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  #1  
Old January 28th 07, 12:28 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Sitav
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who are the "famous" astronomers of the 21st century. i havent heard
of many well known astronomers or astrophysicists.........yet.

  #2  
Old January 28th 07, 01:19 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Shawn
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Sitav wrote:
who are the "famous" astronomers of the 21st century. i havent heard
of many well known astronomers or astrophysicists.........yet.

Edwin Hubble, the guy the space telescope is named after.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble

Carl Sagan has done more than any other individual scientist in history
to make science and especially astronomy accessible and interesting to
the general public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan


Shawn
  #3  
Old January 28th 07, 01:24 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Shawn
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Sitav wrote:
who are the "famous" astronomers of the 21st century. i havent heard
of many well known astronomers or astrophysicists.........yet.

Oh, 21st century. Hmm, those other guys are dead.
Neil deGrasse Tyson of Nova Now fame. Following in Sagan's footsteps as
far as making science accessible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson
  #4  
Old January 28th 07, 02:04 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Greg Crinklaw
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Sitav wrote:
who are the "famous" astronomers of the 21st century. i havent heard
of many well known astronomers or astrophysicists.........yet.


Famous to whom? I'll never forget when I first started college I took a
writing class. We had the assignment to write about someone famous. I
chose to write about Sir William Herschel.

In this class we all sat in a circle. The author read his/her paper
while the rest of the class listened. Everyone was encouraged to offer
critiques during the reading.

When it came my turn I was pretty nervous. My very first sentence went
something like, ".. the famous astronomer William Herschel..." Right
away a woman spoke up (she no doubt had written about some pop star) and
said, "How can he be famous, I've never heard of him!" The rest of the
class looked at each other and agreed!

Yet of course Herschel is one of the most famous astronomers of all
time, most notably because he discovered Uranus, which put him among a
very select few who could make such a claim.

The problem, of course, was that the young college students in the class
couldn't have named *any* famous astronomers, except perhaps Sagan.

My point is that perhaps "famous" isn't really the right question. It
relies too much on popular culture. Perhaps "noteworthy" would be better?

As far as noteworthy astronomers go, I might suggest Geoffrey Marcy, who
leads the pack in discovering the exoplanets.

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html
Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

To reply take out your eye
  #5  
Old January 28th 07, 02:06 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Brian Tung[_1_]
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Shawn wrote:
Neil deGrasse Tyson of Nova Now fame. Following in Sagan's footsteps as
far as making science accessible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson


Tyson is a featherweight compared to Sagan. His command of analogy is
far inferior--that's a big difference, considering that well-constructed
analogies are a great way to convey science to the general public.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
  #6  
Old January 28th 07, 02:33 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Shawn
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Brian Tung wrote:
Shawn wrote:
Neil deGrasse Tyson of Nova Now fame. Following in Sagan's footsteps as
far as making science accessible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson


Tyson is a featherweight compared to Sagan. His command of analogy is
far inferior--that's a big difference, considering that well-constructed
analogies are a great way to convey science to the general public.


Tyson has better graphics though. :-) The saddest part of the
comparison is that there was a guy popularizing astronomy and science 25
years ago, and there's a guy doing it now and Bill Nye for kids in
between.



Shawn
  #7  
Old January 28th 07, 05:31 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Brian Tung[_1_]
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Shawn wrote:
Tyson has better graphics though. :-)


Hardly a ringing endorsement, I think. :-o

The saddest part of the
comparison is that there was a guy popularizing astronomy and science 25
years ago, and there's a guy doing it now and Bill Nye for kids in
between.


I must be having trouble parsing this: What is sad about the thing you
pointed out?

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
  #8  
Old January 28th 07, 05:53 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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On 27 Jan 2007 15:28:16 -0800, "Sitav" wrote:

who are the "famous" astronomers of the 21st century. i havent heard
of many well known astronomers or astrophysicists.........yet.


We're not too far into the 21st Century, so in terms of major work done
in the last five years, that would be hard to say. But there are many
famous astronomers who have produced great work in the last 25 year or
so, and remain active today:

Alan Guth
Stephen Hawking
Kip Thorne
Jocelyn Bell
Roger Penrose

Of course, most of these will probably be remembered in the long run as
20th Century scientists. The most famous 21st Century astronomers are
probably still in grade school.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
  #9  
Old January 28th 07, 07:10 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Shawn
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Posts: 125
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Brian Tung wrote:
Shawn wrote:
Tyson has better graphics though. :-)


Hardly a ringing endorsement, I think. :-o


How about this: Tyson has a conversational manner that I find more
engaging than Sagan's gee whiz sharing of his wonder at the Cosmos. IMO
I find Tyson informative, more of a reporter, whereas Sagan was more of
an evangelist.

The saddest part of the
comparison is that there was a guy popularizing astronomy and science 25
years ago, and there's a guy doing it now and Bill Nye for kids in
between.


I must be having trouble parsing this: What is sad about the thing you
pointed out?

It's great that Sagan, Tyson, Nye, or even the Myth Busters are (or
were) out there spreading science to the public. But we live in a
society utterly dependent on technology based on scientific discovery,
and yet a bunch of science geeks (us) can only come up with a handful of
names of people out there trying to teach astronomy to the masses.
Compare and Contrast with the number of football pundits out there
(American or otherwise FTM). I find it sad.


Shawn
  #10  
Old January 28th 07, 07:54 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Brian Tung[_1_]
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Posts: 755
Default astronomers

Shawn wrote:
How about this: Tyson has a conversational manner that I find more
engaging than Sagan's gee whiz sharing of his wonder at the Cosmos. IMO
I find Tyson informative, more of a reporter, whereas Sagan was more of
an evangelist.


As a reporter, he's pretty darned good; as an explainer, he could use
more depth.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
 




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