The Bicycle Astronomy project combines my passion for introducing people to the universe’s wonders and spurring them to think about sustainable transportation. I throw spontaneous star parties all around the city using a “long-tail” cargo bike called a Mundo to carry my observing gear and sandwich-board signs that I set up in Geneva the morning of an event. I also use the cargo bike as my daily form of transportation, and its recognizable silhouette around the city is meant to underscore how cycling is practical, healthy, efficient, and that a car is often unnecessary.
This blog is about astronomy, and cycling, and sometimes about putting both of them together. It’s also about science, nature, and space exploration. The best place to get updates on the project’s Geneva-area events is the Facebook page, Bicycle Astronomy Workshop.
This is a wonderful video built around a response Neil DeGrasse Tyson had to an interview question: ”What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” There are lots of astonishing things about the universe, but this one is definitely among the top ten!
Last post, I wrote about how I think the band They Might Be Giants is pretty great. Not only are they the darlings of adult nerds everywhere, they also make kicking kids’ music that doesn’t speak down to the little ones. Their album Here Comes Science is especially awesome, not only because they introduce scientific concepts, but because they actually model the process of scientific inquiry. And, because TMBG knew they were not exactly scientists, they hired a consultant to help them make sure they got it right.
One of the album’s songs, Why Does the Sun Shine?, was originally recorded by Tom Glazer in 1959′s Space Songs. Here is the refrain, taken almost verbatim from the Golden Guide to the Stars, a little book that served as many budding astronomer’s introductory text for decades. I used a version in the late 1980s with my first telescope, a miserable 60mm Edu-Science refractor:
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
It’s a catchy little ditty, with one problem. It’s wrong. The sun is not made up of incandescent (glowing) gas. The stuff churning around the sun is plasma. Plasma is like a gas (in some ways) but different in others. It’s a fourth state of matter, the oft-ignored sibling of solids, liquids and gases. It’s ionized, which means that the electrons are separated from the nuclei and are free-floating. Plasma conducts electricity, which is also why the sun produces such strong and turbulent magnetic fields, and why solar flares excite the ionosphere of the earth and make aurora. Plasma is the glowy part of a spark, the “stuff” lightning is made up of, the thing that is shining inside a neon sign buzzing incessantly out of your Replicant Hotel window.
But here’s the great part about this story and the thing that makes me love TMBG even more as a scientist than I did way back when as a nerd who was all off course and studying politics; when their album was being fact checked, the out of date info was discovered, and so they wrote a whole new song to correct it. It’s called Why Does the Sun Really Shine? And it is awesome too!
The sun is a miasma Of incandescent plasma The sun’s not simply made out of gas No, no, no The sun is a quagmire It’s not made of fire Forget what you’ve been told in the past(Plasma!) Electrons are free (Plasma!) A fourth state of matter Not gas, not liquid, not solid Ooh!The sun is no red dwarf I hope it never morphs Into some supernova’d collapsed orb Orb, orb, orb The sun is a miasma Of incandescent plasma I forget what I was told by myself Elf, elf, elf(Plasma!) Electrons are free (Plasma!) A fourth state of matter Not gas, not liquid, not solid(Plasma!) Forget that song (Plasma!) They got it wrong That thesis has been rendered invalid
Here’s the video:
What makes this song so cool is not just that it is a correction, but that it acknowledges the fact and underscores scientific method. The presence of both songs on the album make it a great teaching “object” for young people. The thing about science that sets it apart from most other systems of knowledge devised by humanity is that it changes according to the preponderance of the evidence. It is self-correcting and fact-checking is built in. That is not to say it is perfect. It’s still a flawed human endeavor. But it is remarkably useful. It is perhaps the most powerful problem-solving structure in human history. And now you’ve got two infectious songs to teach to your children that helps communicate the process and power of science.
Interestingly, I’m not sure if the 1959 song (and the Golden Guide which provided the offending passage) got it wrong, or if scientists at the time were mistaken about the nature of the sun. Plasma was discovered in 1879 and got its name in 1928. Should the original authors have known better in 1959?
In the beautiful 2007 documentary, Seeing in the Dark, author Timothy Ferris explored the intersection the art of music with the science of astronomy during while coming of age in the 1950s:
I came to think of music and the stars as landmarks to steer by. I didn’t yet know that this was already an old story back when Kepler and Galileo talked about the music of the spheres, but I could sense a resonance between the night sky and the tricky matter of plucking a few strings in just the right way to put human hearts in tune with the cosmos.
Now of course music is not just art; it’s also math. And astronomy is not just science; it’s also creativity. Ferris is not alone in arguing the poetics intrinsic to the natural world and our drive to systematically and rationally understand it, and he is also not alone in trying to communicate the beauty of the underlying order of the universe through music. Symphony of Science is another such effort. John D. Boswell, known online as melodysheep, remixes science lectures and monologues from science documentaries-not necessarily the source material most remix artists would turn to first-into oddly compelling music videos. They are strange, but somehow wonderful. Here is one that is particularly on topic:
Monty Python has taken a different tack, but one that is no less reverent, under it all, to science. Here is there “Galaxy Song” from The Meaning of Life:
More recently, They Might Be Giants, the official rock band of nerds everywhere, produced a wonderful album of science songs for children called Here Comes Science. The songs are infectious, smart and funny. Most of them are covers, some of which are from the 1950s. No New Age-y self-importance or pan-pipe-y spirituality here. Just good science with pop hooks. Here they are on the first track, Science Is Real:
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science.
As a text, Science is Real is a model for pithy, succinct argumentation, quickly delineating superstition from science, and clarifying the way scientists use the word “theory”…which some science communicators don’t even seem to grasp. Parents, play Here Comes Science to your children. The world will be better for it, eventually.
One of those 1950s songs They Might Be Giants have revived is the wonderful round What is a shooting star? Some day I’m going to print out the parts of this song onto cards and hand it out to a crowd gathered for a star party and get them to sing it. It would be a great way to stall for the sky to get just a little darker at dusk.
In Part II we’ll look at how two of the songs on Here Come Science actually serve as an example of how science changes over time to reflect new understandings based on verifiable data.
Bicycle Astronomy is about astronomy, space exploration, science, and bicycles. In particular, cargo bicycles. Bicycle Astronomy is also a sidewalk astronomy project in Geneva, NY. Find out more in the tabs above the header. Sign up for an email subscription, like the facebook group; there are lots of ways to keep up to date on Bicycle Astronomy.
