Re: relativity

Brian Neuschwander (bwnbcg@sjm.infi.net)
Tue, 25 Nov 1997 08:10:42 -0800

George Murphy wrote:
>
> There was a good example of scientific illiteracy on the NBC news last
> night (Mon). In talking about the attempt of the shuttle crew to get
> the Spartan satellite, the reporter said that it might seem easier than
> it really is because it looks as if both shuttle & satellite are almost
> at rest, but _really_ they're moving at 17,000 mph.
> Einstein (& Galileo), call your office.
> George Murphy

The recent motion picture, Contact, was among other things, great
commentry on ignorance and imagination. The movie is the Carl Sagan
SETI project story as he would possily have it, but with a twist. I am
far from a Carl Sagan fan (he wrote the story), but the story did
contemptuously show the public as an ignorant mass with little interest
in true knowledge: the desert conclave, the Washington Mall scenes, the
congressional inquest as examples. As I sat through the movie, I
thought this was a bitter over caricaturization of the general
citizenry.

>From what George is reporting, perhaps not!

-- Brian W. Neuschwander