Log, Sep 19, 2000
11 people. We covered the solar system in our second class. It reminds me of that all joke about a one semester college course called the ENTIRE HISTORY of MANKIND. Upon receiving a terrible grade on the final exam, a student complained that he had dropped his pencil when the professor covered the Middle Ages. The solar system in one two hour session is like that. We never covered the storms on Jupiter, or the volcanos of Io, the huge mountain Olympus Mons, the acid rain extraordinaire of Venus, the tides on Earth, the formation of gas giant rings (particularly Saturn's wondrous ring), the impact of ShoeMaker Levy 9, or a thousand other wonderful things.All we can do in a survey course is hope that the attendees will be stimulated to read more about these subjects. In this vein, I suggested George Abell's "Exploration of the Universe" [now edited by David Morrison, Sidney Wolff and Andrew Fraknoi]. and "The New Solar System" [by J Kelly Beatty, Brian O'Leary and Andrew Chaiken].Well if my tour of the solar system was fast, wait until next Tuesday when we cover The Universe from the beginning to the end of time. I'll outdo that professor a million fold. Heck, if anyone drops a pencil, the entire formation and demise of the solar system will have passed! At least I don't assign grades.-Les Coleman
