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Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing 'Hoax'
Dr. Philip C. Plait sets the record straight on many modern hoaxes and myths. Appalled that millions of Americans don't believe in the moon landing, or that an egg stands on its end only on the vernal equinox, Plait hilariously spills the truth and informs us of scientific inaccuracies in our everyday vernacular.
Audible edition run 9 hours, 39 minutes
Audible edition run 9 hours, 39 minutes
10 pages, Audiobook
First published March 1, 2002
156 people are currently reading
7970 people want to read
About the author
Philip Plait
6 books309 followersPhilip Cary Plait, Ph.D. (aka "The Bad Astronomer") is a US astronomer, skeptic, writer and popular science blogger. He is a well known author and public figure in the fields of astronomy and science.
Plait gained his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Virginia in 1994. He began his career with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. His first foray into public life was with his blog that described "bad astronomy" in movies and in public perception in general. This led to Plait's first book Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax" (2002). In 2008, he became President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, serving in that position until January 1, 2010.
Dr Phil Plait remains a popular and well known figure popularising science and astronomy.
Plait gained his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Virginia in 1994. He began his career with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. His first foray into public life was with his blog that described "bad astronomy" in movies and in public perception in general. This led to Plait's first book Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax" (2002). In 2008, he became President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, serving in that position until January 1, 2010.
Dr Phil Plait remains a popular and well known figure popularising science and astronomy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 277 reviews
October 29, 2023
“Practicing science is wonderful. It makes you THINK about things, and thinking is one of the best things you can do.”
Misconceptions about astronomy are apparently very common (and I’m not even talking about confusing respectable science of astronomy with the ridiculous bucket of stupid that is astrology) and easily perpetuated, and Phil Plait will not tolerate it.
Some of the misconceptions discussed puzzled me with their sheer ridiculousness (seriously, there are actually people who believe that spring equinox is what makes possible to stand an egg on its end? And people who think equator makes toilets flush and bathtubs drain the other way because of the Coriolis effect???). Some led to shameful realization that there will be things that will whoosh through my brain without making a mark on it (those damn tides; how do they work again?). And some of Plait’s explanations have given me solid armor against the toddlers asking why the sky is blue:
“If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, "It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae.”
Moon phases (not caused by Earth shadow), Hubble Space Telescope (the book was published in 2002, so Hubble was all the rage still), meteors/meteorites (and silliness of the expression”meteoric rise”), UFOs, solar eclipses, and the tinfoil insistence of conspiracy theorists on the Moon Landing Hoax. Oh, and the sadness that ensues when you try to buy a star name just to realize you’re lining the pockets of shrewd people preying on how gullible you are. And, of course, making fun of movies getting astronomy wrong. Oh, and Velikovsky’s theory of Venus zipping all over the Solar System which would have made a fun SFF novel but instead attracted quite a crazy following.
”It's too easy to simply accept what you're told. This is extraordinarily dangerous. If you just assume without thinking critically that someone is right, you may be voting for the wrong politician, or accepting a doctrine that has a bad premise, or buying a used car that might kill you. Science is a way of distinguishing good data from bad.
Practicing science is wonderful. It makes you think about things, and thinking is one of the best things you can do.”
Plait makes astronomy rationally and enthusiastically fun, and I adore his books at least as much as I adore those by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and if you want to see more from him, check these out:
— Phil Plait’s current blog: https://badastronomy.substack.com/
— Phil Plait’s column over at Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/au...
5 twinkling stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
October 26, 2012
Funny, entertaining, informative. Most of the stuff I already knew (I used to teach high school science), but I learned a few things, too.
My only complaint came on page 16: "That makes sense; the yolk is really the embryo of the chicken and shouldn't get jostled too much." This is not true. The embryo only grows if the egg is fertilized, and it starts as a small dot ON the yolk. The yolk provides food for the growing chick. I guess I need to write a book called "Bad Biology"!
My only complaint came on page 16: "That makes sense; the yolk is really the embryo of the chicken and shouldn't get jostled too much." This is not true. The embryo only grows if the egg is fertilized, and it starts as a small dot ON the yolk. The yolk provides food for the growing chick. I guess I need to write a book called "Bad Biology"!
November 25, 2021
"Do you see the pattern? First the Earth was the center of everything-hurrah! Then, well, ahem. Maybe the Sun still is-yay! But then, yikes, actually we’re way out in the suburbs of the [Milky Way] Galaxy. Well, this was getting downright insulting."
A casual spin of the Google directory returns over 600,000 results for “moon landing hoax.” Naturally, some portion of these hits are by the debunkers, those war-torn heroes who continue to throw logic and sense at the convinced conspiracy cults. Yet even discounting the lights of reason embedded in these results, the fact remains that far too many still believe that America’s voyage to the moon was no voyage at all: 6% of Americans, to be precise.
At first brush, and consumed without much in the way of science literacy, some of the doubts offered by hoaxers can sound marginally compelling. But first glances can be deceiving. And be warned: If you do wade into this cesspool of credulity, you may find yourself in contact with ideas that would make Roswell truthers blush. ‘The whole moon itself is faked and is projected onto the sky using the same technology used to project the Bat Signal’. Or something just as otherwordly. Conspiracy wonks are nothing if not creative, but you may find such departures from Reality unfit for public consumption. Don’t venture too long.
To be sure, collapsing the arguments of moon landing deniers requires little more than a healthy dose of common sense infused with trace amounts of scientific acumen. They might try the following on for size:
1. Experts spanning the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and photography all say we've been to the moon, and it’s usually a good idea to defer to experts on matters in which you are, in fact, not one.
2. Global conspiracy theories on the scale necessary to fake a moon landing are probably infeasible given how many people would need to stay silent, from the hundreds of thousands of NASA engineers who worked on the Apollo project for nearly 10 years, the staging crews who fabricated and processed the footage for six different manned landings, the 12 men who claimed to have walked on the moon and the other astronauts who flew with them, and finally to the chain of command terminating with the Oval Office.
3. If the Soviet Union had the slightest inkling of imposture, they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops to the stars. We were, after all, waging an international space race at the time.
4. Photographic chicanery of the type required to spoof a moon landing did not exist.
5. Along with much third-party evidence, in recent years orbiting spacecraft have captured photos of the landing sites, the tracks left by the Apollo astronauts, and various remnants of the lunar surface experiments they conducted.
If exercising logic and countering similarly pseudoscientific moonshine is something you work into regular rotation, you'll find Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax” crowded with thrills and long on ammunition. In a way, this is the book Phil Plait, award-winning blogger and skeptic superstar, was always meant to write. The topics covered are the very ones he’s written vibrantly about for more than a decade on his blog of the same name (now appearing on Slate). Fans of his work will be accustomed to the serviceable combination of wit, humor, and academic rigor directed at popular misinformation. His easily digestible tome is in this sense perfectly continuous with his veteran crusade to debunk all manner of ‘bunk’.
Astronomy is Plait’s specialty, and his breadth of the stars is staggering. Sure, much of the information on offer here is a Google search away, but the comedic, accessible format and the assortment of diverse but neatly divisioned topics prove to be the book’s redeeming qualities. And along with a pulverizing exposé on moon landing conspiracy theories, about a quarter of the way into the book you’re treated with one of the best, if not the best, layman explanations of how tides work. Given all of the half-explanations and untruths swirling around online on this topic (Plait notes that even many textbooks have it wrong), it’s refreshing to read a comprehensive breakdown of tidal physics that even an amateur can regurgitate. His deconstructions really are that good.
While we cannot be faulted for it, most of us live out our day entirely ignorant of the celestial wonders that loom just beyond the horizon. The sun, and the planets that race around it, each with its loyal retinue of moon or moons, all dance to intricate patterns and are governed by a dense filigree of physical relationships. Plait does a great job of exposing the profundity of the stars to which we are so often oblivious while putting to bed a few of the most pervasive inaccuracies lodged in our modern consciousness.
As it turns out, the seasons are not caused by the sun’s intensity or by its distance from the earth. The moon is not larger near the horizon than when it’s high overhead. Lunar phases are not the result of the earth’s shadow dynamics. The sky is not blue because it reflects the color of the oceans. And, far from proving that no man has stepped foot on the surface of the moon, the fact that there are no stars in the Apollo 11 photographs simply shows that NASA knew how to work a camera. Plait’s treatments are precise, no-nonsense and layered with enthusiasm.
Some chapters are less memorable than others: why you can balance an egg on its end any day of the year; why you can’t glimpse stars in daylight; and why astrology carries as much science cred as Harry Potter struck me as less than revelatory. However, the sections on the the Hubble Space Telescope, the "Velikovsky affair," the Big Bang—perhaps the most frequently misconceived of scientific theories—and his entertaining finale on bad astronomy in film all earn high marks.
Closing Thoughts
If you find science synonymous with entertainment, then Bad Astronomy is for you, especially if you’re already familiar with Phil Plait’s online persona. Not merely the arch-critic of pseudoscience, Plait is one of the few educators I know of who can graft humor onto science without falling victim to oversimplification or pulling from the standard bag of clichés. You won’t just learn that the sky is blue because the earth’s atmosphere scatters blue light more than other wavelengths, or that 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most scientifically authentic space movie ever. You’ll also obtain a wonderful introduction to the underlying principles of astronomy and appreciate the admixture of humor throughout. Plait’s book, his first, is an exercise in clear thinking fused with good science, necessities surely foreign to the moon landing deniers. Highly recommended.
Note: This review is republished from my official website.
A casual spin of the Google directory returns over 600,000 results for “moon landing hoax.” Naturally, some portion of these hits are by the debunkers, those war-torn heroes who continue to throw logic and sense at the convinced conspiracy cults. Yet even discounting the lights of reason embedded in these results, the fact remains that far too many still believe that America’s voyage to the moon was no voyage at all: 6% of Americans, to be precise.
At first brush, and consumed without much in the way of science literacy, some of the doubts offered by hoaxers can sound marginally compelling. But first glances can be deceiving. And be warned: If you do wade into this cesspool of credulity, you may find yourself in contact with ideas that would make Roswell truthers blush. ‘The whole moon itself is faked and is projected onto the sky using the same technology used to project the Bat Signal’. Or something just as otherwordly. Conspiracy wonks are nothing if not creative, but you may find such departures from Reality unfit for public consumption. Don’t venture too long.
To be sure, collapsing the arguments of moon landing deniers requires little more than a healthy dose of common sense infused with trace amounts of scientific acumen. They might try the following on for size:
1. Experts spanning the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and photography all say we've been to the moon, and it’s usually a good idea to defer to experts on matters in which you are, in fact, not one.
2. Global conspiracy theories on the scale necessary to fake a moon landing are probably infeasible given how many people would need to stay silent, from the hundreds of thousands of NASA engineers who worked on the Apollo project for nearly 10 years, the staging crews who fabricated and processed the footage for six different manned landings, the 12 men who claimed to have walked on the moon and the other astronauts who flew with them, and finally to the chain of command terminating with the Oval Office.
