Same disclaimer. Raw notes. Coherence is random.

Until we have FTL most stories about humans in space will happen in our own solar system. Even when we send people out, it’s probably a good idea to understand the local real estate.

(Jerry still includes Pluto as a planet. “Poor thing, it gets no respect.”)

Mnemonic to remember the order of the planets. “Mother Very Easily Made Jelly Sandwiches Under No Provocation.”

I’m going to put the rest behind a cut, because I took a lot of notes on this one.

Continue reading Jerry Oltion, Solar System Tour

Once again, these are my raw notes. No promises about coherence.

When dealing with conceptual change theory, you can’t say, “This is wrong” or “This is the right answer” you have to change their conception.

Jim told about how he was asked why the moon looks big when it comes up. He answered wrong, based on his own misconception. Later apologized to the class and corrected his statement. But there was a cartoon, FRAZZ,¹ in which the janitor was asked the same question and got it right. Getting it right in the cartoon probably reached more people than his classroom. And that is part of why it’s important to get the science right in fiction.

Watched: “A Private Universe. Misconceptions in Learning”²
In the film, they interviewed randomly selected Harvard graduates, faculty and staff. 21 of 23 thought that the seasons were caused by the distance of the earth from the sun.³

Also the phases of moon are not caused by the earth blocking the suns rays.

Jim says imagine what impact you could have if you have good science in your fiction.

Must discover the misconception. Confront the misconception. Before you can change the misconception.

My misconception. The moon is not over the equator. It’s 5 degrees off the ecliptic plane.

There’s a surprisingly good animation on wikipedia, which shows the libration of the moon. I’d never heard of libration.

Kinesthetic astronomy. Using your body to understand astronomy. Check out the packet, developed by Cheryl Lynn Marrow, which is really cool. http://education.sdsc.edu/teachertech/downloads/k_astronomy.pdf

The primary thing that Jim was talking about was that, because our stories will reach a wide audience we have a certain responsibility to make sure the science is right and that we are not introducing the new misconceptions.

1. This isn’t the specific strip Jim was referencing [↩]
2. Definitely watch this film [↩]
3. It’s caused by axial tilt. [↩]

These are my raw notes. I don’t promise they make sense.

—

Mike Brotherton:
The goal is not to learn all of astronomy in a week, but to learn enough that we can intelligently research questions for stories.

People learn through story, more easily than in the classroom. If he can get us to use more and better quality science then through our works we can reach a wider audience and raise the awareness of science. Which is what NASA wants.

Jim Verley:
Started out as running the cultural association on campus. Always read SF. Noticed misconceptions as he proceeded on the educational track. As a science educator, he knows that we can reach an audience that he can’t. More than facts it is important to be a clear thinker. If we can learn to be clear thinkers and to ask appropriate questions then that will allow us to be educators to the general public through our stories.

Jerry Oltion:
Started as SF writer with casual interest in astronomy. Burned out on writing in 2003. Got bit by the astronomy bug. Builds telescopes and grinds his own mirrors. Designed new type of telescope mount.

The Scale of the Cosmos: Mike Brotherton.
From Seeds, Chapter 1

Astronomy deals with objects on a vast range of sizes, speeds, and times.

Most of these scales aare way beyond everyday experience.

Humans the Earth and even the solar system are tiny on a cosmic scale.

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.
– Douglas Adams

You don’t want to go to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for science, but Douglas Adams gets this thing totally right. This is the kind of thing that sticks in the general public’s mind.

Showed us slides stepping up by factor of 100.

Metric system is the language of science. Jay says that he uses metric with SF and english (usually) with Fantasy.

When the numbers get astronomically large, it becomes meaningless, so Mike prefers to explain things via relative scale. (It took the Apollo astronauts a few days to get to the moon.)

Science world-building: In order to avoid large numbers beyond our imagination, we introduce new units: Distance Sun to Moon = 150,000,000 km = 1 AU (astronomical unit) Scientist still like numbers between 1 and 10, because we like to count on our fingers, so we make new units in order to keep the numbers small. Even up to 100 is fine and 100 AU gets us all the way out to the edge of the planetary disc.

Solar system use AU. Outside solar system, use light year. Mike explains what a parsec is. Yoiks. When an object moves one arc second, we say that’s 1 parsec.

1 light year (ly) = distance traveled by light in 1 year = 63,000 AU = 1013

You can go 1000 LY in any direction and you are still in the Milky Way.

Figuring out that we are in a galaxy and where the center is was hard stuff. Not exactly sure what the galaxy looks like because we can’t take a picture (see the 1000 ly issue) from the outside. Diameter of the Milky Way ~ 75,000 ly But there’s a dark matter halo that’s like the Ort Cloud.

