Quote:
Originally Posted by evman150
What's fundamental is not that he doesn't know what a light year is. I don't expect society to know the definition of a light year.
All I'm hoping for is an appreciation of the distance. The appreciation that light travels really fast. And that a light year is a really long distance.
Asking how many light years away Mars is shows a gross misunderstanding of the concept.
Again, I apologize to the guy this is seemingly directed at. You are but one case of a problem that is no doubt endemic in our society.
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I don't know why we shouldn't expect society to understand what a light year is, it's a pretty simple concept that everybody should know...then again, many Americans have no concept of what a Kilometer is. I would expect somebody to undestand the lightyear concept but not maybe something more useful (in talking about the distance to Mars) like AUs.
I still like the odd discussions on CP with people who claim that they don't believe FTL is impossible (nevermind Einstein) simply based on the fact that supposedly, scientists thought supersonic travel was impossible 50 years ago (false). People just don't grasp the whole speed of light concept when they try to frame it in familiar terms.