3. If the Soviet Union had the slightest inkling of imposture, they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops to the stars. We were, after all, waging an international space race at the time.
4. Photographic chicanery of the type required to spoof a moon landing did not exist.
5. Along with much third-party evidence, in recent years orbiting spacecraft have captured photos of the landing sites, the tracks left by the Apollo astronauts, and various remnants of the lunar surface experiments they conducted.
If exercising logic and countering similarly pseudoscientific moonshine is something you work into regular rotation, you'll find Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax” crowded with thrills and long on ammunition. In a way, this is the book Phil Plait, award-winning blogger and skeptic superstar, was always meant to write. The topics covered are the very ones he’s written vibrantly about for more than a decade on his blog of the same name (now appearing on Slate). Fans of his work will be accustomed to the serviceable combination of wit, humor, and academic rigor directed at popular misinformation. His easily digestible tome is in this sense perfectly continuous with his veteran crusade to debunk all manner of ‘bunk’.
Astronomy is Plait’s specialty, and his breadth of the stars is staggering. Sure, much of the information on offer here is a Google search away, but the comedic, accessible format and the assortment of diverse but neatly divisioned topics prove to be the book’s redeeming qualities. And along with a pulverizing exposé on moon landing conspiracy theories, about a quarter of the way into the book you’re treated with one of the best, if not the best, layman explanations of how tides work. Given all of the half-explanations and untruths swirling around online on this topic (Plait notes that even many textbooks have it wrong), it’s refreshing to read a comprehensive breakdown of tidal physics that even an amateur can regurgitate. His deconstructions really are that good.
“The essence of science is that it makes its own improvements: A theory is only as good as its next prediction.” (p. 20)
While we cannot be faulted for it, most of us live out our day entirely ignorant of the celestial wonders that loom just beyond the horizon. The sun, and the planets that race around it, each with its loyal retinue of moon or moons, all dance to intricate patterns and are governed by a dense filigree of physical relationships. Plait does a great job of exposing the profundity of the stars to which we are so often oblivious while putting to bed a few of the most pervasive inaccuracies lodged in our modern consciousness.
As it turns out, the seasons are not caused by the sun’s intensity or by its distance from the earth. The moon is not larger near the horizon than when it’s high overhead. Lunar phases are not the result of the earth’s shadow dynamics. The sky is not blue because it reflects the color of the oceans. And, far from proving that no man has stepped foot on the surface of the moon, the fact that there are no stars in the Apollo 11 photographs simply shows that NASA knew how to work a camera. Plait’s treatments are precise, no-nonsense and layered with enthusiasm.
Some chapters are less memorable than others: why you can balance an egg on its end any day of the year; why you can’t glimpse stars in daylight; and why astrology carries as much science cred as Harry Potter struck me as less than revelatory. However, the sections on the the Hubble Space Telescope, the "Velikovsky affair," the Big Bang—perhaps the most frequently misconceived of scientific theories—and his entertaining finale on bad astronomy in film all earn high marks.
Closing Thoughts
If you find science synonymous with entertainment, then Bad Astronomy is for you, especially if you’re already familiar with Phil Plait’s online persona. Not merely the arch-critic of pseudoscience, Plait is one of the few educators I know of who can graft humor onto science without falling victim to oversimplification or pulling from the standard bag of clichés. You won’t just learn that the sky is blue because the earth’s atmosphere scatters blue light more than other wavelengths, or that 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most scientifically authentic space movie ever. You’ll also obtain a wonderful introduction to the underlying principles of astronomy and appreciate the admixture of humor throughout. Plait’s book, his first, is an exercise in clear thinking fused with good science, necessities surely foreign to the moon landing deniers. Highly recommended.
Note: This review is republished from my official website.
June 13, 2021
This is an excellent book, written in an informal, often very witty style, that makes for an easy, entertaining read. In the Mythbusters vein, the author presents a number of the most widely misunderstood aspects of astronomy in a way that clearly explains why these misunderstandings occur and explains the actual facts behind them.
The reason I haven’t given this 5 stars is because I question who this book is for. You see, I don’t think the people who really need to read this book would ever actually pick it up and read it. Either that or, if they did, it would just result in a bunch of 1 star ‘burn the heretic’ type reviews because people simply don’t like to be told they’re wrong.
Because of this, I think this book (and others of its type) end up being read, for the most part, by people like me, who know 90% of the material already, leading to an unattractive feeling of smugness and a false sense of superiority which isn’t, in my opinion, a good thing to cultivate.
If I thought for a second this book would actually change people’s minds about some of the nonsense the author debunks, I’d give it 5 stars all the way. Perhaps I’m just too cynical.
My next book: Marvel Masterworks: The Black Panther vol. 1
The reason I haven’t given this 5 stars is because I question who this book is for. You see, I don’t think the people who really need to read this book would ever actually pick it up and read it. Either that or, if they did, it would just result in a bunch of 1 star ‘burn the heretic’ type reviews because people simply don’t like to be told they’re wrong.
Because of this, I think this book (and others of its type) end up being read, for the most part, by people like me, who know 90% of the material already, leading to an unattractive feeling of smugness and a false sense of superiority which isn’t, in my opinion, a good thing to cultivate.
If I thought for a second this book would actually change people’s minds about some of the nonsense the author debunks, I’d give it 5 stars all the way. Perhaps I’m just too cynical.
My next book: Marvel Masterworks: The Black Panther vol. 1
March 22, 2015
Really interesting, and at times pretty funny. I really enjoyed this book, and think that Plait did a good job at laying explaining the misconceptions, poking a little fun at them, and then debunking them with good solid science. He doesn't claim that science knows everything, but he does show how easy it is to see that some of the things that are believed to be true because they are part of the cultural "knowledge" - like that an egg will only stand on its end on the vernal equinox. You could easily try it at ANY OTHER TIME and disprove that.
He goes over quite a lot of topics in the book, from what the Hubble Space Telescope actually is to how sci-fi movies and books get things wrong to make them more exciting and familiar, to the intricacies of naming things that fall from the sky (meteor/meteorite) and how the phases of the moon work. He talks about why we have seasons, and why creationist 'science' isn't. And astrology. The astrology section was especially funny to me, because I'm a cynical skeptic who had to sit next to a 'star-child' for about two years at my last job. She'd tell me about her horoscope and how bad things were happening in the world because whatchamajig was in its 4th equilateral ascendancy or suchlike. I'd just nod and pretend like what she'd said sounded like English.
I didn't know that there was a Bad Astronomy website until after I'd listened to the majority of the book. Close to the end, he lists the top 10 mistakes commonly used in sci-fi movies set in space or dealing with aliens, etc. He also mentioned that he does movie reviews there, which made me wonder whether he had reviewed Gravity, which I watched recently. He has not, as of yesterday. A shame, I'd like to see what he thought of how they did that one. And Leviathan Wakes. I'd like to hear his opinion on those.
Finally, a word about the reader... I thought he was just OK. There were some times in the narration that his cadence was a little off, making partial sentence fragments sound like they were their own sentences. It was strange. And he did accents for some parts of it, like when quoting another astronomer who was English, etc. That was weird, too. Still, as a whole, it was good, but if I had known I could, I would likely have just read the site. ;)
He goes over quite a lot of topics in the book, from what the Hubble Space Telescope actually is to how sci-fi movies and books get things wrong to make them more exciting and familiar, to the intricacies of naming things that fall from the sky (meteor/meteorite) and how the phases of the moon work. He talks about why we have seasons, and why creationist 'science' isn't. And astrology. The astrology section was especially funny to me, because I'm a cynical skeptic who had to sit next to a 'star-child' for about two years at my last job. She'd tell me about her horoscope and how bad things were happening in the world because whatchamajig was in its 4th equilateral ascendancy or suchlike. I'd just nod and pretend like what she'd said sounded like English.
I didn't know that there was a Bad Astronomy website until after I'd listened to the majority of the book. Close to the end, he lists the top 10 mistakes commonly used in sci-fi movies set in space or dealing with aliens, etc. He also mentioned that he does movie reviews there, which made me wonder whether he had reviewed Gravity, which I watched recently. He has not, as of yesterday. A shame, I'd like to see what he thought of how they did that one. And Leviathan Wakes. I'd like to hear his opinion on those.
Finally, a word about the reader... I thought he was just OK. There were some times in the narration that his cadence was a little off, making partial sentence fragments sound like they were their own sentences. It was strange. And he did accents for some parts of it, like when quoting another astronomer who was English, etc. That was weird, too. Still, as a whole, it was good, but if I had known I could, I would likely have just read the site. ;)
August 6, 2017
If you are familiar with documentaries about the universe, then you most certainly know Phil Plait. His enthusiasm and funny way to popularize science made him one of the most beloved astronomers known today. At least, he is one of my favorites.
This book is no exception: like in his TV appearances, he does an excellent job explaining various misconceptions or myths related to our known universe.
You can also take a look at his blog, http://www.badastronomy.com/index.html and see if it catches your interest. Or maybe below fragments will:
”It's too easy to simply accept what you're told. This is extraordinarily dangerous. If you just assume without thinking critically that someone is right, you may be voting for the wrong politician, or accepting a doctrine that has a bad premise, or buying a used car that might kill you. Science is a way of distinguishing good data from bad. Practicing science is wonderful. It makes you think about things, and thinking is one of the best things you can do.”
“Meteors are a major source of bad astronomy. When two eighteenth-century Yale scientists proposed that meteors were coming from outer space, one wag responded, "I would more easily believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven." That wag was Thomas Jefferson. Thankfully, he stuck to other things like founding the University of Virginia (my alma mater) and running the country, and steered clear of astronomy.”
“When you actually do the math, you find that the effect of Jupiter's gravity on the Earth is only about 1 percent of the Moon's! Despite the old saying, size doesn't matter; distance does.”
Interesting, witty, amusing; great read!
This book is no exception: like in his TV appearances, he does an excellent job explaining various misconceptions or myths related to our known universe.
You can also take a look at his blog, http://www.badastronomy.com/index.html and see if it catches your interest. Or maybe below fragments will:
”It's too easy to simply accept what you're told. This is extraordinarily dangerous. If you just assume without thinking critically that someone is right, you may be voting for the wrong politician, or accepting a doctrine that has a bad premise, or buying a used car that might kill you. Science is a way of distinguishing good data from bad. Practicing science is wonderful. It makes you think about things, and thinking is one of the best things you can do.”
“Meteors are a major source of bad astronomy. When two eighteenth-century Yale scientists proposed that meteors were coming from outer space, one wag responded, "I would more easily believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven." That wag was Thomas Jefferson. Thankfully, he stuck to other things like founding the University of Virginia (my alma mater) and running the country, and steered clear of astronomy.”
“When you actually do the math, you find that the effect of Jupiter's gravity on the Earth is only about 1 percent of the Moon's! Despite the old saying, size doesn't matter; distance does.”
