1. catdynamics
  2. Astronomy: What it is good for!

Astronomy: What it is good for!

By catdynamics on August 18, 2006.

James asks: Astronomy: What is it good for?

Seriously: getting a multi-minute lead story in a to-die-for demographic television show, and multiple prime time television news stories, front page headlines etc with eye-catching candy graphics, visceral messages that hit home, and light controversy people can argue and care about without it becoming violent.

Oh, and furthering our understanding of the universe, including conceptually revolutinising our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe, several times; driving technological developments such as optics, spectroscopy, nuclear theory; and, figuring out a prime cause of mass extinctions, and providing Spaceguard - admittedly only as a minimal budget afterthought, but it is a start.

Anticipating and ameliorating non-linear externally driven pertrubations to the biosphere is a public good.

Tags
astro

More like this

Visit the NSF's Evolution of Evolution Web Site
Honoring the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, Evolution of Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" is a multi-disciplinary one-stop-shop of resources on evolution and Darwin himself that are available nowhere else--including eye-catching graphics;…
Another Revolution in Physics Crackpottery: Electromagnetic Gravity
It's that time again - yes, we have yet another wacko reinvention of physics that pretends to have math on its side. This time, it's "The Electro-Magnetic Radiation Pressure Gravity Theory", by "Engineer Xavier Borg". (Yes, he signs all of his papers that way - it's always with the title "Engineer…
DonorsChoose Payoff: Why AMO Physics?
Months ago, during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I offered to answer questions from people who donated to the Challenge. I then promptly forgot to respond to the questions sent in. Mea maxima culpa. Here's a way-too-late response to a good question from "tcmJOE": I've spent the past few years trying…
Hey, this Joachim Bublath guy is good!
A reader pointed me to this German documentary (with English subtitles) on evolution and creationism—it has a nice 10 minute primer on mechanisms and evidence for evolution (with evo-devo, especially of fruit flies and zebrafish, prominently mentioned, appropriately enough for the country of…

As a wanna-be -but didn't quite make it astronomer myself. I think astronomy is also important as a means to interest young people in science, and especially the physical sciences. There's nothing like learning about the fantasical properties of astronomical object to facinate people, and pretty pictures hep too.