July 11– “The Extent of The Universe” by Simon Newcomb (1904)
Summary: The universe is giant and pretty and keeps going even when life sucks.
Commentary: I hate light pollution. Looking up at the sky is awesome, and I'm lucky enough to live in a semi-rural area, so ours is pretty good. But I've never seen the Milky Way stretch across the sky or anything. I guess I'm lucky that I've lived and visited a variety of places, some of which were very bright and some fairly dark, so I can at least say, "Yeah, light pollution is a real thing. It doesn't sound like it, but if you drive 3 hours that way there's 10 times more stars." I did find a list of good dark places here. Some of them aren't that far, and it is camping season. Maybe I'll take a trip.
That's your homework, go find somewhere dark (even if it's not one of the CERTIFIED DARKER THAN BLACK places) and go see how many more stars there were. And you all got to actually learn something practical tonight and see that list.
Also, really interesting combination of math and wanderlust tonight. Half of it is, "THE UNIVERSE IS BEAUTIFUL AND SPIRITUAL" and then you get to a word problem in the middle.
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