Interesting, witty, amusing; great read!
January 21, 2010
What do you think you know about astronomy? For example, what causes us to have seasons? If you said that it's our distance from the sun - sorry, you're wrong. Or how about why the sky is blue? If you think it's that the sky reflects the sea, nope. Wrong again. Or perhaps you think that the moon's tidal effect makes people crazy, or that an egg can only stand on end if it's the Vernal Equinox or that an alignment of the planets will cause a terrible buildup of gravity that will kill us all!
All wrong. But you would not be alone. For a society as technologically advances as ours (and if you're reading this, then chances are good that you live in a technologically advanced society), the general public has a big problem with science. People see it as being too hard to understand, or too removed from their daily lives. Politicians bemoan the fact that American schoolchildren are falling behind in science, but science funding is almost always on the list of cuts that can be made to save money. We love technology, but hate science, and that is a path to certain doom.
Of all the sciences, though, astronomy is perhaps the worst understood. A lot of people still confuse it with astrology, which is probably a huge part of the problem right there. For millennia, we have thought about the planets and stars as celestial things, unknown and unknowable by such base creatures as ourselves. It's only in the last hundred years or so that we've been able to rapidly improve our understanding of the universe, and popular knowledge hasn't caught up with that yet.
And so bad misconceptions of astronomy persist in the public imagination.
Fortunately, we have people like Phil Plait to set the record straight, and that is indeed what he does in this book.
While there are many educators out there who believe that a wrong idea, once implanted, is impossible to eradicate, Plait sees it as a teachable opportunity. Take, for example, the commonly held belief that on the Vernal Equinox - and only on the Vernal Equinox - you can balance an egg on its end. Many people believe this, and it's an experiment that's carried out in classrooms around the country every March. Teachers tell their students, and the local news media tell their viewers, but no one stops to ask Why. Why would this day, of all the days in the year, be so special? More importantly, how can we test that assertion?
Fortunately, that's within the powers of any thinking individual, and it should be the first thing teachers do once they've finished having fun balancing eggs: try and do it again the next day. If you can balance an egg on March 30th, or May 22nd or August 12th, or any other day of the year, then you have successfully proven the Equinox Egg Hypothesis wrong. Congratulations! You're doing science!!
Or perhaps you've heard the story that you can see starts from the bottom of a well, or a tall smokestack. This is because, the idea goes, the restricted amount of light will not wash out the stars so much, giving you a chance to do some daytime astronomy. Well, there's an easy way to test this one too, if you have an old factory or something of that nature nearby. What you'll discover is that no matter how much you try to restrict your view of the sky, it'll still be washed out and you won't see any stars at all.
One more good one that a lot of people believe - the moon is larger in the sky when it's near the horizon than when it's at its zenith. Again, this is something that's very easy to test. Go out as the full moon is rising, looming large in the sky, and hold up an object at arm's length - a pencil is usually recommended. Make a note of the moon's apparent size as compared to the eraser. Then go out again when the moon is high in the sky and repeat your observation. The moon appears to be the same size, no matter how it may look to you.
Of course, there's a lot of science into why these things are the way they are. The chicken egg thing is because there's no singular force that is only acting on chicken eggs and only doing so on one day of the year (which is not even universally regarded as the first day of spring). As for the inability to see stars in the daytime, that's because our pesky atmosphere scatters a lot of the light coming from the sun, so light appears to come from everywhere in the sky. The only thing you're likely to see in a blue sky is the moon, and MAYBE Venus, if you're really sharp-eyed and lucky.
The Moon Illusion is not well-understood, actually. It's probably not the brain comparing the moon with objects on the horizon - the effect works at sea, too. It's probably a combination of competing psychological effects that deal with distance, none of which can accurately deal with how far away the moon is.
Regardless, all of these things are easily testable by anyone. The problem is that so few people take that extra time to actually test them., or even think that they should.
There are some myths and misconceptions that take a little more expertise to explain, such as why tides and eclipses happen, how seasons occur and why the moon goes through phases. But these explanations aren't very difficult and are well within the understanding of any intelligent adult. Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths that are stubborn, entrenched into the heads of people everywhere and very hard to get out. Not the least of these are the belief that UFOs are alien spacecraft and that we never went to the Moon.
Interestingly enough, both of these rest on the same basic problem: we can't rely on our own brains to accurately interpret the data that we see. Plait recounts a story where he was mesmerized by some strange lights in the night sky while watching a 3 AM shuttle launch. They seemed to hover in place, making strange noises, and it wasn't until they got much closer that he was able to see them for what they were: a group of ducks that were reflecting spotlights off their feathers.
Our brains believe things, and interpret the observations to fit those beliefs. So when the dust on the moon doesn't behave the way we expect dust to behave, some people believe that to be evidence of fraud, rather than the natural behavior of dust on the moon. We are creatures of story, which is why we like conspiracy theories and astrology. We want the world to make a kind of narrative sense, so often the first explanation we come up with is a story that sounds good. Unfortunately, just because the story sounds good, that doesn't make it true.
He also takes a swipe at bad movie science, but in a good-natured manner. Even he admits that movies are more likely to favor story over science, but there are some common errors that make it into so many science fiction films - sound in space, people dodging lasers, deadly asteroid fields - these things may be dramatically interesting, but they're all bad science. And while it would be annoying and pedantic to pick out every example of how the rules are bent for sci-fi ("Please. Why would the aliens come all the way to Earth to steal water when it exists in abundance out in the Kuiper Belt? I scoff at your attempt!"), they do offer an excellent opportunity to teach people about how science works.
One of the things I've always liked about Plait is his obvious enthusiasm for not just astronomy but for science in general. Here we have this excellent system to cut through the lies our brains tell us and get closer to knowing what's actually going on. Science forces us to question our assumptions, look at things from many points of view, and arrive at a conclusion that best describes the phenomenon we're observing. When Plait talks about science, he is not condescending or dry or super-intellectual, the way so many people imagine scientists to be. He's excited that he gets to use this amazing tool for understanding the universe, and he wants other people to use it.
If you're an astronomy buff, like myself, you probably won't learn much new information from this book. But hopefully you'll be re-invigorated to go out there and look at the world through a scientific, skeptical eye, and you'll be willing to confront these misconceptions when next you come across them. Even better, you might start thinking about what else you think you know, and how you can go about testing it.
All wrong. But you would not be alone. For a society as technologically advances as ours (and if you're reading this, then chances are good that you live in a technologically advanced society), the general public has a big problem with science. People see it as being too hard to understand, or too removed from their daily lives. Politicians bemoan the fact that American schoolchildren are falling behind in science, but science funding is almost always on the list of cuts that can be made to save money. We love technology, but hate science, and that is a path to certain doom.
Of all the sciences, though, astronomy is perhaps the worst understood. A lot of people still confuse it with astrology, which is probably a huge part of the problem right there. For millennia, we have thought about the planets and stars as celestial things, unknown and unknowable by such base creatures as ourselves. It's only in the last hundred years or so that we've been able to rapidly improve our understanding of the universe, and popular knowledge hasn't caught up with that yet.
And so bad misconceptions of astronomy persist in the public imagination.
Fortunately, we have people like Phil Plait to set the record straight, and that is indeed what he does in this book.
While there are many educators out there who believe that a wrong idea, once implanted, is impossible to eradicate, Plait sees it as a teachable opportunity. Take, for example, the commonly held belief that on the Vernal Equinox - and only on the Vernal Equinox - you can balance an egg on its end. Many people believe this, and it's an experiment that's carried out in classrooms around the country every March. Teachers tell their students, and the local news media tell their viewers, but no one stops to ask Why. Why would this day, of all the days in the year, be so special? More importantly, how can we test that assertion?
Fortunately, that's within the powers of any thinking individual, and it should be the first thing teachers do once they've finished having fun balancing eggs: try and do it again the next day. If you can balance an egg on March 30th, or May 22nd or August 12th, or any other day of the year, then you have successfully proven the Equinox Egg Hypothesis wrong. Congratulations! You're doing science!!
Or perhaps you've heard the story that you can see starts from the bottom of a well, or a tall smokestack. This is because, the idea goes, the restricted amount of light will not wash out the stars so much, giving you a chance to do some daytime astronomy. Well, there's an easy way to test this one too, if you have an old factory or something of that nature nearby. What you'll discover is that no matter how much you try to restrict your view of the sky, it'll still be washed out and you won't see any stars at all.
One more good one that a lot of people believe - the moon is larger in the sky when it's near the horizon than when it's at its zenith. Again, this is something that's very easy to test. Go out as the full moon is rising, looming large in the sky, and hold up an object at arm's length - a pencil is usually recommended. Make a note of the moon's apparent size as compared to the eraser. Then go out again when the moon is high in the sky and repeat your observation. The moon appears to be the same size, no matter how it may look to you.
Of course, there's a lot of science into why these things are the way they are. The chicken egg thing is because there's no singular force that is only acting on chicken eggs and only doing so on one day of the year (which is not even universally regarded as the first day of spring). As for the inability to see stars in the daytime, that's because our pesky atmosphere scatters a lot of the light coming from the sun, so light appears to come from everywhere in the sky. The only thing you're likely to see in a blue sky is the moon, and MAYBE Venus, if you're really sharp-eyed and lucky.
The Moon Illusion is not well-understood, actually. It's probably not the brain comparing the moon with objects on the horizon - the effect works at sea, too. It's probably a combination of competing psychological effects that deal with distance, none of which can accurately deal with how far away the moon is.
Regardless, all of these things are easily testable by anyone. The problem is that so few people take that extra time to actually test them., or even think that they should.
There are some myths and misconceptions that take a little more expertise to explain, such as why tides and eclipses happen, how seasons occur and why the moon goes through phases. But these explanations aren't very difficult and are well within the understanding of any intelligent adult. Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths that are stubborn, entrenched into the heads of people everywhere and very hard to get out. Not the least of these are the belief that UFOs are alien spacecraft and that we never went to the Moon.
Interestingly enough, both of these rest on the same basic problem: we can't rely on our own brains to accurately interpret the data that we see. Plait recounts a story where he was mesmerized by some strange lights in the night sky while watching a 3 AM shuttle launch. They seemed to hover in place, making strange noises, and it wasn't until they got much closer that he was able to see them for what they were: a group of ducks that were reflecting spotlights off their feathers.
Our brains believe things, and interpret the observations to fit those beliefs. So when the dust on the moon doesn't behave the way we expect dust to behave, some people believe that to be evidence of fraud, rather than the natural behavior of dust on the moon. We are creatures of story, which is why we like conspiracy theories and astrology. We want the world to make a kind of narrative sense, so often the first explanation we come up with is a story that sounds good. Unfortunately, just because the story sounds good, that doesn't make it true.
