[Music]
is everybody ready for an astronomy
lesson this will be the second largest
class I’ve taught the first one I’ll
talk to you about today I’ve titled the
talk 121 seconds because that’s how long
the eclipse lasted at Furman well let me
get into a little bit more what else can
happen in 101 121 seconds well let’s
think I can make a bowl of oatmeal I can
pop a bag of popcorn on a more nerdy
side you can actually bounce radar from
the Earth to Venus at the speed of light
and it takes about two minutes yeah of
course there are certainly things that
are much shorter lives yeah for example
121 seconds is an eternity to Higgs
boson in the Large Hadron Collider
before it disappears in a puff of
subatomic particles it was very
difficult to find that object because it
didn’t last very long but 121 seconds is
nothing compared to basically the
basically the breath and of time and
space of our universe this image
represents an echo the Big Bang which
Herald at the beginning of the universe
14 billion years ago
what 121 seconds means to me and what it
meant for all of us that were around
that very hot summer day on August 21st
2017 once that was the day of the great
American solar eclipse it was a
coast-to-coast solar eclipse that travel
that basically the shadow of the moon
went from basically the Pacific coast in
Oregon across the United States to the
Atlantic coast of Charleston it took
only 90 minutes to cross the United
States but the thing is it crossed right
over Furman and we knew it was going to
cross over from in years ago I was
employed in 1999 and I knew it was gonna
be here we’ll talk a little bit about
how I knew that
well the thing is there’s many steps
that have to happen for an eclipse to
happen
and among those one you have to have an
alignment of the Sun the moon and the
earth a syzygy they call it in which the
basically the moon shadow strikes the
earth but that can only happen every
once in a while the moon’s orbit is
tilted with respect to the orbit of the
Sun of the earth around the Sun by about
five degrees so we don’t get eclipses
every every month we don’t get a solar
eclipse every month we don’t get a lunar
eclipse every month because it misses
the shadows miss all the time
but there are two places in these
orbital conjunctions that can occur
they’re called nodes and if the moon
happens to be new phase on one of these
nodes you get a solar eclipse the second
thing that has to happen is well the
shadow actually has to reach the earth
and the moon’s orbit is not circular
it’s elliptical sometimes a little
closer sometimes a little bit further
away you’ve probably heard of super
moons and that’s when the moon’s a
little bit closer to Earth well if the
moon’s too far its shadow can’t actually
touch the earth and you end up getting a
different kind of apparition you get
what’s called an annular eclipse where a
ring of sunlight ends up going around
the moon and I’ve actually seen one of
these they were quite nice but I’ve
never actually saw a total eclipse until
last year the third thing is you have to
be at the right place at the right time
now for those of us who are fortunate to
live underneath the Eclipse path or have
the means to actually travel to it
that’s great you actually get to see an
amazing thing and for most Americans a
hundred million people could actually
drive and get to see one of these that’s
why we call it the Great American solar
eclipse the shadow itself is only 70
miles across so if you’re here in
Greenville you got to see it for
21 seconds if you happen to be in say
they Anderson jockey lot you could see
it for 158 seconds and the shadow itself
is traveling across the United States at
90 minutes across the United States
means it’s moving at 2200 miles per hour
that’s faster than Iike mercial air
aircraft I can only think of one
aircraft in history that’s actually be
able to go that fast it was a spy plane
that they have discontinued the
Blackbird well because we knew this
eclipse was happening at Furman we we at
Furman hosted an event called Eclipse at
Furman and we didn’t know how many
people were going to come but we were
really amazed at how many did so we had
on that day parents students which by
the way was move-in day for a lot of
upperclassmen that was a lie was chaos
in its purest form of course we had
faculty and staff and we had visitors
from the Greenville community we even
had visitors from a far away as Scotland
I met a man from Scotland and I met a
man from Japan did people come to these
things we have Eclipse junkies that try
to go to every one of these things and
of course when we when we set when we
were planning this we had to make sure
that everybody had a pair of these and
there’s a reason why because you know
there’s so people are really scared of
clips –is when I was a child they
wouldn’t let us go out and look in an
eclipse because you’ll burn your eyes
out
well we solved that problem everybody
got a pair of glasses we also gave her
