h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Monty Python's 'Galaxy Song' - A2082935
Author: Danny B. [Musicians' Guild (U150368) back to normal. A flourish, trumpets!] - U182633

This has been in the WW for a week, with a few positive comments but no corrections, so here it is in PR...

Anyone wishing to correct me on my facts and figures will be welcomed with open arms

I've only read the as far as the first footnote so far. Before I forget I'd recommend changing it from
"Unless you happen to belong to a fundamentalist group believing in Creationism."
to
"Even if you happen to belong to a fundamentalist group believing in Creationism."

Creationists may not accept Darwinian evolution but it is still the *best* explanation. Creationist arguments don't even come close to providing *any* explanation of adaptive complexity.

Pimms

Good entry Enjoyable discussion of the points raised by the 'facts' in the song.

One anomaly is in the '12 million miles a minute' section, is the 11 million miles comparison seconds or minutes? It won't scan either way, but I think it should be seconds based on what you state earlier in the sentence.

Pimmsaloonie

I've changed the Creationism footnote slightly - see what you think.

I've also sorted out the 'speed of light' section.

299,792,458 m/s to be exact if you want another footnote (In 1983 the SI (Systeme International) defined a metre as:
The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second) - there is an amusing / serious site that allows you to calculate the speed of light yourself using some chocolate and a microwave see page 2 of http://physics.about.com/cs/opticsexperiments/a/290903.htm

Anyway I've double checked those calculations and agree with your figures

I still think you're being too nice to Creationists.

Pimms

"I still think you're being too nice to Creationists."

Oh, I know, but having sub-edited Hoovooloo's Creationism vs. Evolution project, I know the trouble one can get into in this area

A fantastic analysis of one of my very favorite songs ever.

There is one errant quote mark to point out, and a clarification I would ask. Happily they are both together.

In the segment on 'As fast as it can go...' there is a quote mark at the beginning of the first reference to the Hubble constant. I don't know if there is supposed to be an endquote somewhere, or if it just needs to be removed. You state that researchers have defined the Hubble constant (should both words be capitalised or just Hubble?) as being 42. 42 what? It's probably down to my unscientific mind, but I don't understand this reference or how it proves or disproves the point. Perhaps it could benefit from a footnote or a fuller explanation?

Thanks

Hmm... good point

42 Hubbles, perhaps? I'll have to look into it!

Some universal constants are in fact dimensionless. They would be expressed as just 42, not 42 somethings. In fact, though, the Hubble constant is in units of "per second" and is usually expressed in km per second per million light years to make the units manageable. My encyclopaedia gives it as between 15 and 30 (km per sec per million light years), not 42.

Really like this one Danny

I'm one of those people who describe the song scientifically accurate, based on about 3 stanzas, now when people disbelieve me I'll be able to point them at this.

Thanks everyone!

Gnomon - I'll add some of that to the article How old is your encyclopaedia? The value of the Hubble constant is changing all the time. The value of 42 was worked out about a year or two ago, so it's probably been recalculated/measured by now, as I note in the Entry!

OK, so the value of 42 was worked in in 1996, not 'a year or two ago'. Time flies, eh..?

I've rewritten the text, anyway!

You've definitely had too much time on your hands!

Great song, great entry, what more can I say?



cheers,
~Bistro

Guilty as charged, Bistroist! But, then again, I'm chained to my desk in my lunch hour and there are worse things to be doing

My encyclopaedia is dated 2000 as far as I can remember. I'll check this evening when I go home.

I've done some more research and have found that the units of km/s/Megaparsec are more common than km/sec/million light years.

A Megaparsec is a million parsecs. A parsec is 3.2616 light years.

Danny, you have to be careful in presenting results with large number of digits. If you present a precise figure, it should be accurate. For example, you say a kilometre is 0.625 miles. It isn't. It is 0.621 miles, to three decimal places. So you can say it is 0.6 miles, and that's OK, but you shouldn't say 0.625 miles.

Similarly, you calculate the speed of light as 11.25 million miles per minute, when it is in fact 11.18 miles per minute. If you had just said 11.2, you would be correct. If you're going to chide Eric for being inaccurate, you have to be accurate yourself.

Sorry, I left out a million in there. But what's a million between friends, eh?

Thanks, Gnomon. Those are precisely the type of comments I was looking for!

And I'll let you off the mission million

Your explanation of evolution is completely wrong. What you've described is Lamarckian Evolution, which is not accepted by scientists.

"Put very simply, the theory states that organisms change in response to their environment. Those that change most successfully survive and pass their genes on to their descendents."

Organisms don't change in response to their environment. They change due to random errors in the creation of their genetic code. Those whose changes enable them to survive pass their genes on to their descendants.

Drat! Now you've piqued my curiosity and I'm going to have to check the entire entry, and do all your work for you.