He also takes a swipe at bad movie science, but in a good-natured manner. Even he admits that movies are more likely to favor story over science, but there are some common errors that make it into so many science fiction films - sound in space, people dodging lasers, deadly asteroid fields - these things may be dramatically interesting, but they're all bad science. And while it would be annoying and pedantic to pick out every example of how the rules are bent for sci-fi ("Please. Why would the aliens come all the way to Earth to steal water when it exists in abundance out in the Kuiper Belt? I scoff at your attempt!"), they do offer an excellent opportunity to teach people about how science works.
One of the things I've always liked about Plait is his obvious enthusiasm for not just astronomy but for science in general. Here we have this excellent system to cut through the lies our brains tell us and get closer to knowing what's actually going on. Science forces us to question our assumptions, look at things from many points of view, and arrive at a conclusion that best describes the phenomenon we're observing. When Plait talks about science, he is not condescending or dry or super-intellectual, the way so many people imagine scientists to be. He's excited that he gets to use this amazing tool for understanding the universe, and he wants other people to use it.
If you're an astronomy buff, like myself, you probably won't learn much new information from this book. But hopefully you'll be re-invigorated to go out there and look at the world through a scientific, skeptical eye, and you'll be willing to confront these misconceptions when next you come across them. Even better, you might start thinking about what else you think you know, and how you can go about testing it.
August 30, 2016
I don't have much to say about this book. It's competently done, but I wasn't particularly satisfied with it even though it did cover some misconceptions I didn't realize I held (that the Earth's shadow causes the moon's phases, for example).
I think my biggest problem was with the book's tone. It's extremely conversational, and Plait frequently illustrates his points with metaphors. This isn't automatically a problem, but after a while they were so frequent that they started to interrupt the flow of the text. What I remember most isn't the various mistaken ideas about astronomy, but the description of regolith as being like flour, or that stars twinkle for the same reason that distant blacktops look reflective on hot days.
The most valuable parts for me were not the dealings with astronomy, but the ruminations on skepticism and the scientific method, and how it's easy for even someone used to looking at things critically to accept something without thought if they aren't careful. It certainly reinvigorated my desire to read The Demon-Haunted World.
I think my biggest problem was with the book's tone. It's extremely conversational, and Plait frequently illustrates his points with metaphors. This isn't automatically a problem, but after a while they were so frequent that they started to interrupt the flow of the text. What I remember most isn't the various mistaken ideas about astronomy, but the description of regolith as being like flour, or that stars twinkle for the same reason that distant blacktops look reflective on hot days.
The most valuable parts for me were not the dealings with astronomy, but the ruminations on skepticism and the scientific method, and how it's easy for even someone used to looking at things critically to accept something without thought if they aren't careful. It certainly reinvigorated my desire to read The Demon-Haunted World.
May 3, 2011
Let's be honest. If there was anything in this book that I didn't know, I should be calling UMd and returning my degrees. I didn't listen to this book to find out what science/astronomy misconceptions I've been harboring; I listened to it to find out what misconceptions are out there. Some I've heard before. Some I hadn't. I think the most interesting part of a book like this is learning what misconceptions are out there and learning how to respond in a down-to-Earth manner. I enjoyed it.
May 24, 2011
I don't think you really need to be an astronomer to realize that what people normal believe about the skies... Well, it doesn't necessarily match reality. To say the least. That's where Bad Astronomy comes in, to show exactly where we've gone wrong. The targets vary widely, from the simple fact that starships don't woosh to exactly why astrology is so silly. And, as the cover and title both suggest, the idea that the moon landing was hoaxed. Obviously, it's a light, popular science read. And it's a very enjoyable read, with a good, conversational voice. It's exactly what this type of book needs. Are the people who really need to read it likely to pick it up? Probably not. But it may educate some people who pick it up, and that makes it worthwhile.
July 7, 2025
A friendly tone, an easy wit, and mostly clear explanations would have made this a joy to read when I was younger. Now, well, if I were to pay strict attention and read it twice, I might get all the details that he offers. Fortunately I don't feel the need for all the details. I'm carefully skimming it and learning plenty... including corrections to what I thought I knew. (Though I do wish I were younger and more able to grasp all the details.)
I have done some, and will do more, of the mini-experiments. I recommend that you do, too, especially if you're reading this with kids (which I do recommend families do). (See the first comment below for the ones on my to-do list.)
Mirages on the highway are more prevalent in summer because layers of hot and less hot air are what causes the best refraction.
"Due to precession, 13,000 years from now... the Earth's north pole will be pointed directly away from the Sun in June and toward it in December. Seasons will be reversed relative to our current calendar." Um, would that not happen gradually? Therefore, would not seasons have been different some, say, 4-5K years ago when Stonehenge was built and the first dynasties were established in China and Egypt? And agriculture was invented 12,000 years ago, so would not the seasons have been pretty much reversed, making their calendars* very different? I've never heard any of that discussion, have you??
(I think what I need to do is not reread this, but read a similar book from a different author.)
This is something I've always wondered about but never managed to figure out: "at new Moon, the moon always appears near the Sun in the sky. That means it rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. When the moon is full it's opposite the Sun in the sky. It rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. The moon is like a giant clock in the sky. If the full moon is high in the sky it must be near midnight (halfway between sunset and sunrise). If it's getting low in the West, sunrise cannot be far behind...The first quarter Moon is one quarter of the way around from the Sun, and is high in the sky at sunset (90 degrees away from the Sun). So it rises at noon and sets at midnight... it can easily be seen in the afternoon sky; the 3rd quarter Moon can also be seen in the sky after sunrise, since it sets at noon."
Why does the moon look larger when it is near the horizon? "The next time you see the huge, full moon on the horizon, bend over and look at the moon upside down from between your legs.... Most people claim that when they do this the effect vanishes."
If a star gets hot enough the peak emission can "occur in ultraviolet light, invisible to the naked eye." Does this mean that there are stars we can't see even if they're close or bright enough?
"Just like people, stars can be important without being terribly bright." (Polaris)
Galileo did not go blind from studying the Sun. He "aimed his telescope at the sun and projected the image onto a piece of paper or a wall, casting a much larger image of the Sun.... This method... produces a large image that is easier to study." It is also the best way to view a solar eclipse. Do not rely on filters or films.
"If Richard Noone really felt that the earth would be destroyed on May 5th, 2000, why not give away his book for free so that people could be warned?" What was he going to do with the royalties?
"Beware the science of someone trying to sell you something."
If you want to understand meteoroids and meteorites better one thing to look at is Standoff Shock.
"Not only do small meteorites not cause fires, but many are actually covered in frost when found!"
"The farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to recede from US. [Consider a bomb.] The fastest bits move the most in a given time, while slower bits haven't moved out as far."
Heiligenschein: "You can see it yourself on a dewy morning. Face away from the Sun so that the shadow of your head falls on some wet grass. You can see the glow of backscattered sunlight surrounding your shadows head, looking very much like a halo."
"Shadows don't appear to be parallel because of perspective. When comparing the directions of shadows from two objects at very different distances, perspective effects can be quite large. I have seen this myself, by standing near a tall street lamp around sunset and comparing its shadow to that of one across the street. The two shadows appear to point in two very different directions. It's actually a pretty weird thing to see."
I want to read Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe.
"Go outside to level ground where you have a clear view of the sky from horizon to zenith. Imagine there is a line drawn from the zenith straight down across the sky to the horizon. Extend your arm, and point to your finger to where you think the halfway point is between the ground and the zenith.... Now have a friend measure the angle of your arm relative to the ground. I will almost guarantee that your arm is at an angle at roughly 30 degrees and not 45 degrees, which is truly halfway up to the zenith. I have tried this myself with many friends (some of whom were astronomers), and no one has ever been higher than about 40 degrees. This happens because we see the sky as flattened; for a flat sky the midpoint between zenith and horizon is lower than for a hemispherical sky."
" if you were to look at the full moon and hold up a dime next to it, how far away would you have to hold the dime to get it equal in size to the full moon?" 7 feet away!
"A telescope is more than an instrument used to magnify distant objects. A telescope collects light like a bucket collects rain. The bigger the bucket, the more rain you can collect. The bigger the telescope, the more light you collect. That light is redirected and focused into your eye, so even a faint star looks much brighter. Some stars that look white to the naked eye can be seen in their true color when viewed with a telescope. Even better, bright stars [like Vega] look even more colorful."
"Most observatories and planetariums are strapped for cash. Of buying a star (for your loved one), you could give them a donation to sponsor educational programs. That way come instead of just having one star you've never seen named for you, you'll be giving hundreds or thousands of people a chance to see all the stars in the sky." After all, there's nothing official about it; the astronomers use their own names and designations; it's about nothing more than a certificate which you could make yourself.
At the scale in which the sun is about a meter across and the earth is about 1cm across, "If you collected all the asteroids in the main belt and balled them up, they would be in toto about the size of a grain of sand. Now imagine crushing that grain of sand into millions of pieces and strewing it over the hundreds of thousands of square meters between Mars and Jupiter in the model. You could tool around there for months and never see an asteroid, let alone two." Certainly not an asteroid storm like in entertainment media.
(*remember, calendars were invented, at least in large part, to be able to choose the right time of year to plant....)
I have done some, and will do more, of the mini-experiments. I recommend that you do, too, especially if you're reading this with kids (which I do recommend families do). (See the first comment below for the ones on my to-do list.)
Mirages on the highway are more prevalent in summer because layers of hot and less hot air are what causes the best refraction.
"Due to precession, 13,000 years from now... the Earth's north pole will be pointed directly away from the Sun in June and toward it in December. Seasons will be reversed relative to our current calendar." Um, would that not happen gradually? Therefore, would not seasons have been different some, say, 4-5K years ago when Stonehenge was built and the first dynasties were established in China and Egypt? And agriculture was invented 12,000 years ago, so would not the seasons have been pretty much reversed, making their calendars* very different? I've never heard any of that discussion, have you??
(I think what I need to do is not reread this, but read a similar book from a different author.)
This is something I've always wondered about but never managed to figure out: "at new Moon, the moon always appears near the Sun in the sky. That means it rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. When the moon is full it's opposite the Sun in the sky. It rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. The moon is like a giant clock in the sky. If the full moon is high in the sky it must be near midnight (halfway between sunset and sunrise). If it's getting low in the West, sunrise cannot be far behind...The first quarter Moon is one quarter of the way around from the Sun, and is high in the sky at sunset (90 degrees away from the Sun). So it rises at noon and sets at midnight... it can easily be seen in the afternoon sky; the 3rd quarter Moon can also be seen in the sky after sunrise, since it sets at noon."
Why does the moon look larger when it is near the horizon? "The next time you see the huge, full moon on the horizon, bend over and look at the moon upside down from between your legs.... Most people claim that when they do this the effect vanishes."
If a star gets hot enough the peak emission can "occur in ultraviolet light, invisible to the naked eye." Does this mean that there are stars we can't see even if they're close or bright enough?
