Thanks, John, but I'm not quite *that* good! I've thought about the astronomy handout thing and I am sad to say that most of them are in common doofus units or astronomical doofus units. NASA has some neat ones on the solar system and on the planets but I have yet to see any that are even significantly metric.
Might I suggest a homemade page on building solar system models? One would be orbit spacing and one would be planatary sizes. Even separating those two things makes for strange differences between largest and smallest, but actually that's one of the points that ought to be brought out. It is unreasonable to do both in one model. Either it would be the size of a small town or Mercury would be invisible. I can provide data if needed, but those numbers are readily available. Neat, "round" numbers "to know" are the mean Earth-Sun distance (150 Gm) and the circumference of the Earth (40 Mm or 40 000 km). Then one can work on startling facts, though those aren't metric. For example the orbital "crossings" of Pluto and Neptune and the fact that since its discovery, Pluto has completed only about a fourth of an orbit. Jim kilopascal wrote: > > 2002-02-14 > > Ask Jim Elwell about the free rulers. His are real good. > > And I think Jim Frysinger is the expert on astronomy in this group. He is > the star of the stars. > > John > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bob Price" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Thursday, 2002-02-14 22:39 > Subject: [USMA:18214] Metric astronomy info > > > I am heading up a public event to promote astronomy in the Chicago area > and > > I am hoping to find a way to encourage metric units in astronmy. We > > ususally have free handouts that give info on planets, but it is in miles > > only. I will have to work on that. > > Does anybody know where I can get freebies to hand out to the public? Are > > there any cheap metric only rulers I can get my hands on? I would love to > > include those in my package of free handouts. Perhaps I can sneak a > little > > metric into this event. (After all, astronomy should be metric.) > > > > -- Metric Methods(SM) "Don't be late to metricate!" James R. Frysinger, CAMS http://www.metricmethods.com/ 10 Captiva Row e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Charleston, SC 29407 phone/FAX: 843.225.6789