Galaxies not universally distributed through space, and they are are also large in comparison to the distances between them. Stars are very far apart compared to their sizes. If two galaxies collided there would be no stellar collisions.

Distance to the nearest large galaxies: several million light years.

Galaxies not universally distributed through space, something called Large Scale Structure. Clusters of galaxies are grouped into superclusters. Superclusters form filaments and walls around voids. Astronomers start using mega-parsecs and giga-parsecs when talking on this scale. Again, this is to try to keep the numbers between 1 & 10 or 1 & 100.

We stop here because stepping up another scale of 100 would take us larger than the observable universe. We can see 14 billion ly.

Other approaches to Sizes
Powers of Ten movie(s)
Cosmic Voyages
Contact Opening
When looking to reach readers, relate to everyday exerience whenever possible, if only to boggle with the truth.
Examples? How long to walk to the moon if you could? The sun? Another star? How about at jet airplane speeds?

Re-emphasizes the importance of trying to get numbers down to 1-10 or 1-100 because those are numbers that we can wrap our heads around.

I got my hair cut last weekend and promised my parents pictures. I’ve been trying to find a stylist in the city with little success. Anyway, some months ago Rob’s mom sent me a link to a book called, Curly Girl: More Than Just Hair…It’s an Attitude by Lorraine Massey. I wasn’t much interested in the book, but it mentioned that she had a NYC salon, Devachan, which specialized in curly hair. It’s crazy expensive, but I was annoyed enough by the last couple of haircuts that I was willing to plunk down some change so that I didn’t look like a distressed mop at WorldCon.

To say that I am astounded by the results doesn’t fully cover my glee with what seems like a new head of hair. Seriously. I mean. Look at the curls. Not frizz, not a mix of straight and curly hair, but actual defined curls. This is the hair I’ve always wanted. Everytime I pass a mirror I stare at it because I’m having a hard time believing that it’s behaving.

That’s not a result of product. It’s just the cut and their theory on how to wash and manage the hair. Basically, I’ve stopped using shampoo and just wash with water and conditioner. Then let it air dry. So easy. Stunned. I’m stunned.

I got in to the airport in Denver with no problems and no random editor sightings. I was on a plane with fellow attendee Paul Witcover and didn’t see him until we met up with the rest of the group. It’s a two-hour drive from Denver to Laramie and we talked pretty much non-stop on the way here. Conversations ranged from Alaskan survivalism to writing tics to prairie dogs. We are going to have a fun week.

When we got out at the restaurant to have dinner the sun had dipped below the horizon, but the sky still held some residual light. Even so, even standing under a parking lot light, the stars were so much more present here than in NYC. Now, I’ll grant that part of my amazement at seeing them might be due to having finished Spin on the way here. If you’ve read it, you’ll know what I mean.

What it reminded me of most was the time I went to London from Iceland during the height of the summer. I got on the Tube and when I came up it was dark outside and there was a moon. It had stopped doing that in Iceland and so darkness felt strangely magical.

Seeing the stars was a little like that. I’d forgotten that I had gotten used to not seeing them. And that’s not even with a telescope. As I said, this will be a fun week.

.
.
I’m heading for Laramie, WY today for LaunchPad Astronomy workshop. Mike Brotherton has posted our schedule.

Here’s what’s happening on day one. You can pop by his site to see what the rest of the week holds for me.

Thursday, July 31

9:30 AM Coffee, Juice, Continental Breakfast
10:00 AM Welcome and introductory remarks from the instructors (MB, JV, JO), Astronomy pre-test and pre-workshop questionnaire, Lecture/discussion: Scales of the Universe (Brotherton)
12:30 PM Lunch
1:30 PM Activity/Discussion: Seasons and Lunar Phases, Public Misconceptions (Verley)
3:45 PM Afternoon break/snacks
4:00 PM Lecture/Discussion: Solar System Tour (Oltion)
6:00 PM Dinner break
8:00 PM Bad Astronomy Movie Night (Armageddon tentatively scheduled)

Um… pre-workshop questionnaire? Yoicks!

The KGB Raffle ends tonight. Don’t forget to purchase your tickets before it’s too late!

Monday evening at midnight, Eastern Daylight Time, we will be closing the store to all new ticket purchases and announcing the winners shortly after. Now is your last chance to purchase raffle tickets.

To everyone who has purchased tickets so far, thank you and good luck! Your support will help keep KGB Fantastic Fiction viable for many years to come. You may also want to visit the store one last time. We have added several new and amazing raffle items this past week.