"Just like people, stars can be important without being terribly bright." (Polaris)
Galileo did not go blind from studying the Sun. He "aimed his telescope at the sun and projected the image onto a piece of paper or a wall, casting a much larger image of the Sun.... This method... produces a large image that is easier to study." It is also the best way to view a solar eclipse. Do not rely on filters or films.
"If Richard Noone really felt that the earth would be destroyed on May 5th, 2000, why not give away his book for free so that people could be warned?" What was he going to do with the royalties?
"Beware the science of someone trying to sell you something."
If you want to understand meteoroids and meteorites better one thing to look at is Standoff Shock.
"Not only do small meteorites not cause fires, but many are actually covered in frost when found!"
"The farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to recede from US. [Consider a bomb.] The fastest bits move the most in a given time, while slower bits haven't moved out as far."
Heiligenschein: "You can see it yourself on a dewy morning. Face away from the Sun so that the shadow of your head falls on some wet grass. You can see the glow of backscattered sunlight surrounding your shadows head, looking very much like a halo."
"Shadows don't appear to be parallel because of perspective. When comparing the directions of shadows from two objects at very different distances, perspective effects can be quite large. I have seen this myself, by standing near a tall street lamp around sunset and comparing its shadow to that of one across the street. The two shadows appear to point in two very different directions. It's actually a pretty weird thing to see."
I want to read Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe.
"Go outside to level ground where you have a clear view of the sky from horizon to zenith. Imagine there is a line drawn from the zenith straight down across the sky to the horizon. Extend your arm, and point to your finger to where you think the halfway point is between the ground and the zenith.... Now have a friend measure the angle of your arm relative to the ground. I will almost guarantee that your arm is at an angle at roughly 30 degrees and not 45 degrees, which is truly halfway up to the zenith. I have tried this myself with many friends (some of whom were astronomers), and no one has ever been higher than about 40 degrees. This happens because we see the sky as flattened; for a flat sky the midpoint between zenith and horizon is lower than for a hemispherical sky."
" if you were to look at the full moon and hold up a dime next to it, how far away would you have to hold the dime to get it equal in size to the full moon?" 7 feet away!
"A telescope is more than an instrument used to magnify distant objects. A telescope collects light like a bucket collects rain. The bigger the bucket, the more rain you can collect. The bigger the telescope, the more light you collect. That light is redirected and focused into your eye, so even a faint star looks much brighter. Some stars that look white to the naked eye can be seen in their true color when viewed with a telescope. Even better, bright stars [like Vega] look even more colorful."
"Most observatories and planetariums are strapped for cash. Of buying a star (for your loved one), you could give them a donation to sponsor educational programs. That way come instead of just having one star you've never seen named for you, you'll be giving hundreds or thousands of people a chance to see all the stars in the sky." After all, there's nothing official about it; the astronomers use their own names and designations; it's about nothing more than a certificate which you could make yourself.
At the scale in which the sun is about a meter across and the earth is about 1cm across, "If you collected all the asteroids in the main belt and balled them up, they would be in toto about the size of a grain of sand. Now imagine crushing that grain of sand into millions of pieces and strewing it over the hundreds of thousands of square meters between Mars and Jupiter in the model. You could tool around there for months and never see an asteroid, let alone two." Certainly not an asteroid storm like in entertainment media.
(*remember, calendars were invented, at least in large part, to be able to choose the right time of year to plant....)
October 6, 2017
3.5/5 STARS
A good read.This book cleared few misconceptions and learned a few new things in Astronomy however I felt some of the chapters are tedious and long.
A good read.This book cleared few misconceptions and learned a few new things in Astronomy however I felt some of the chapters are tedious and long.
May 9, 2012
As I read this book, I found myself wondering who it was written for. There were occasional snippets of information that I really enjoyed (random little factoids I hadn't really thought about before), but most of what I found in here were things I already knew. Most of it I learned in elementary school, such as the cause of seasons. Since most of the book wasn't news for me, I was pretty bored while I read - though I occasionally found myself making note of "Oh, that's something to explain to my kid once he's older". I also got annoyed with how much time the author spent dealing with things like the moon landing, creationists, etc - Plait went on and on to the point where I had to start skimming. The vast majority of Plait's readers already know we landed on the moon. It was just too preachy and over the top.
There were also a few points while I was reading when I'd get super excited that Plait was about to cover a given topic - unfortunately, even after all his ranting about 'finishing an experiment' or covering all the bases, the one part I really wanted to read about was almost always omitted from whatever it was Plait was describing. It was just FAR too frustrating a read - this book just wasn't for me.
There were also a few points while I was reading when I'd get super excited that Plait was about to cover a given topic - unfortunately, even after all his ranting about 'finishing an experiment' or covering all the bases, the one part I really wanted to read about was almost always omitted from whatever it was Plait was describing. It was just FAR too frustrating a read - this book just wasn't for me.
November 4, 2011
Subtitled ‘Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax”‘, this book discusses misconceptions related to astronomy. For example, various false explanations to why the sky is blue are talked about. The first part is about things like tides, eclipses. Then the book moves on to things like astrology and the purported Moon landing hoax. There is also a section on bad astronomy in films.
Philip Plait is an astronomer who also runs the excellent Bad Astronomy website. He has made a name for himself as a rationalist and debunker. His casual and easy style defuses any potential animosity in the text. He dislikes fraudsters and but he does not speak condescendingly about those who merely misunderstand. He also goes out of the way to explain complex physical phenomena in ways that laymen can understand.
It’s a fun book even if you don’t have much interest in astronomy, and I learned quite a bit reading it.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1338
Philip Plait is an astronomer who also runs the excellent Bad Astronomy website. He has made a name for himself as a rationalist and debunker. His casual and easy style defuses any potential animosity in the text. He dislikes fraudsters and but he does not speak condescendingly about those who merely misunderstand. He also goes out of the way to explain complex physical phenomena in ways that laymen can understand.
It’s a fun book even if you don’t have much interest in astronomy, and I learned quite a bit reading it.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1338
January 18, 2016
I found "Bad Astronomy" due to my interest in Phil Plait. I'm a big fan of his "Astronomy" at Crash Course; he installed his art of teaching, simple explanation, jokes and especially enthusiasm into each of his videos, which can easily absorb viewers' interest amd attention. Back to the book, he pointed out and clarified a number of misconceptions related to astronomy, some of which proved that I had been mistaken all along. From the moon landing, to astrology and bad science in Hollywood science fiction movies push me to continue reading, in this case listening to audio book, with curiosity and awe. It is highly recommended to science lovers out there.
August 28, 2011
Mostly interesting, but Bad Astronomy covers some fairly stale topics such as the moon landing hoax and astrology. I know people still believe this stuff and Phil may want to set them straight, but I'm pretty sure most of them can't read.
November 19, 2020
This is Phil Plait's first book, born out of his Bad Astronomy website, and it's an excellent and entertaining takedown of, as it says on the label, bad astronomy. He takes on many popular misunderstandings and misrepresentations of astronomical facts and realities.
Why is the sky really blue? Are meteorites hot enough to cause fires when they hit the ground? Can you see stars during the day if you are at the bottom of a well?
Plait takes on creationism, astrology, and UFOs, as well as bad science in movies and television. He talks about the Hubble telescope, and what it can and can't do, and why its data is not released publicly for a year after after collection.
I especially enjoyed the chapter dealing with the moon landing "hoax" (spoiler: yes, we really did land on the moon). Also quite interesting is the discussion of Velikovsky's crazy theory about Venus being ejected from Jupiter towards the inner solar system, and causing many of the dramatic events recorded in the Bible, such as when Joshua is reported to have stopped the sun in the sky for a full day. There are many reasons this doesn't make sense, but, really, read or listen to Plait's explanation.
Plait does a great job of making this entertaining, educational, and just really interesting. At times it's clear the nonsense that gets presented as plausible science makes him really cranky, but he's also very clear about how much he has enjoyed science fiction tv and movies with really bad science, and how it got him interested in real science and a career in astronomy.
The book was originally published in 2002, and is naturally a little dated in some respects. That's mostly in ways such as talking about the space shuttle as still an active part of our space program, and other relatively minor details. And if you catch him out in something more significant that scientific research since 2002 has proven wrong, well, he'd say, "Good!" He'd be delighted you're paying attention to scientific progress, and science's natural self-correcting features.
Recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
Why is the sky really blue? Are meteorites hot enough to cause fires when they hit the ground? Can you see stars during the day if you are at the bottom of a well?
Plait takes on creationism, astrology, and UFOs, as well as bad science in movies and television. He talks about the Hubble telescope, and what it can and can't do, and why its data is not released publicly for a year after after collection.
I especially enjoyed the chapter dealing with the moon landing "hoax" (spoiler: yes, we really did land on the moon). Also quite interesting is the discussion of Velikovsky's crazy theory about Venus being ejected from Jupiter towards the inner solar system, and causing many of the dramatic events recorded in the Bible, such as when Joshua is reported to have stopped the sun in the sky for a full day. There are many reasons this doesn't make sense, but, really, read or listen to Plait's explanation.
Plait does a great job of making this entertaining, educational, and just really interesting. At times it's clear the nonsense that gets presented as plausible science makes him really cranky, but he's also very clear about how much he has enjoyed science fiction tv and movies with really bad science, and how it got him interested in real science and a career in astronomy.
The book was originally published in 2002, and is naturally a little dated in some respects. That's mostly in ways such as talking about the space shuttle as still an active part of our space program, and other relatively minor details. And if you catch him out in something more significant that scientific research since 2002 has proven wrong, well, he'd say, "Good!" He'd be delighted you're paying attention to scientific progress, and science's natural self-correcting features.
Recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
June 8, 2018
A great pop sci book -- full of interesting science, debunking of myths and humor. I was reminded of the truth about a number of things that I vaguely knew but often mis-remembered, learned some new tidbits and had my eyes opened about the truly bizzare psuedo-science out there about astronomy. The writing style is chatty and informal, there are no major equations and everything is pretty accessible to a lay audience. I particularly enjoyed the chapter debunking ridiculous notions around NASA and Hubble coverups and hoaxes. recommended for lovers of popular science
September 13, 2019
I’ve expected more of such a book - basic concepts explained, poor jokes (trying really hard to be funny at places). It’s obvious it’s for people with basic understanding of science. I’d recommend Physics of the Impossible - much more fun read with greater depth and concepts explained (even movie stuff which he tries to elaborate that is not scientifically correct)
July 3, 2017
Great read. Many questions answered, even questions I didn't realise I had.
Hi Kenz :)
Hi Kenz :)
December 15, 2022
If you are a fan of conspiracy theories, this is the best book you can read to understand and disprove all the myths that exist around astronomy.
July 23, 2024
The perfect blend of entertaining and informative - a lot of interesting stuff here. (What's the deal with this egg balancing thing, though? Americans. So, so weird.)
December 30, 2016
My notes while reading the book:
Likes all space movies, including the stupid ones. Wanted to visit space. Criticizes their inaccuracies. Media misleads about science too.
