The Dark Side of the Moon: a Short History

Some people, with good cause, do not like the phrase "dark side of the Moon".

The reason they do not like it, is because of a common cognitive misconception.

Historically, the phrase refers to the farside of the Moon, which for most of history humanity could not observe, at all, because the Moon is synchronously rotating with the Earth and always presents the same side to the Earth.
The word "dark" here is used in the sense of "hidden" or "unseen", which is a common colloquial use, but, in use then became confused with the more common meaning of "unlit", leading generations of students to make the cognitive error of thinking that the farside of the Moon was "dark" in the sense of the Sun never shining on it.
Much to the irritation of Astronomers.

Some Astronomers responded to this misconception with a campaign of eradication, pushing for careful use of language, using "nearside" and "farside' exclusively, which is all well and good, but does little to eradicate the historical usage, particularly given the strong presence of the phrase in popular culture, science errors, and all. eg Bad Astronomer's take

So, today, when our paper on formation of the highlands on the farside came out, our press release used the phrase "dark side".
This was quite deliberate, and we talked about the pros and cons extensively. The concept of "the dark side of the Moon" is embedded in popular culture and given the topic of the research the comparison was inevitable and best confronted head-on.

Thus: "...dates back to 1959, when the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 transmitted the first images of the dark side of the moon back to Earth. It was called the dark side because it was unknown, not because sunlight does not reach it."

We preferred to explicitly explain the historical context in the press release rather than ignore it.

Some people would rather we had not. They would prefer the phrase "dark side" be not used at all, and somewhat to our amusement a lengthy internet troll started about the use and abuse of the exact phrase, go google it if you must...

So, how unusual is it in this day and age to refer to '70s concept albums?

These examples are taken over a decade+ and all taken from a popular science news website featuring articles from diverse sources discussing a range of topics, using "dark side of the Moon" to mean a couple of different things, including both the "farside" and "the part of the Moon currently not lit by the Sun".

They are far from unique examples, and the most recent is from earlier this year.

So, it is really a matter of style and pedantry.
On the one hand, purists like to try to simplify the terminology and clean up concepts in the hope of reducing conceptual errors, on the other hand, some people try to be explicit about historical and colloquial usage and to discuss how different terms can mean different things depending on context.
There is, generally, no actual definitive authority on the issue in most such cases, and a case can be made either way. In some instances the popular cultural context is overwhelming and the science stakes are low; in other instances the scientific stakes are high and the cultural context is weak or marginal.
On this one, Roger Waters wins...

Anyway,as we all know, it is all dark.
Really.
The Moon's albedo is very low.

Tags

More like this

"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark." While the Moon has a nearside and a farside, it does not, actually, have a dark side or a light side, now. At least not a fixed dark side, just a slowly moving night side, and day side. But it used to. Sorta. "I remember the…
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on the Dark Side of the Moon..." The Astrowright has been doing some lunatic slow blogging on an interesting problem: The Nearside of the Moon from Ron Hodges - NASA medialibrary The Farside from apod One of these is not like the other... Jason discusses how we…
There's one piece of bad math that I've encountered relatively frequently in conversations. It's incredibly frustrating to me, because it's just so crazy - but the way we teach math and physics, far to many people just don't have enough of a clue to see how foolish it really is. This comes up…
The patterns of the dark craters on the near side of the Moon have spurred the imagination of observers from all cultures: Some visualize a woman, others a rabbit, or, like most of us, they see the "Man in the Moon." Near side The explanation as to why we always see the Man in the Moon - that is…

Yes, arguments CAN be made for both uses, and, as in many cases, one is just wrong! If you and your colleagues taught more intro astro, you'd know this (note: NUMBERS of students are irrelevant, huge lecture classes hardly count. ). And clearly, citing other people's mistakes is not the best of strategies to support ones own. Having said all this, I am mightily amused that stellar astronomers and theorists MAY have solved one of the greatest problems in planetary science (and from my alma mater too!). So, kudos on the science, not so much on the "teaching moment."

By speakertoanimals (not verified) on 26 Jun 2014 #permalink