Cometary Tales Blog Welcome to Cometary Tales!

Welcome to Cometary Tales!

This is a portion of space set aside for writing from both directions, inbound and outbound.

What?

Comets are, by their nature, exciting and unpredictable, which inspires both intriguing storytelling and curious scientific observation.

For starters, comets inbound to the sun unfurl their unique and mysterious tails behind them. This is charmingly artistic and seduces our reason as we watch them sail in from the outer reaches of the solar system like kites with their tails billowing.  So–some of this page is devoted to fiction, respecting science but allowing for poetic license in pursuit of insightful stories.

Outbound comets, on the other hand, demonstrate why we have to use our powers of observation if we want to understand the Universe. Before we can understand why the comet’s tail flies in front of it as it returns to the dark, we must first realize that a cometary tail is the result of the solar wind blasting particles free of the surface of the comet. So–some of the writing on this page is about science and mathematics and technology, aimed in particular at developing and applying the power of critical observation. Messy Monday Science Projects, the current work-in-progress, is a collection of hands-on, observation-based science projects for elementary- and middle-school students.

Meanwhile, throughout their lives, comets are bound by the laws of gravitation and their seemingly strange behavior is described by the science of orbital mechanics. We’ll also be writing specifically about astronomy, the latest in space discoveries, and the mathematics of objects in motion while also supporting Pixel Gravity, an accurate astronomical simulator that anyone (yes, even a scifi poet) can learn to use.

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Good News, Everyone!Good News, Everyone!

“Good news everyone! I’m sending you on an extremely controversial mission!”
―Professor Hugo Farnsworth, “The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz”, Futurama

It’s graduation season, and I’m in post-production now after playing the role of Audience Member in three recent productions of Commencement 2014. At UC Berkeley’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Professor Tanya Atwater of UC Santa Barbara provided the keynote address. She was excited to report on her experience as part of the team writing the new science standards.  For members of the EPS department, the “good news” is that the new standards specifically include Earth & Space Science as one of four core disciplines.  Advocates of coding-in-every-classroom will also be happy that one of the four is “Engineering, Technology, and Applications”, though they may be disappointed to find that coding is not all there is to technology.

However, as Professor Atwater pointed out, this is a creation devised by a committee, and a large one at that.  These standards are huge, complex, and demanding.  I won’t be surprised if primary teachers throw up their hands and say “Heck, the old Science Framework was complicated enough!  We’re going back to literature, thanks a lot.” I had a peek at a few pages–the new standard can be surveyed in an interactively, online.  For instance, if you select Grade 1 and Physical Sciences, you are taken to a page entitled Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer

If that’s not enough to send your primary-grade teacher screaming to the arts-and-crafts cupboard, he/she is then presented with a grid of expectations about what first-graders should be able to understand and demonstrate about waves, from sound waves to light waves.  I can tell by the “clarifying statements” and all the hyperlinks to definitions for everything from the requirement that students “Make observations to construct an evidence-based account” to explaining that you use “Cause and Effect” to show that when the lights are off you can’t see objects.  Well, says the gamer kid, what if I have my night-vision goggles on? 

Meanwhile, the teacher is supposed to be tracing all the Common-Core standards links and the cross-discipline values obtained.  As an engineer, I find that sort of thing daunting, while I suspect most trained teachers find those elements-links an easy yawn–it’s the demand they convey science skills to kids at what seems to be a very sophisticated level that presents a barrier.   Remember, it’s unusual for an elementary-school teacher to enter the field with more than a bare minimum of science or technology training.

Not good news?  Well, it may be good news for some students currently graduating in the sciences–the new standards create a market for teachers who have science toolkits ready to hand.   And if states are not too heavy-handed in adopting these standards, the NGSS provides tons of leeway in the actual curriculum developed and in both straight-up statements and in the subtext of the descriptive matter the NGSS strongly urges the use of hands-on, experiential learning techniques.  That’s good, especially in elementary school, because hands-on activities are the best, overall, at evoking those Aha! moments that make science exciting.  What the scientists working on that committee were most excited about was the prospect of bringing that thrill to more students, not only to attract some to actually becoming scientists or engineers but also to allow those following other paths to understand what motivates the ones who do follow the siren song of science.