Being ignorant about science is not ok; it is dangerous. pseudoscience is so widespread. Science hits back with Discovery channel, Bill Nye, NASA website etc.
People want to read about science; they are curious.
"The truth can be hard, and so sometimes it really is easier to believe in fiction. Othertimes the tale has just enough of the ring of truth that you may not question it."
Starting with known misconceptions is a good way to get people's attention and then correct them. Start with scenes from movies for instance and take it to real astronomy.
Part 1: Bad Astronomy begins at home
Chapter 1: Egg balancing and the equinox.
Legend of eggs balancing on Spring Equinox (21 March). Explains scientifically how to balance an egg, says it can work on any day, explain away the pseudoscientific rubbish and traces the origins of the legend.
Importance of experimentation and taking account of both positive and negative results. Don't just believe without critical thinking. This is the essence of science.
Chapter 2: Flushed with embarrassment, the coriolis effect and your bathroom.
Speed of rotation of Earth at different latitudes. Coriolis effect is weak over small distances. Its effects are seen in weather, long distances and long periods of time (e.g. typhoons).
Exposes the fakes.
Chapter 3: Idioms. Bad Astronomy in everyday language.
Light year is a unit of distance not time or speed. "light speed ahead" "light years fast". Parsec is another astronomical unit.
Shooting stars are not stars, but meteorite (when it hits the groud), meteores (when in sky).
"Dark side of the moon". The near side and far side of the moon. The moon is locked by the Earth and always give it the same face. Deep craters in the poles of the moon may be always dark.
"Quantum leep ahead of". History of QM. Quantum leep is a quantum jump, really small.
Part 2: From the Earth to the Moon
Chapter 4: Why is the sky blue
[I know this in some detail due to just reading QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter].
Shows that flase explainations are wrong. Explains it slowly starting from sun light spectrum.
[He explains it better than Feynman, but without going into details.]
Why blue and not violet? Blue is more emitted from Sun and your eyes are more sensitive to blue too.
Why the Sun looks yellow when it's really white?
Why the sea look blue: because it absorbs all over colors and only let blue through.
Acknowledging you don't known and asking questions is the way forward to progress.
Chapter 5: A dash of seasons
Misconception due to knowing that Earth orbit is elliptical/oval and getting closer to a hear source makes you feel hotter. However this is not the reason of having seasons, just think about the difference between north and south hemispheres.
Earth axis tilted 23.5° degrees. It moves cyclically a little every year in what is known as "procession". 13 thousand years in future the polar bear won't be the one in the north due to this. Taking this in calculations is very important for telescopes.
Chapter 6: The moon changing face
Not due to being in Earth's shadow. Describes the phases and then explain them clearly and their twists too.
Chapter 7: The moon and the tide
Tidal forces. Why there are 2 tidal waves. Solid ground and air are also affected by the moon. The moon is 2/3 of the story; Sun also plays a part in tides: 1/3 of that. Sometimes both are in line, sometimes opposite. This leads to complicating the tide force.
Earth is 80 times as massive as Moon. Moon's gravity is 16.6% of Earth's. The Earth has a tidal force on the Moon, it slowed its rotation speed and made it equivalent to its rotation speed around Earth, i.e. it locked it, making it show one face to Earth only.
Tidal evolution between Earth and Moon, each of them slowing the rotation of the other and eventually being locked to each other after billions of years.
Jupiter exerts huge tidal forces (which lead to tidal friction) on its Moon Ayawa, causing volcanic activity (molten interior).
Tidal forces are also felt between galaxies.
Chapter 8: The Big Moon illusion
The Moon looks bigger when in the horizon than when it climbs up in the sky. Not due to Moon getting closer (it's 6,000 miles closer when in top), not due to lensing by atmosphere (it is the same size; the increase is just an illusion).
The cause behind this is psychological. The illusion is similar to the 2 lines above each other; they are of same length, but we perceive one to be longer, because our brain thinks it's located further and thus adjusts our understanding and makes it us think that it is really longer (just located futher away).
Ibn al-Haytham (referred to as Al Hazan) might have got the reason behind this. Earth is flat and we perceive the sky to be flat too, which leads to us thinking the horizon is much further than it really this and just like explained above.
This is also known as the Ponzo illusion.
Our perception doesn't alwaya match reality.
Part 3: Skies at night are big and D
Meteorites, Eclipes and the Big Bang.
Chapter 9: Why stars twinkle
Atmosphere plays part, refraction due to diferent temperatures of its layers. [what about the dimming due to distance? this would make photons come one by one, therefore stars would twinkle too].
Planets can sometimes twinkle too in really bad seeing conditions.
To get over the problems of seeing, we can send telescopes to space (e.g. Hubble), use short exposure images to construct the full one, or use the Adaptive Optics (e.g. the Very Large Telescope in Chile).
Chapter 10: Stars of many colors
How stars work. History of this discovery. Max Plank, Quanta, peak light depends on temperature.
Colors can sometimes not be seen clearly by eye due to cons in eye not being activated. Telescopes help get over this.
Chapter 11: The difficulty of day time star seeing
Maybe just the two most brightest stars and 4 planets can be seen from a Chimney during day. The chance is really slim.
Seeing stars in day light is a legend.
Chapter 12: The brightest star polaris
Polaris is not the bightest star in sky; Sirius is. Polaris is among the top 50 though. Venus can look like a bright star.
Celestial poles, northern and southern. Polaris is actually 6 stars and is located 1 degree next to the northern celestial pole. This is an accident of time and place (time cuz the axis of Earth rotates). In ~14,000 years, Vega will be near the NCP.
Chapter 13: Eclipses and Sun watching
Columbus story with the lunar eclipse which saved him. Chinese legend about astronomers who were killed for fetting drunk and not reporting the eclipse to the Emperor.
Superstitious beliefs about eclipses, e.g. doom and blindness [reminds me of my childhood.]
Using protection filters is adviced.
Complete eclipses will disappear in future as the moon escapes 4 cm from orbit around Earth every year which means its disc size is becoming smaller. These not full eclipses which happen sometimes now when the moon is far in its elipse are known as annular eclipses.
Galileo didn't go blind due to looking at Sun via telescope. He invented a way to observe it indirectly. He went blind in his 70s due to cataracts and glucoma.
Chapter 14: The Disaster that wasn't - The great planetary alignment of 2000
On May, 5th 2000, the Earth was not destoryed [lol]. Apocalypse prophecy.
Astrology. The folly of human mature, blaming the sky for what happens to us.
Was not a full alignment and many more proper alignments happened in the past.
Frauds publish books such as The Jupiter Effect which became best sellers.
Chapter 15: Meteores, Meteoroids and Meteorites.
The name of the rock is Meteoroid wethen in space or in Earth atmosphere. The glow is know as Meteore when in atmosphere and when it hits the ground it is known as Meteorite.
Comets are made of frozen material and melts when passing near Sun.
The Meteores hear when entering atmosphere not due to friction, but due to air compression beneath them which heats it up. Friction is actually minimal.
Large meteores (100+ meters) are dangerous. How to divrer a large meteore. Best way is to improve science. Then we might be able to make these meteores from a danger inti a treasure by putting then in a safe orbit and mining the pure ores there.
Chapter 16: Misunderstanding the beginning of universe
Humanity thought the Gods cared about them and that they were the center of creation.
The desmise of the ideas which say Earth is in the center of universe, then the idea that thw Sun is the center. Then we relized there is no center point in the universe. Discovered millions of other galaxies. We are only one of many galaxies.
Hubble and the expanding universe. Birth of the Big Bang. The story of the cosmological constant. General relativity: Gravity of warping of space. Possible shapesgeometry of space. Flat land analogy.
Asked what is before the Big Bang is just like asking what is north of north pole [this assumes the Big Bang is the beginning of time which we don't know for sure, maybe the unive is cyclic and eternal].
Big bang is the expansion of space itself, not an expansion into anything else.
Part 4: Artificial intelligence
Science is built on evidence. Experiments that can be repeated and replicated. Pseudoscience is different from science. We must use rationality to expose and defeat it
Chapter 17: Appalled at Apollo
The Moon Landing Hoax. Reply to their main points.
1. Jet black sky wth no stars due to camera short exposure time. Air doesn't absorb star light!
2. Surviving the radiation of space. Particles from Sun solar wind trapped in Earth's magnetic field. The radiation zone is known as Van Allen belt. They are 2 belts, an inner small intense one and a larger outer one that is less intense. Beyond this there is not risky radiation except the occasional solar flares (unpredictable).
Solar flares are dangerous. And this was a risk.
3. Dusty Moon surface. mili meters to centi meters in depth only. Too low pressure by the landing vehicle to cause a crater. There is no air on Moon, that's why dust wasn't blown away (no air to carry it like what happens on Earth).
4. Temperature of lunar surface. Landings were made during day. The heat only reaches high temperatures after a while (the moon day is a month long, 2 weeks sun and 2 weeks dark). When the Sun is low (i.e. morning) the temperature is not that bad. They timed their landings at this time. [Seems NASA planned the landings really well].
Astronauts needed air conditioning in their suits in order to get rid of their internal body heat and not for protection against external heat.
Moon dust is a very bad conductor; the rocks beneath it are really cold. In shadow everything becomes really cold very fast. The real problem with many parts was cold and not heat.
5. Tricks of light and shadows.
The shadows are not completely black due to several reasons, including light reflected from Moon (back scattering), the astronauts suits and the Halo effect.
Why didn't USSR deny USA went to Moon if it were hoax? They were locked in Cold War.
Chapter 18: Worlds in Collision, Velikovsky
vs modern science
Psychoanalyst Immanuel Velikovsky authored Worlds in Collision. A bestseller. Supposes that Venus was separated from Jupiter (ejected from it) and flew near Earth and caused many disasters. This is to fit the myths tales about the alleged disasters.
Scientifically rubbish. Shows why this is unlikely, in fact impossible to have occurred. He could have just said God did it instead of justifying his beliefs peuso-scientifically.
Carl Sagan could have done better in their debate and the subsequent book.
The improper hypersensitive reaction by scientists made Velikovsky into a sort of martyr. His books are still sold today.
Chapter 19: In beginning, creationism and astronomy
[Claims young earth creationists (YECs) are a minority. Well, they are many!]
Tells us about YECs beliefs. Refutes their rubbish. Author is careful to avoid being seen as against religion; he's only against distortion of science to serve religion.
Arguments about the rotation of planets, angular momentum of the Sun and super novae. Explains much science while showing how wrong and perhaps disingenuous creationists are.
Chaptet 20: UFOs
Psychological analysis of humans nature tendency to see UFOs.
Mistaking Venus (3rd most bright object in sky after Sun and Moon) for a UFO, especially that it can appear to be following you and changing colors.
Chapter 21: Why astrology doesn't work
55% of American teenagers believe it. No evidence to support it. It's like a religion, resisting counter evidence. Mumbo Jumbo.
