are one area that could have a big effect on 'everyday life'? Most of the other effects I can think of are on too long a timescale to apply to everyday life..

clln

riffmongous wrote: »

I'm thinking maybe solar flares are one area that could have a big effect on 'everyday life'?

The really annoying people who cannot see beyond their own nose....... well i give them a pair of Bino's and tell them to look directly at the sun through them.
none so blind as those who cannot see! :pac:

rccaulfield

riffmongous wrote: »

Whenever I get asked in an interview why I did my MSc in meteorology after a bachelor in Astrophys I always say its because I wanted to do something that was practical and actually useful :pac::pac:

I'm thinking maybe solar flares are one area that could have a big effect on 'everyday life'? Most of the other effects I can think of are on too long a timescale to apply to everyday life..

But thats my point-it DOES apply to everyday life! I mean everyone wants to know where they came from in a sense. Well where does the iron in your red blood cells come from etc etc-A supernova. Theres no creation myth out there that comes close to that reality for me!

riffmongous

rccaulfield wrote: »

Well where does the iron in your red blood cells come from etc etc-A supernova.

Great example

rccaulfield

Heres another just top of my head- most don't think about why is the sky blue? Sounds like a childs questiuon right? But i'd bet most people don't know its due to the refraction of our stars white light by the chemicals in our atmosphere.

Zubeneschamali

Lots of people just never look up. More than once, someone has noticed me looking at the moon in the daytime and asked what I'm looking at, and when I say the moon, they say "The moon is out during the day? How does that work?".

On the other hand, lots of people never hurt themselves by walking into things at night while looking at the stars, so maybe we're even.

rccaulfield

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Lots of people just never look up. More than once, someone has noticed me looking at the moon in the daytime and asked what I'm looking at, and when I say the moon, they say "The moon is out during the day? How does that work?".

On the other hand, lots of people never hurt themselves by walking into things at night while looking at the stars, so maybe we're even.

LOL! Yea the moon being out during the day is another one, Indeed the whole idea of a full moon in most peoples minds is a bit off. Especially when it comes to how a full moon affects the human mind(lunatics etc). When i explained that a full moon doesn't get any bigger it just has more light shining on it from our star to a friend recently they were amazed!

Rhys Essien

To the OP,Did you ever tell your friends that the galaxy Andromeda,(one of approximately 200 billion galaxies),has 1 trillion stars.Then ask them do they still think we are alone in the universe.

rccaulfield

Rhys Essien wrote: »

To the OP,Did you ever tell your friends that the galaxy Andromeda,(one of approximately 200 billion galaxies),has 1 trillion stars.Then ask them do they still think we are alone in the universe.

One of my work colleages was trying to claim there couldn't be life elsewhere in the universe due to all the tight tolerances for life we have here and i came up with something like those statistics, i think its called Barnum's theory! He is big into science but the scale of the universe alluded even him never mind the general public. I thought Andromeda had 100 billion stars similar to ours not a trillion but am open to correction. I don't like googling things to look smart! Still whats the difference at that size of number!

rccaulfield

Another one is the people standing at the equater are moving at about mach9(9 times speed of sound) due to the spin of the earth compared to the Inuit(eskimos although they don't like to be called that!), who the closer to the geographic north pole they are the closer to a speed of 0 kph they move. So basically someone standing south of you in Ireland is travelling a little bit faster then you without moving.

John mac

ah but don't forget the speed we are travelling around the sun .

and how fast our galaxy is travelling.

Stargate

rccaulfield wrote: »

Another one is the people standing at the equater are moving at about mach9(9 times speed of sound) due to the spin of the earth compared to the Inuit(eskimos although they don't like to be called that!), who the closer to the geographic north pole they are the closer to a speed of 0 kph they move. So basically someone standing south of you in Ireland is travelling a little bit faster then you without moving.

LoL rccaulfield

I`m doing a 120 more than you down here in Cork

rccaulfield

rccaulfield wrote: »

One of my work colleages was trying to claim there couldn't be life elsewhere in the universe due to all the tight tolerances for life we have here and i came up with something like those statistics, i think its called Barnum's theory! He is big into science but the scale of the universe alluded even him never mind the general public. I thought Andromeda had 100 billion stars similar to ours not a trillion but am open to correction. I don't like googling things to look smart! Still whats the difference at that size of number!

Was reading a bit about andromeda last night Rhys essien and you were dead right- a trillion stars:eek:

Stargate wrote: »

LoL rccaulfield

I`m doing a 120 more than you down here in Cork

Lol is that why the accent is higher pitched