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New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

cfa.harvard.edu

31–40 of 111 posts

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#31
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also read Paris, and thought "stars" referred to celebrities. Oops

That is literally the exact thing that I thought too. Its interesting that a sentence like this can be so easily misinterpreted by multiple people in the same way.

Isn't it the capitalization of the first characters of each word which causes the confusion?

New evidence that all stars are born in pairs

versus

New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

I've never understood the rationale of capitalizing headlines this way anyway (is it the American way?)

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#32
post #5

Could Jupiter have been a failed pair?

Not impossible, but rather unlikely. According to TFA, the partner star was much further out. Also, gas giant planets Jupiter's size are fairly common I thought (this knowledge may be outdated).

TFA?

I'm getting "The Force Awakens". Or "Teach For America".

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#33
post #32
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not impossible, but rather unlikely. According to TFA, the partner star was much further out. Also, gas giant planets Jupiter's size are fairly common I thought (this knowledge may be outdated).

TFA? I'm getting "The Force Awakens". Or "Teach For America".

"The F…ine Article"

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#34
post #32
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not impossible, but rather unlikely. According to TFA, the partner star was much further out. Also, gas giant planets Jupiter's size are fairly common I thought (this knowledge may be outdated).

TFA? I'm getting "The Force Awakens". Or "Teach For America".

The Fucking Article

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#35

I read that as Paris. On the plus side it makes more sense now. Should probably go to sleep...

Maybe not all of them. But quite a few: http://www.imdb.com/search/name?birth_place=Paris,%20France

EDIT: I'm also not sure about baseball all-stars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_All-Star...

But there have been a number of baseball players from Paris, Texas and Paris, France:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php?loc=T...

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php?loc=F...

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#36
post #32
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not impossible, but rather unlikely. According to TFA, the partner star was much further out. Also, gas giant planets Jupiter's size are fairly common I thought (this knowledge may be outdated).

TFA? I'm getting "The Force Awakens". Or "Teach For America".

It seems to be a discussion board internet meme. I am not sure of the actual history, but my impression is that it started as "Did you read the fucking article?" which is sometimes rebutted with "Yes, I read the fucking article." and then "read the fucking article" became RTFA and now some people use TFA to mean The Fucking Article. (Or maybe people more polite than me always used RTFA rather than writing it out. I have quite the terrible potty mouth. shrug)

Re: New Evidence That All Stars Are Born in Pairs

#38
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well what do you know, Jupiter doesn't actually orbit the sun! Not properly anyway http://www.iflscience.com/space/forget-wha-you-heard-jupiter...

This is silly semantics. Jupiter and the Sun both orbit the center of mass of the Jupiter-Sun system. The article is making the point that for Jupiter and the Sun this point happens to be just outside the surface of the Sun. It's much simpler to say "Jupiter orbits the Sun" than "Jupiter and the Sun both orbit the center of mass of the Jupiter-Sun system". You can think of the former as a shorthand for the latter.

Semantics aren't silly in science, nor in education. I don't think it's so uninteresting as to be worthy of ridicule. It is not, in fact, obvious to the layperson that the Jupiter-Sun System would have a barycenter that doesn't lie inside the mass of the sun. The casual mental model (and all physical models I've ever seen) of the solar system we all share puts a metaphorical or mechanical axis through the center of the sun, around which we all the revolve.

What may be a shorthand for you is the obscuring of deeper truth for others, and discovering that deeper truth is a wonderful 'Aha!' moment for those who experience it.

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