How to account for the new planets and exoplanets? Psychological factors. Fague wording.
Part 5: beat me up
Chapter 22: Hubble space telescope misconceptions
Mirrors not lenses.
Applying for time on Hubble.
Chapter 23: star naming for dummies
ISR company selling star names, misleading customers into thinking this is an official naming process.
Chapter 24: Bad Astronomy goes Holywood, The top 10
[Finally lol]
1. Sound doesn't propagate through space
2. Asteroid belt is mostly a vacuum
3. Banking(i.e. turning) wings to sides does nothing as there is no air
4. Laser beams travel at speed of light so that cannot be avoided. In addition there is nothing to scatter the beam therefore you won't see it (until it hits you).
5. Getting measurements wrong
6. Water is plentiful in universe, no one will come all the way to Earth to steal it!
7. Gravity is always around and never goes away. You can't escape the gravity of Earth.
8. Stars are really far. Distances are huge. You can't just pass them one after the other like that [even when going at speed of light].
9. Explosions in space are different because there is no air
10. Moon phases misunderstood. For example, you can't see full moon with the Sun behind it.
Good Astronomy movies: 2001 A space odyssey.
Even bad astronomy can motivate people to read about real science and maybe study it.
Author style is interesting and explains ideas with stories. Author has clearly read a lot of literature (e.g. he quotes Charles Dickens and Mark Twain books for their use of scientific ideas) and watched a lot of movies.
Corrected some misconceptions I had and added quite a bit to my knowledge.
I didn't like the parts about UFOs, astrology and creationism much. Why the sky blue was much better for example; it taught me something!
Likes all space movies, including the stupid ones. Wanted to visit space. Criticizes their inaccuracies. Media misleads about science too.
Being ignorant about science is not ok; it is dangerous. pseudoscience is so widespread. Science hits back with Discovery channel, Bill Nye, NASA website etc.
People want to read about science; they are curious.
"The truth can be hard, and so sometimes it really is easier to believe in fiction. Othertimes the tale has just enough of the ring of truth that you may not question it."
Starting with known misconceptions is a good way to get people's attention and then correct them. Start with scenes from movies for instance and take it to real astronomy.
Part 1: Bad Astronomy begins at home
Chapter 1: Egg balancing and the equinox.
Legend of eggs balancing on Spring Equinox (21 March). Explains scientifically how to balance an egg, says it can work on any day, explain away the pseudoscientific rubbish and traces the origins of the legend.
Importance of experimentation and taking account of both positive and negative results. Don't just believe without critical thinking. This is the essence of science.
Chapter 2: Flushed with embarrassment, the coriolis effect and your bathroom.
Speed of rotation of Earth at different latitudes. Coriolis effect is weak over small distances. Its effects are seen in weather, long distances and long periods of time (e.g. typhoons).
Exposes the fakes.
Chapter 3: Idioms. Bad Astronomy in everyday language.
Light year is a unit of distance not time or speed. "light speed ahead" "light years fast". Parsec is another astronomical unit.
Shooting stars are not stars, but meteorite (when it hits the groud), meteores (when in sky).
"Dark side of the moon". The near side and far side of the moon. The moon is locked by the Earth and always give it the same face. Deep craters in the poles of the moon may be always dark.
"Quantum leep ahead of". History of QM. Quantum leep is a quantum jump, really small.
Part 2: From the Earth to the Moon
Chapter 4: Why is the sky blue
[I know this in some detail due to just reading QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter].
Shows that flase explainations are wrong. Explains it slowly starting from sun light spectrum.
[He explains it better than Feynman, but without going into details.]
Why blue and not violet? Blue is more emitted from Sun and your eyes are more sensitive to blue too.
Why the Sun looks yellow when it's really white?
Why the sea look blue: because it absorbs all over colors and only let blue through.
Acknowledging you don't known and asking questions is the way forward to progress.
Chapter 5: A dash of seasons
Misconception due to knowing that Earth orbit is elliptical/oval and getting closer to a hear source makes you feel hotter. However this is not the reason of having seasons, just think about the difference between north and south hemispheres.
Earth axis tilted 23.5° degrees. It moves cyclically a little every year in what is known as "procession". 13 thousand years in future the polar bear won't be the one in the north due to this. Taking this in calculations is very important for telescopes.
Chapter 6: The moon changing face
Not due to being in Earth's shadow. Describes the phases and then explain them clearly and their twists too.
Chapter 7: The moon and the tide
Tidal forces. Why there are 2 tidal waves. Solid ground and air are also affected by the moon. The moon is 2/3 of the story; Sun also plays a part in tides: 1/3 of that. Sometimes both are in line, sometimes opposite. This leads to complicating the tide force.
Earth is 80 times as massive as Moon. Moon's gravity is 16.6% of Earth's. The Earth has a tidal force on the Moon, it slowed its rotation speed and made it equivalent to its rotation speed around Earth, i.e. it locked it, making it show one face to Earth only.
Tidal evolution between Earth and Moon, each of them slowing the rotation of the other and eventually being locked to each other after billions of years.
Jupiter exerts huge tidal forces (which lead to tidal friction) on its Moon Ayawa, causing volcanic activity (molten interior).
Tidal forces are also felt between galaxies.
Chapter 8: The Big Moon illusion
The Moon looks bigger when in the horizon than when it climbs up in the sky. Not due to Moon getting closer (it's 6,000 miles closer when in top), not due to lensing by atmosphere (it is the same size; the increase is just an illusion).
The cause behind this is psychological. The illusion is similar to the 2 lines above each other; they are of same length, but we perceive one to be longer, because our brain thinks it's located further and thus adjusts our understanding and makes it us think that it is really longer (just located futher away).
Ibn al-Haytham (referred to as Al Hazan) might have got the reason behind this. Earth is flat and we perceive the sky to be flat too, which leads to us thinking the horizon is much further than it really this and just like explained above.
This is also known as the Ponzo illusion.
Our perception doesn't alwaya match reality.
Part 3: Skies at night are big and D
Meteorites, Eclipes and the Big Bang.
Chapter 9: Why stars twinkle
Atmosphere plays part, refraction due to diferent temperatures of its layers. [what about the dimming due to distance? this would make photons come one by one, therefore stars would twinkle too].
Planets can sometimes twinkle too in really bad seeing conditions.
To get over the problems of seeing, we can send telescopes to space (e.g. Hubble), use short exposure images to construct the full one, or use the Adaptive Optics (e.g. the Very Large Telescope in Chile).
Chapter 10: Stars of many colors
How stars work. History of this discovery. Max Plank, Quanta, peak light depends on temperature.
Colors can sometimes not be seen clearly by eye due to cons in eye not being activated. Telescopes help get over this.
Chapter 11: The difficulty of day time star seeing
Maybe just the two most brightest stars and 4 planets can be seen from a Chimney during day. The chance is really slim.
Seeing stars in day light is a legend.
Chapter 12: The brightest star polaris
Polaris is not the bightest star in sky; Sirius is. Polaris is among the top 50 though. Venus can look like a bright star.
Celestial poles, northern and southern. Polaris is actually 6 stars and is located 1 degree next to the northern celestial pole. This is an accident of time and place (time cuz the axis of Earth rotates). In ~14,000 years, Vega will be near the NCP.
Chapter 13: Eclipses and Sun watching
Columbus story with the lunar eclipse which saved him. Chinese legend about astronomers who were killed for fetting drunk and not reporting the eclipse to the Emperor.
Superstitious beliefs about eclipses, e.g. doom and blindness [reminds me of my childhood.]
Using protection filters is adviced.
Complete eclipses will disappear in future as the moon escapes 4 cm from orbit around Earth every year which means its disc size is becoming smaller. These not full eclipses which happen sometimes now when the moon is far in its elipse are known as annular eclipses.
Galileo didn't go blind due to looking at Sun via telescope. He invented a way to observe it indirectly. He went blind in his 70s due to cataracts and glucoma.
Chapter 14: The Disaster that wasn't - The great planetary alignment of 2000
On May, 5th 2000, the Earth was not destoryed [lol]. Apocalypse prophecy.
Astrology. The folly of human mature, blaming the sky for what happens to us.
Was not a full alignment and many more proper alignments happened in the past.
Frauds publish books such as The Jupiter Effect which became best sellers.
Chapter 15: Meteores, Meteoroids and Meteorites.
The name of the rock is Meteoroid wethen in space or in Earth atmosphere. The glow is know as Meteore when in atmosphere and when it hits the ground it is known as Meteorite.
Comets are made of frozen material and melts when passing near Sun.
The Meteores hear when entering atmosphere not due to friction, but due to air compression beneath them which heats it up. Friction is actually minimal.
Large meteores (100+ meters) are dangerous. How to divrer a large meteore. Best way is to improve science. Then we might be able to make these meteores from a danger inti a treasure by putting then in a safe orbit and mining the pure ores there.
Chapter 16: Misunderstanding the beginning of universe
Humanity thought the Gods cared about them and that they were the center of creation.
The desmise of the ideas which say Earth is in the center of universe, then the idea that thw Sun is the center. Then we relized there is no center point in the universe. Discovered millions of other galaxies. We are only one of many galaxies.
Hubble and the expanding universe. Birth of the Big Bang. The story of the cosmological constant. General relativity: Gravity of warping of space. Possible shapesgeometry of space. Flat land analogy.
Asked what is before the Big Bang is just like asking what is north of north pole [this assumes the Big Bang is the beginning of time which we don't know for sure, maybe the unive is cyclic and eternal].
Big bang is the expansion of space itself, not an expansion into anything else.
Part 4: Artificial intelligence
Science is built on evidence. Experiments that can be repeated and replicated. Pseudoscience is different from science. We must use rationality to expose and defeat it
Chapter 17: Appalled at Apollo
The Moon Landing Hoax. Reply to their main points.
1. Jet black sky wth no stars due to camera short exposure time. Air doesn't absorb star light!
2. Surviving the radiation of space. Particles from Sun solar wind trapped in Earth's magnetic field. The radiation zone is known as Van Allen belt. They are 2 belts, an inner small intense one and a larger outer one that is less intense. Beyond this there is not risky radiation except the occasional solar flares (unpredictable).
Solar flares are dangerous. And this was a risk.
3. Dusty Moon surface. mili meters to centi meters in depth only. Too low pressure by the landing vehicle to cause a crater. There is no air on Moon, that's why dust wasn't blown away (no air to carry it like what happens on Earth).
4. Temperature of lunar surface. Landings were made during day. The heat only reaches high temperatures after a while (the moon day is a month long, 2 weeks sun and 2 weeks dark). When the Sun is low (i.e. morning) the temperature is not that bad. They timed their landings at this time. [Seems NASA planned the landings really well].
Astronauts needed air conditioning in their suits in order to get rid of their internal body heat and not for protection against external heat.
Moon dust is a very bad conductor; the rocks beneath it are really cold. In shadow everything becomes really cold very fast. The real problem with many parts was cold and not heat.