For example, if you jumped to Professor Atwater’s page, you’d have read her non-committee-developed description of her motivations to teach and her love for science, “In lecture, I used to think I wasn’t a good scientist if I admitted my passion. No more. In the last few years I have adopted a style of expressing my delight along with sharing why I’m delighted – the intricate order and sense (and, sometimes, irony) of how things work – wonderful!”

One of my best experiences during Commencement Week was talking about education with a Kindergarten teacher who was struggling with making sure his (yeah, don’t go sexist on me–men can so teach kindergarten) students each got the attention they needed, despite a class size of more than thirty, in a year when he had no parent volunteers to help out.  And though he was looking forward to summer vacation, he was the most interested to hear about some of my “Messy Monday” science experiences.   As a result, I’m determined that the next couple of activities I put up here under the “Messy Monday” label will be ones targeted to the K-2 crowd.

So, well, the new science standards, if you can get past the committee-style presentation, could be turned into good news.   Let’s get kids doing the kind of science that comes naturally to them:  trying things out, making mistakes, watching what happens.  Let’s help them break free of seeing what they expect to see–it’s those wow moments of unexpectedness that give doing science that endorphin rush.  It’s when the comet is chasing its tail on its way out of the inner Solar System or a water jet sprays farther than you guessed or you suddenly realize that a rainbow isn’t part of a prism or a raincloud or even a soap bubble–it’s the light itself that makes the rainbow.

 

Two Poems by AnwegweTwo Poems by Anwegwe

Sunset #734

the fire dies down, and the colors rise up
rivers flow amber, gold, and blood-rose
cascading one upon the other
wave upon wave around the sky
pushing back the eastern dark
holding the light for one last hour
giving us time, time to remember
all of the days we have had together
the glorious days beneath the sun

The main character in my recent book, All That Was Asked, is a poet. It’s a first-person narrative, and he keeps mentioning how people reacted to a poem, or how much he enjoyed writing a poem, or that he likes to watch sunsets because they inspire poetry. But . . . there aren’t any poems in the book itself. It seemed to me I couldn’t quite measure up to the standard implied in the text . . . one gets the impression, although Ansegwe is self-effacing about it, that he’s actually rather good.

Still . . . it’s nagged at me, that I didn’t have any poems by Varayla Ansegwe. After spending hours and days and weeks and months with him, I’m sort of a fan, if you will. If I were a real fan, I’d have his work, wouldn’t I?

So I gave it a try. It’s interesting, to try to write personal-style poetry from someone else’s perspective. The one above results from all those mentions of poetry related to watching sunsets. Imagine our hero trotting down the hill after enjoying a really nice day’s-ending light show, muttering to himself, wriggling his fingers, anxious to scribble down this latest idea. We can leave it to your imagination how he improved this “draft”.

For a second poem, I tried to combine two things from his background. First, it seems Ansegwe had a fairly decent collegiate-level ranking in, well, whatever ball game is popular in Korlo. I envision it as sort of like baseball, maybe like an upsized version of kickball, with a larger, rugby-sized ball. Lots of running, jumping, catching, throwing–very energetic. Second, it’s evident that he was quite the one for romantic entanglements.

If I can gather enough of these, I’ll put together a little “collection” that I can share at events and such. Oh, and as a reminder . . . consider these as translated from Korlovian.

(Photos are mine. All from our own universe, alas.)

Intercept

In this moment,
there is only the ball, gliding on its parabolic arc.
It requires all of your mind to calculate the leap
the extension of your arm, the stretch of your fingers
the breath you draw at its approach
the strength you need to hurl it to your comrades.
 
For this moment, you do not know that she is gone.
For this moment, your heart is no more than a muscle.
Whether the ball glides into your hand
whether it skims your fingertips and caroms off under the lights
either way, you will crash to earth again
the world's gravity will bear you down
the moment will end
and you will know.
 
But in this moment, you leap
and time stretches to meet you.

Nothing but a Day One Photo GalleryNothing but a Day One Photo Gallery

This is just a gallery of photos from the first day in the Grand Canyon.  Not in any particular order, either.

To see the photos in full format (and, in the case of vertical images, the full view), double-click on any one image, then use “previous” and “next” buttons to move around.

Yes, of course, the images are copyrighted.   Says so at the bottom of the page AND in the image IFTC’s.  Trip members–read the details, though.  You got  rights!  And if you can’t figure out the who’s-who, just email me, OK?

 

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