Mon May 20, 2024 THE VENERABLE BEDE FEAST DAY
On May 25th in the year AD 735 – that’s over 1200 years ago - the Venerable Bede, died. He was an English monk who was the first person we know of to have written scholarly works in the English language. He also wrote De Natura Rerum, which was a collection of works on geography and astronomy, much of it preserved knowledge from Greek civilization, but also knowledge gained by observation and deduction. He was aware that the earth was round, and that the solar year is not exactly 365 and a quarter days long, but roughly 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes, so that the Julian calendar (one leap year every four years) would need to be adjusted in order to keep the months in step with the seasons. And he was the first to use the B.C. – A.D. designations in our modern calendar.
Tue May 21, 2024 THE MOON AND THE HORSESHOE CRAB
In the springtime, usually in the month of May when the moon is new or full, and the Atlantic Ocean tide is high, horseshoe crabs mate and lay their eggs in the sand at the water's edge. Not a true crab at all, but a distant relative of spiders and scorpions, the horseshoe crab is often called a living fossil because its kind has existed unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Far above, the moon shines down upon them from a distance of a quarter of a million miles. Horseshoe crabs can hardly see the moon, lacking proper eyesight for the task, but they are nevertheless driven to perform their mating ritual according to a very ancient tradition, following the rhythm of the lunar spring tides of May.
Wed May 22, 2024 ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Arthur Conan Doyle, born on May 22nd, 1859, invented the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorites. But Holmes confessed to Doctor Watson that he didn’t know that the earth orbited the sun: “What… is it to me? You say we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.” But I think that astronomy would appeal to his powers of observation. And through inductive reasoning, Holmes could infer that if we live on a planet, one of many, that goes round the sun, then it would be logical to assume that there were other planets out there, going ‘round other suns. And he did say, “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sounds a lot like black holes to me!
Thu May 23, 2024 FULL MOON OF MAY
The moon is full tonight. May’s full moon is the Planting Moon of springtime, also the Milk Moon, the Hare Moon or the Frogs Return Moon. Since it’s May we also call it the Merry Moon. Here in America the Creek and the Seminole Indians call this the Mulberry Moon, The Cheyenne say it is the Moon When the Horses Get Fat, but to the Sioux, it’s the Moon When the Ponies Shed. Other Native American tribes have similar names that suggest the tending of crops, and the beginning of warm weather. To the Winnebago peoples, this is the Hoeing Corn Moon; To the Salish, it is the Flower Moon, but the Osage tribes call it the Moon When the Little Flowers Die.
Fri May 24, 2024 STEAM TALK – SCIENCE AND SCIENCE FICTION
One of the very first science fiction stories ever written was back in the early 1600’s, by an astronomer named Johannes Kepler. His story was called, “Somnium” (The Dream.) In it, Kepler wrote of a voyage to the moon where his hero was able to watch the planet earth rotate on its axis over the course of a lunar day, and he hoped it would help people to understand how our world moved through space. Tomorrow night I will talk about the science in science fiction stories, both in books and in movies and also TV shows. There’s some pretty bad science in some of it, but also some really good science to discuss. This talk will be at 6 pm at Indian River State College’s Hallstrom Planetarium in Fort Pierce, and the lecture is free.
