[Irizary]

Re. the first question about orbits, I don't think it's surprising that many people don't know basic astronomy. Where do people learn it? Despite a lot of education, I didn't learn it in school, but on my own.

Where and when did you learn it?

 

[Irizary]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thalia

I think people who don't know this sort of thing must have little value for knowledge/curiosity or live in a very uneducated population with horrible schools and no library.

Maybe bad schools or bad teachers, or ones with a different emphasis on what they think kids should learn. I don't think people who don't know basic astronomy (or didn't learn it as children) necessarily had a lack of curiosity though. Like, the place I grew up was very rough, without much adult supervision. Even if kids had questions, there weren't many adults around to spend time with them and answer those questions, and teachers weren't very involved with kids' lives. So that's probably a deprived circumstance, but I'm not sure how rare it is. Lots of substance abuse problems by the adults, split families, gangs, etc. I can see how basic astronomy doesn't get pushed to the forefront. So I suppose that's a failure of schools and families, but like I say, I don't know how rare it is, and I don't think it reflects on the kids. As they get older maybe they'll desire to learn it, but they'll have less context for it, or it may seem like less obvious knowledge since it wasn't part of their upbringing.