I have just sent this off to a public information officer at the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory. It contains my original message
to the PIO, Dave Finley (bottom message), his reply (middle message),
and my response to that reply (top message).
PLEASE DO NOT CITE MY MESSAGE IN ANY THAT YOU MIGHT WRITE TO THESE
PEOPLE!
I will now back away slowly from the keyboard with my hands visible and
go downstairs to pick my teeth with some barbed wire.
Jim
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: Re: press release on Sco X-1 materials
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 13:52:37 -0400
From: James R. Frysinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Dave Finley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dave Finley, Public Information Officer, NRAO
copies to:
Paul Vanden Bout, Director, NRAO
Charles E. Blue, PIO, NRAO
Ed Formalont, Astronomer, NRAO
B. J. Geldzahler, Astronomer, George Mason University
Charles Bradshaw, Astronomer, George Mason University
Dear Sir:
Pardon my late reply, but I was otherwise occupied with teaching
duties. Of necessity this is lengthy and I retained our previous
messages to help you recall the thread of our communication.
You state, "This is an audience that drives in miles, buys gasoline and
milk in gallons, buys rope by the foot and plays football by the yard."
That very same public runs or reads about 5 km races, buys soft drinks
and spirits in liters, buys large bags of dog food in kilograms, buys
hard drives in gigabytes, and now buys many of its computer cords in
meters. They recently watched the last round of Olympic Games, which
were broadcast and reported on in the United States almost entirely in
metric units. Your statement makes it sound as if the American public
never uses, hears, or sees metric units but that is very far from the
truth. Please see
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj/moments.html
You say that you strive to reduce as many communication barriers as
possible and then, in your graphics, you use "billions of miles". Which
miles? Statute, "international", or nautical? NASA, for example, has on
occasion used all three! If "terameters" scares you, then say "billions
of kilometers", though this leaves the question of which billion is
meant: ten to the ninth power or ten to the twelfth power. Better yet,
provide an educational service and explain what a terameter is; all
that is required is a parenthetical 1 000 000 000 km in the text!
Using the practices of "daily newspapers and broadcast media" as an
excuse is lame. That merely shows that you are not alone in your
failure to help educate the public. In fact, public journalism is
perhaps the largest impediment that Americans face in learning the
International System of Units. They must do so despite the paucity of
their use by journalists and public information officers. The data
would seem to indicate that members of these two sectors of the media
represent the least literate of all Americans in using metric units.
You state, "I note that even as august a journal as Science, in
covering this result in its news columns (1 June, p. 1631) also used
miles as a unit." I have the article in front of me and the only place
"miles" appears is in your graphic, which you obviously allowed them to
publish! No, they did not alter your graphic before publication. Nor
does "miles" appear in their text.
Lastly, you essentially state that you wish to be the last to use
metric units in America. "When SI units are commonly adopted and
understood by the non-scientific public and the journalistic outlets
that serve that public, we will use those units in our press releases."
What you are overlooking is that you are a "journalistic outlet" and
therefore part of the problem. Yet you seem unwilling to contribute to
the solution. My contribution to the solution is to teach in metric
units and to shun, generally, resources that are non-metric; this site
was an exception. When I do present the odd example of a non-metric
press release such as yours, my students (liberal arts majors!) ask
"why couldn't they put this in metric units?". Based on your statement
above, my answer can be only "because journalists and public
information officers don't understand them".
If you think that you are incapable of presenting the material in
metric units and still have it understandable to the American public,
then why do you imagine that they will understand your statements about
the relativistic effects seen in the receding "blob" or, for that
matter, about the emissions related to neutron star systems? Many, many
more Americans have seen meter sticks in their school classrooms than
have seen neutron stars or have learned anything about relativity. They
have been taught metric units in grades K-12 since the 1960s. How hard
can it be to explain terameters to your readers in comparison to
neutron stars and relativity?
I do not accept your excuses for using "billions of miles". Please stop
being a hindrance to American education on the metric system.
regards,
James R. Frysinger
On Monday 11 June 2001 1148, you wrote:
> Dear Sir:
>
> The NRAO press release and associated materials on Sco X-1 are
> aimed at the general public, primarily in the United States. This
> is an audience that drives in miles, buys gasoline and milk in
> gallons, buys rope by the foot and plays football by the yard.
>
> All of us in science recognize the superiority of the metric system,
> but when trying to communicate with non-scientists it is important
> to reduce as many barriers to that communication as possible. Using
> a term such as "terameters" would turn off a large portion of our
> intended audience. The daily newspapers and broadcast outlets that
> are our primary vehicle for communicating scientific results to the
> public still use English units almost exclusively.
>
> Astronomical Units and parsecs also are, to most of the public,
> jargon that would interfere with communicating the excitement of
> the research result.
>
> I note that even as august a journal as Science, in covering this
> result in its news columns (1 June, p. 1631) also used miles as
> a unit.
>
> Our aim in issuing press releases is to communicate to the general
> public, in terms familiar and understandable to them, the excitement
> and importance of new research results and so engage them in the
> ongoing human quest to understand the universe. Once they are
> engaged, particularly in the case of young people still in school,
> educators like you can train them in both the scientific substance
> and in conventions such as SI units. When SI units are commonly
> adopted and understood by the non-scientific public and the
> journalistic outlets that serve that public, we will use those units
> in our press releases.
>
> On behalf of NRAO and the research team, I thank you for your kind
> comments about this research project and our presentation of it
> on the Web. We hope it serves you and your students well as a
> teaching resource.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dave Finley
> Public Information Officer
>
> > Dear Colleagues,
> >
> > Because it is so marvelously done and so informative, I am adding a
> > link to your Sco X-1 Annotated Guide (and associated movie) at
> > http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/pr/scox1/scox100.htm
> > I certainly hope that it remains available for a long time for our
> > astronomy students to view and study. This is a superb teaching
> > resource on neutron star binaries and their emissions.
> >
> > However, one thing about your graphics and text stunned me. You
> > used "billions of miles" as the scaling units for the graphics and
> > in your discussion! Why on Earth (or elsewhere) did you not use
> > terameters? (Or, as accepted by the IAU but less universally well
> > known among non-astronomers, astronomical units--or even parsecs?)
> > I realize that at these scales, the size of the field of view is
> > outside human experience, but "miles" must seem now to be almost as
> > anachronistic to 95% of the people of the world as do "leagues". We
> > science educators in the United States work hard to teach our
> > students that scientists use the SI and this makes our task a bit
> > more difficult.
> >
> > If the site weren't so tremendously valuable and unique, your unit
> > choice would have kept me from posting a link to it. Except for
> > that oddity, well done and thank you for making this resource
> > available.
> >
> > regards,
> > James R. Frysinger
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
-------------------------------------------------------
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