A Complete List of Raffle Items:
http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/store/

Beaker, The Swedish Chef, Animal and Carmen.  Need I say more?

I went to see a production of a musical written by two of my friends, Mark LaPierre and Jodi Eichelberger.  I’d seen it nine years ago in Portland, but this was it’s NYC debut and very exciting. It was as wonderful and witty as I remembered.  Very clever lyrics and an accapela score that’s witty and engaging as well as being hauntingly beautiful.

Unfortunately, it was in the wrong festival. See, it was in the Bad Musical Festival. The other two pieces on the program took bad to mean, “Deliberately awful,” and succeeded at that goal. I mean, the actors worked their tails off, but there’s not much you can do when your show is a musical version of “a guy walks into a bar…”

Grimm Late Night on the other hand took bad to mean “naughty” which it is.  It was the second show of the evening and when it began the audience clearly didn’t know what to think. They’d just seen a show that was trying to be bad and seemed a little lost at something that was funny because it was well-crafted.  And then, they got it and loved the show from there on out.

Afterwards, we went out for dinner at a restaurant that seemed to be trying to emulate the other two plays.  The drink specials listed a cosmopolitan as one of their “special” drinks.  I mocked that, until I realized that it probably was special since they didn’t know how to make a Sidecar, a Tom Collins or a Gin and Tonic. The first two I tried to order, but the bartender didn’t know what they were. I ordered the G&T which was actively bad.  How the heck do you screw up a gin and tonic?

Jon Armstrong has an interview up with David Anthony Durham¹ at his podcast, If You’re Just Joining Us. It’s  really wonderful.  David talks about his journey to being a writer, being naked in the desert, and fiction.

I’m reading his book, Acacia, right now.  Listen to him and then check out his books.

1. both gentlemen are finalists for this year’s Campbell for Best New Writer [↩]

The reading went quite well. We had a full house, which was a relief. I was afraid no one would come and besides our friends, there were even people that we didn’t know there. We sold copies of the anthology!

Matt McHugh and M. M. De Voe were both very good readers and hearing their stories out loud added a lot to both.

Best of all, Matt hooked set up his mic and recorded the evening. I present to you my story, The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland.

For me, one of the most annoying things is that I’ve been recording so much lately that I’ve developed some bad live reading habits. I’ve trained myself to listen for minor stumbles — things that no one would notice live, but which are unacceptable in recorded form — and to pause, then restart the line, which is totally wrong when reading live. In any case, it should be interesting for you to hear the difference between me reading live after hearing me read for recordings.

If you’ve got nothing else going on, swing down to the KGB bar at 85 E. 4th Street at 7:00 tonight to hear short stories read by Matt McHugh, M. M. De Voe and me.

Here’s a teaser of the one I’ll be reading tonight, which appears in the new anthology, The Best of The First Line: Editors’ Picks 2002-2006.

I was born Rosa Carlotta Silvana Grisanti, but in the mid-Eighties, I legally changed my name to Eve. As you have guessed in your letter, after the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, my dear friends Dr. Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes suggested that my safest course of action would be to distance myself from my family.

But I get ahead of my story; I have not Dr. Watson’s gift for explaining Mr. Holmes’s methods, and I fear your wish that I relay the particulars of this strange case may be met with inadequate measures.

On the twelfth of October, 1887, I was being taken by the steamship Friesland from our home on the Venetian isle of Murano to Africa; there to meet my betrothed, Hans Boerwinkle, a man several years my senior with whom my father had very recently made arrangements. Living as we do now, in the nineteen-twenties, it is difficult to remember what a sheltered life we girls led forty years ago, but at the time it seemed natural that my brother, Orazio Rinaldo Paride Grisanti, escorted me as chaperone.

Did I mention it’s a bar? Fiction and drinks, can you ask for a better combo?

I knocked off work around 9:00 so I could catch up with the folks who’d gone to the Shirley Jackson reading tonight. The Puppet Kitchen is on the same street so I’d actually gone over at 7:00 to hear the reading, but it was too crowded to get in. Later I heard that there were seats up front. It’s just as well, I suppose, since I was able to get some work done.

Plus, it meant I could join the gang for Chinese food afterwards. I had the colon in my bag. Nick Kaufman asked to see it (blame him) so I hauled it out and made it say hello. Strangely, people found this disturbing. I can’t imagine why.

• At dessert truck. Coconut tapioca with mojito granita. My God. #
• @2muchexposition There are worse dooms than an addiction to the Dessert Truck. #
• @neutronjockey You know, this dessert would give a true mojito a run for the money in terms of sheer sybaritic enjoyment. #