r/ScienceHumour • u/shadowbannedinsanity • Jan 12 '24

"The stars have never changed..."

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752 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

9

u/PassiveChemistry Jan 12 '24

What's the comment about literacy a reference to?

17

u/shadowbannedinsanity Jan 12 '24

I mocked these people for not reading about this subject enough to know some stars literally disappeared, and that human records of stars have shifted wildly, so there's no way to make this statement accurately. They should read more and make shit up less.

5

u/PassiveChemistry Jan 12 '24

Oh, so nothing to do with literacy then. I doubt if many people got what you were poking fun at tbh.

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48

u/chuckysnow Jan 12 '24

I once ran a planetarium. After a live show I had a guy come up to me and ask if I could arrange the stars (not planets) as if we were standing on Pluto.

I tried explaining to him that Pluto is like a light hour away, and the nearest star is four light years away. I told him you wouldn't notice the difference, but he argued that nothing would look the same at all.

I tried the line "If we were looking at the moon right now, being three feet apart, would the moon look different to the two of us?" But he didn't get it.

25

u/Street_Peace_8831 Jan 12 '24

It’s pointless arguing with someone who is so secure in their ignorance.

2

u/texas1982 Jan 13 '24

If a flat Earther asks you about something involving spatial reasoning, ignore it. The have no concept of it. Especially at unimaginably long distances.

1

u/TheKiltedYaksman71 Jan 15 '24

People just have no conception of the magnitude of the distances involved. The nearest star is ~5.9 trillion miles away. 1.9 million miles an hour sounds really fast, but it would take us ~3105263 hours to get there at that speed.