Pharyngula

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/DQLGB3cVi4p_Qwt1AX.0rdhgE6bxDeIHmQ--#43f5a | January 24, 2012 1:14 PM

Of course it might just colloquially mean "no gravity" as it very little. I often hear people talk about there being no gravity in orbit when they actually mean (or should mean) microgravity. Granted, the gravity on the moon is hardly microgravity. Such a small comment area does not leave much room for a full explanation of the lesson.

Posted by: Simply Jaded | January 24, 2012 1:47 PM

Bad? Yes. In High School, no less, I recall an introductory business class that was led by a teacher who could not spell, let alone lead a class. I went to the class, perhaps 2 out of the 5 days required - Thursday, to catch up on what the week held, and Friday for our weekly exam. Since the beginning of the semester I had called the teacher out on numerous errors in his test answers, as well as his terrible spelling. Eventually he simply graded the Friday exams based off of MY test paper. He used MY answers. I was only in 10th grade, but I could see the fear in this man's face as he waited for me to report him. As young as I was I only saw the small picture. He was a nice man and I didn't want him to lose his job. So I remained silent.

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/IpTrIpJ_sZJKQ4Jhbn_N2_OxNmcgwA--#5a74c | January 24, 2012 1:54 PM

p.s. Sorry about the mangling of my username. Yahoo is weird.

Posted by: Dev Null | January 24, 2012 2:17 PM

Think what fury there would be if this teacher couldn't spell, or had poor grammar

You mean like for instance if they didn't know the difference between "their" and "there"?

I'm not a total grammar nazi - everybody makes mistakes - but in the face of the obvious scientific failing, I wasn't feeling terribly generous. I do wonder about the context of the original though; was this written by the teacher themselves? Or by a student reporting what they "learned" rather than what was taught? If its pre-school (though sounds more like they just _visited_ pre-school) we could assume it was not from the student, but we could hope(?) that it was someone reviewing the teacher, and not the teacher themselves?

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 24, 2012 5:22 PM

flatlander:

that was a PRESCHOOL notebook.

do you really think the above could have been written by a pre-schooler?

If so, we should find that preschooler and immediately test for genius level learning capabilities.

Posted by: bigrivergal | January 24, 2012 10:00 PM

Middle School Science teacher here. Got to respond to this one. Many preschool teachers have little more than a high school education and a few hours additional early childhood classes. Although I'd expect any high school graduate to know that there is some gravity on the moon, I suspect that if you asked many adults who have been out of school for some time, they'd tell you that there is no gravity on our planet's only natural satellite. Should all adults have at least some working knowledge of basic science concepts? Absolutely.
Can we expect that some adults, especially those who do not work with a concept on a regular basis, (yes, I know that we are affected by gravity 24/7)
might forget said concept? Certainly.

Posted by: starstuff | January 24, 2012 11:19 PM

PZ, this is not up to your usual quality.
You stated a conclusion based on an assumption.
There is no indication who made the statement about the Moon. Was it a teacher? Was it someone saying what they thought they heard a teacher say? Was there even a teacher involved? Who wrote the note? 30 plus years of teaching elementary school tells me this does not fit the writing capabilities of a preschool child. I don't think this was written by a teacher, either.
To me, it looks like it was written by a parent commenting on the day. S/he read Goodnight Moon with her/his child, then discussed gravity on the Moon. Afterwards, they went off to visit a preschool---possibly one they were considering for the child. This scenerio fits as well as any other.
You did not say where you got the note. Maybe you can verify the information given by a teacher. If not, it is not fair to 'Pffft'.
Going from an unverified assumption to conclusion to criticism does not sound like you, PZ.

Posted by: starstuff | January 25, 2012 1:00 AM

I see I missed a few notes while I was writing the one I just posted.

Are teachers perfect?--no. We are human.
Do we make mistakes?--yes.
Should we be corrected on those mistakes?--absolutely.

Should a teacher be critisized here for making a mistake when there is no indication that is was, in fact, a teacher who gave the wrong information in the first place?--certainly not. (My previous post explains that I think this is a parent's note.)

There is something else I would like to add. In high school, teachers usually get to teach in their specific area of expertise and education. Therefore, they can be expected to be well versed in their subject matter and diligent in the accuracy of their lessons.
In contrast, elementary teachers teach every subject--Math, Language, Science, Geography, History, etc. A teacher may have an advanced degree is Science, but not have (m)any university level courses in Geography. As a result, they could make some mistakes in presenting Geographical information. It does not mean they are 'making up' information. Honest mistakes will be made. A teacher can not be expected to be perfectly knowledgeable in every subject all the time.
Expecting perfection is unrealisitc. Expecting teachers to spend time becoming familiar with the requirements of unfamiliar units is realistic. It is also realistic to expect sharing of knowledge amongst teachers and for mistakes to be corrected when realized. This will not, however, guarantee that no mistakes will be made.

If the original note accurately states what a teacher said, it is unfotunate. However, the integrity of that teacher should be judged on her/his reaction when the mistake is pointed out. A good teacher would investigate, obtain the correct information, and pass that on to the children. That is what learning is about.

Posted by: Nightjar | January 25, 2012 6:51 AM

To me, it looks like it was written by a parent commenting on the day. S/he read Goodnight Moon with her/his child, then discussed gravity on the Moon. Afterwards, they went off to visit a preschool---possibly one they were considering for the child. This scenerio fits as well as any other.

I guess it would if the person who originally posted this (check the post for relevant link, as you should have done before commenting) hadn't added the comment:

I think it's time to move my son to a new school. My wife didn't understand why I was upset

Posted by: Chris | January 25, 2012 10:08 AM

I heard there's a restaurant on the moon, but it has no atmosphere.