5. Tricks of light and shadows.
The shadows are not completely black due to several reasons, including light reflected from Moon (back scattering), the astronauts suits and the Halo effect.
Why didn't USSR deny USA went to Moon if it were hoax? They were locked in Cold War.
Chapter 18: Worlds in Collision, Velikovsky
vs modern science
Psychoanalyst Immanuel Velikovsky authored Worlds in Collision. A bestseller. Supposes that Venus was separated from Jupiter (ejected from it) and flew near Earth and caused many disasters. This is to fit the myths tales about the alleged disasters.
Scientifically rubbish. Shows why this is unlikely, in fact impossible to have occurred. He could have just said God did it instead of justifying his beliefs peuso-scientifically.
Carl Sagan could have done better in their debate and the subsequent book.
The improper hypersensitive reaction by scientists made Velikovsky into a sort of martyr. His books are still sold today.
Chapter 19: In beginning, creationism and astronomy
[Claims young earth creationists (YECs) are a minority. Well, they are many!]
Tells us about YECs beliefs. Refutes their rubbish. Author is careful to avoid being seen as against religion; he's only against distortion of science to serve religion.
Arguments about the rotation of planets, angular momentum of the Sun and super novae. Explains much science while showing how wrong and perhaps disingenuous creationists are.
Chaptet 20: UFOs
Psychological analysis of humans nature tendency to see UFOs.
Mistaking Venus (3rd most bright object in sky after Sun and Moon) for a UFO, especially that it can appear to be following you and changing colors.
Chapter 21: Why astrology doesn't work
55% of American teenagers believe it. No evidence to support it. It's like a religion, resisting counter evidence. Mumbo Jumbo.
How to account for the new planets and exoplanets? Psychological factors. Fague wording.
Part 5: beat me up
Chapter 22: Hubble space telescope misconceptions
Mirrors not lenses.
Applying for time on Hubble.
Chapter 23: star naming for dummies
ISR company selling star names, misleading customers into thinking this is an official naming process.
Chapter 24: Bad Astronomy goes Holywood, The top 10
[Finally lol]
1. Sound doesn't propagate through space
2. Asteroid belt is mostly a vacuum
3. Banking(i.e. turning) wings to sides does nothing as there is no air
4. Laser beams travel at speed of light so that cannot be avoided. In addition there is nothing to scatter the beam therefore you won't see it (until it hits you).
5. Getting measurements wrong
6. Water is plentiful in universe, no one will come all the way to Earth to steal it!
7. Gravity is always around and never goes away. You can't escape the gravity of Earth.
8. Stars are really far. Distances are huge. You can't just pass them one after the other like that [even when going at speed of light].
9. Explosions in space are different because there is no air
10. Moon phases misunderstood. For example, you can't see full moon with the Sun behind it.
Good Astronomy movies: 2001 A space odyssey.
Even bad astronomy can motivate people to read about real science and maybe study it.
Author style is interesting and explains ideas with stories. Author has clearly read a lot of literature (e.g. he quotes Charles Dickens and Mark Twain books for their use of scientific ideas) and watched a lot of movies.
Corrected some misconceptions I had and added quite a bit to my knowledge.
I didn't like the parts about UFOs, astrology and creationism much. Why the sky blue was much better for example; it taught me something!
February 28, 2012
Definitely one of my all time favorite "skeptic" books. It's a really "down to earth" and engaging read and every time I read it I feel like I've walked away with new knowledge or mistaken knowledge corrected. It's one of those books that has an amazing amount of information provided in it, right on the edge of being overwhelming. But, it's presented in a way (especially the way the chapters are broken up) that it isn't overwhelming and once your done you feel anything you missed you could happily pick up on a second read.
Plait is one of those rare specialists that fully understands that people outside of his field for the most part have no idea what he's talking about. He manages to on one hand walk you through stuff with the assumption you don't know anything about this subject, while on the other hand managing not to talk down to you and treat the reader as dumb. Above all that's what makes this such a good read, he knows he's writing for the general public and says it in a way we will understand but refuses to treat us as intellectually inferior. He's just a nerd that's into different stuff.
I'm pretty familiar with him from stuff he does in the skeptic community and if anything he really toned down the humor to make this book that much more respectable. Which in a way is a slight disappointment (at least for me). I'm not sure if the humor is pulled back on purpose, if it's just because he wasn't as funny of a guy back when he wrote this, or if the guy reading this just delivers stuff badly. On that note I'm not actually sure if it's him reading it or not, it doesn't really sound like him.
Plait is one of those rare specialists that fully understands that people outside of his field for the most part have no idea what he's talking about. He manages to on one hand walk you through stuff with the assumption you don't know anything about this subject, while on the other hand managing not to talk down to you and treat the reader as dumb. Above all that's what makes this such a good read, he knows he's writing for the general public and says it in a way we will understand but refuses to treat us as intellectually inferior. He's just a nerd that's into different stuff.
I'm pretty familiar with him from stuff he does in the skeptic community and if anything he really toned down the humor to make this book that much more respectable. Which in a way is a slight disappointment (at least for me). I'm not sure if the humor is pulled back on purpose, if it's just because he wasn't as funny of a guy back when he wrote this, or if the guy reading this just delivers stuff badly. On that note I'm not actually sure if it's him reading it or not, it doesn't really sound like him.
February 9, 2016
Bad Astronomy is funny and informative and it cleared up some misconceptions I had. It's a quick read and by the time you finish, you will know more than you did before you started.
Here's a pop quiz I stole from an Amazon review:
Answer true or false to these ten statements:
1) The sky is blue because it reflects the blue color of the oceans.
2) The seasons are caused by the Earth's tilt.
3) The Moon's phases are due to the shadow of the Earth falling on the Moon.
4) The bright glow of a meteor is not caused by friction as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere.
5) There are no stars seen in Apollo Moon-landing pictures thus proving that these landings were staged.
6) The Hubble Space Telescope is bigger than all Earth-based telescopes.
7) Stars in the night sky do have color.
8) The Moon is bigger near the horizon than when it's overhead.
9) In the southern hemisphere, winters are much warmer than those in the northern hemisphere.
10) X-rays are emitted from the eclipsed sun but these X-rays do not damage your eyes if you look at the eclipsed sun.
If you answered true to any one of statements 1,3,5,6,8,9 or false to any one of statements 2,4,7,10, then you can use the help of this book to clear up your misconceptions.
Here's a pop quiz I stole from an Amazon review:
Answer true or false to these ten statements:
1) The sky is blue because it reflects the blue color of the oceans.
2) The seasons are caused by the Earth's tilt.
3) The Moon's phases are due to the shadow of the Earth falling on the Moon.
4) The bright glow of a meteor is not caused by friction as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere.
5) There are no stars seen in Apollo Moon-landing pictures thus proving that these landings were staged.
6) The Hubble Space Telescope is bigger than all Earth-based telescopes.
7) Stars in the night sky do have color.
8) The Moon is bigger near the horizon than when it's overhead.
9) In the southern hemisphere, winters are much warmer than those in the northern hemisphere.
10) X-rays are emitted from the eclipsed sun but these X-rays do not damage your eyes if you look at the eclipsed sun.
If you answered true to any one of statements 1,3,5,6,8,9 or false to any one of statements 2,4,7,10, then you can use the help of this book to clear up your misconceptions.
January 1, 2011
A collection of essay by Plait, drawn from his experience writing the "Bad Astronomy" website. Not as interesting a read as his subsequent book, "Death from the Skies", but that may largely be due to the range of articles. They include some pretty banal topics: eggs and the equinox; why seasons change; why stars appear to twinkle; the great planetary alignment of 200.
Other essays display his skill as a scientist and skeptic, including a debunking of hoaxers arguments that the Apollo moon landings were staged and a good article on UFOs. His experience with the Hubble Space Telescope also comes into play in describing the workings of the breakthrough space telescope.
The gem of the book for me was in the "Recommended Reading" at the end: several accessible books on astronomy and several websites that I hadn't seen before.
Other essays display his skill as a scientist and skeptic, including a debunking of hoaxers arguments that the Apollo moon landings were staged and a good article on UFOs. His experience with the Hubble Space Telescope also comes into play in describing the workings of the breakthrough space telescope.
The gem of the book for me was in the "Recommended Reading" at the end: several accessible books on astronomy and several websites that I hadn't seen before.
February 13, 2012
The first half of this book reads as a basic course in Astronomy, reviewing everything from the moon's phases and the seasons to why the sky is blue. I considered myself educated in the subject before reading Bad Astronomy, but was surprised (embarrassed) by how much I either didn't know or knew wrong. For the first half alone, I highly recommend this book.
The second half focuses on debunking rather strange claims about Astronomy and science in general. For a lesson in skepticism, I approve, but I can't say exactly what I got out of it. I already understood that the moon landing was not a hoax and that biblical claims don't jive with research. If you are on the fence on these subjects or want to debate the crackpot in your life, then all the more reason you should check out Bad Astronomy.
The second half focuses on debunking rather strange claims about Astronomy and science in general. For a lesson in skepticism, I approve, but I can't say exactly what I got out of it. I already understood that the moon landing was not a hoax and that biblical claims don't jive with research. If you are on the fence on these subjects or want to debate the crackpot in your life, then all the more reason you should check out Bad Astronomy.
July 8, 2019
Disappointing. Interesting subject matter and much of it delivered in Phil Plait's affable and humorous style, but there are far too many points where the tone of the narrative slants off into what I can only describe as dumbed-down condescension. I blame the editors for this much more than I do Plait. It is fairly obvious that the whole thing was forced into a quasi "[fill in the blank] for Dummies" format. And truly all of those "for Dummies" books might just as well be sub titled "Written using small words so you can follow along, Dumbass". The idea of exposing and dispelling so many misconceptions about science and astronomy in an approachable and lighthearted manner is great, but it could have - and should have - been executed far more intelligently and respectfully.
April 24, 2011
A fine book but a bit of a letdown after reading Death from the Skies first, the latter being a much more in-depth and engaging read. I found myself skimming over parts of this book, as I was looking for more interesting things about astronomy instead of more debunking – of which this book has a lot.
Plait’s writing is still really fun though, and the book doesn’t fail to stir up excitement for astronomy and it’s a great introduction to this fascinating field of science. I wish I had read this in my early teens.
Plait’s writing is still really fun though, and the book doesn’t fail to stir up excitement for astronomy and it’s a great introduction to this fascinating field of science. I wish I had read this in my early teens.
November 13, 2015
I think I keep looking for a good, engaging, read-able, science book (if anyone knows of one, please let me know). This was not it for me. It was okay, but I was much happier with the book once I gave myself permission to skim rather than read (which happened shortly after 1/2 way through). I wasn't a fan of the author for a few reasons. If you are interested in this book, I'd suggest starting chapters and then skipping ahead to the next one when you lose interest. I found some of the explanations were interesting.
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