Posted by: tomsing98 | January 25, 2012 11:42 AM

Comment #2, it's possible you know what you mean when you say "microgravity", but it's more likely you're using it incorrectly, so I'll go ahead and correct you. If it's unnecessary, I apologize in advance; this is then just general information for the thread.

Gravitational acceleration follows an inverse square law. On the surface of the Earth, the gravitational acceleration is about 10 m/s^2. The radius of the Earth is about 6400 km. The International Space Station orbits about 380 km above the surface of Earth. At that altitude, following the inverse square law, the Earth's gravitational acceleration is [6400 / (6400 + 380)]^2 = 0.89 times the acceleration of gravity on the surface, or 8.9 m/s^2.

This is not "micro"-gravity. This is, in fact, rather substantial gravity. If it weren't for that gravity, the space station wouldn't remain in orbit! However, the apparent gravity is very nearly zero, because there's nothing preventing you from falling toward the Earth. This is the same sensation you feel in an elevator that accelerates downward (or decelerates while moving upward), or on a roller coaster that drops over the first hill. That's what the unfortunately-named "microgravity" refers to. It's not gravity, it's simply relative acceleration.

At the orbit of the Moon, 380,000 km from Earth, Earth's gravitational acceleration is (6400 / 380000)^2 = 0.0003 times the acceleration on the surface of the Earth, or 3 mm/s^2. Which means that the gravitational field near the Moon is dominated by the Moon's gravity, which has an acceleration at the surface of about 1/6 that of the Earth at its surface.

Hope that's clear!

Posted by: tomsing98 | January 25, 2012 1:02 PM

Starstuff, the "pre-school" link to the larger view of the note includes the caption/image title of "I think it's time to move my son to a new school. My wife didn't understand why I was upset".

If you take it at face value, it appears that the note originated at the son's school. Whether it's a trustworthy source or a troll, who knows?

Posted by: Nightjar | January 25, 2012 1:04 PM

starstuff,

The 'pre-school' link is the relevant one. I'll repost it:

http://www.reddit.com/tb/ouknf

It takes me to an imgur page with an image of the note and the sentence I quoted written above it. If the above link isn't taking you there, maybe try this one:

http://imgur.com/b0FCH

Posted by: James_Evans | January 25, 2012 4:41 PM

Just to further tom and Steve's general thread info discussion (#22 & #25), and hopefully to help clarify a tricky definition for myself as well, microgravity is used to describe a state/environment slightly different from zero-g/0G/zero gravity/free fall/weightlessness, which all can be used synonymously for the purposes of this discussion.

Zero-g, to put it as simply as possible, means gravity is the only force acting on an object/person. All other forces are absent. It wouldn't be crazy to assume zero gravity means there's NO GRAVITY acting upon you, but, perhaps unfortunately, it means the exact opposite. There is nothing but gravitational force at work when you are in a state of zero-g.

Micro-g is used as a distinction because it's damn near impossible to achieve zero-g, or to only have gravity acting upon you. When you (seemingly) free fall from, say, an airplane, the frictional drag of the Earth's atmosphere acts upon you. When sitting at your computer, in your car, on the toilet, or the ground, walking to work, standing in line for Avatar 3 - Driving Miss Neytiri, etc., all the mechanical/molecular forces of the material beneath you are acting upon you, preventing plummeting toward the Earth's center. Low Earth orbit is where humans and man-made objects most often come close to achieving zero-g (e.g.: the Space Shuttle, the ISS, satellites, etc.). However, even in orbit there are other forces at work besides gravity (solar wind, centrifugal force, tidal forces, negligible drag of a slight wisp of atmosphere at that altitude, etc.), so microgravity is used to describe an environment nearly indistinguishable from zero-g.

Posted by: Nightjar | January 25, 2012 4:46 PM

I doubt the child is in pre-school as it says they visited pre-school.

Hm, I don't think that's what it says. The person who uploaded this obviously put a black rectangle over a word at the beginning of that sentence, and I don't think that would make sense if that word was "we". I think someone visited their pre-school that day and his or her name was covered to protect anonymity.

Posted by: Nightjar | January 25, 2012 5:16 PM

tomsing98,

Hm, maybe you're right. I forgot to refresh and didn't see your #29 before posting.

Posted by: Ichthyic | January 25, 2012 9:29 PM

Reddit is an authoritative source?

where do you see anyone saying that?

You're taking a one sentence caption and cropped image of an alleged school form at face value.

one, because there is no reason not too.

two, because it illustrates a worthwhile point to discuss.

three, because there are plenty of other examples many of us have seen to corroborate that this kind of thing happens.

you got?

nuthin' but irrelevant whinging.

*yawn*

Posted by: David Marjanović | January 28, 2012 6:33 PM

Moon gravity error: venial sin Murder of standard English: true mortal sin.

That there's gravity on the moon (gravity easily noticeable by humans, not microgravity!) is a fact. Standard English is a mere arbitrary convention, and its orthography is an arbitrary convention on how to reduce an arbitrary convention to writing.

Failure of remembering the intricacies of a convention about a convention: venial sin
Getting a basic fact about the universe wrong: true mortal sin.

You have this bass-ackwards. You should be quite deeply ashamed.

Posted by: nrunyan | January 28, 2012 7:31 PM

I had a fight with Rourke Publishing (out of Florida) a couple years back because they issued a children's book about whales with a blue whale on the front. Unfortunately, the blue whale was in the process of battling a giant squid. Stupid, and offensively wrong, but there was no way they were going to change it because it "attracted the kid's attention". Well, so would a SPERM whale battling a giant squid. How much can it cost to be scientifically accurate? They were complete asshats about it; the cover finally aged out of their publications, but there are a lot of those books with the idiotic cover still hanging around in children's book collections. It still irritates me.