buy a glass of water because it was like
in the 90s that day was really hot
of course the glasses came in handy
everybody standing in the stands
watching the Eclipse happen and of
course people are breaking out their
cell phones you know how hard it is to
take a picture of the Sun with your cell
phone
even harder when you’re trying to take
it through one of those classes I know I
tried but there was an even better way
to watch this you don’t even have to
look up you could look down if you are
sitting under a tree and that as the
Eclipse progressed as partial went to
total you can actually watch Sun
filtering through leaves and trees and
making tiny images of the Sun on the
surface on the ground below because each
leaf acts like a pinhole camera or a
camera obscura as they used to call them
it makes an image of the Sun underneath
it’s really cool way to watch it of
course I started off the day by setting
up a small telescope outside the outside
the stadium and as the day progressed we
had more and more people show up in
total we had about 14,000 people come to
our event and it was totally free it’s
not like Clemson that charged $50 for
tailgating spots we wanted the community
to share this experience with us
for free it was great publicity too but
my first view the park of the clips
started about 1o 9 p.m. the telescope I
had set up just projected Sun onto a
onto a board so that I could other
people in the inn and the people
standing outside the stadium could
actually watch it progress didn’t have
to look at a TV screen didn’t have to
use their glasses at about the same time
and I set this up you notice on the on
the image on the right what is it that’s
there on my shoulder a cicada flew on
and landed on me and stayed with me for
a while and the poor little guy was
actually confused as the Sun began to be
blocked by the moon it got confused and
it just flew around erratically and
landed on me and stuck around for a
while I thought that was pretty cool
just up the road inter-caste gorgeous a
friend and local teacher my name of pari
Weinberg he actually asked me if I had a
solar filter he could borrow to take
pictures of the Sun and I let him borrow
one and he took these amazing photos
of of the Eclipse starting from first
contact when the moon’s shadow begins to
cross over until until we reach totality
and those are amazing pictures I
couldn’t take any I was stuck him seeing
the event at the stadium I couldn’t I’m
an astronomer I wanted to do that but I
also wanted to share about I’ve learned
to share the science with the people now
in the stands we had that some dedicated
students and and others in the stands
who actually wanted to capture the day
in fact these are images taken by one of
our physics majors ray garner he
actually captured the approach of the
moon shadow see if you’re up if you’re
at high altitude you can actually see
the shadow going across the Earth’s
surface but if you’re on the ground you
really can’t tell it so it starts to
getting darker and so he actually
captured you just go from the top left
bottom and then to the right you can
actually watch the shadow come but and
how you know it’s there is sure the sky
is getting darker but notice the clouds
are getting darker at a distance of
course my favorite and this is one that
the people over in marketing actually
gave me a couple of days ago this is a
video showing the eclipse time-lapse
photography it got crazy here you want
to watch it again
because when this was happening the Sun
is being blocked by the moon the
temperatures were cooling off and Ryan’s
totality began to start the cicadas and
the crickets and the woods behind the
stay and began to sing and if you round
them behind around the lake you probably
notice the same thing I had a friend of
mine Mike spec who teaches in education
here he actually had a thermometer set
up to a computer he actually watched the
temperature drop by 8 degrees when it
reached totality isn’t that amazing
of course the pictures that follow are
just spectacular because when totality
happened at to roughly to 38 that
afternoon the crowds that were cheering
it on Olson they just became hushed and
quiet silent we were all watching time
Stood Still for us for 121 seconds and
we look up we look around and everything
was Twilight all around and we look up
and we see things that you normally
can’t see in daylight skies you can’t
see the corona of the Sun you can only
see it during the clubs or from a
spacecraft you can’t see stars in the
daytime by eye but here there’s a
picture another one by ray you can
actually see the star regulus right next
to the Sun of course the most amazing
photograph of all is one that I wanted
to take but I’m glad somebody else did
take this is taken by a professor named
Rucker Muller it was out west taking
this image you actually see the corona
in it’s basically its glory these
tendrils of light following the sun’s
magnetic field extending from the
surface of Sun all the way out into
space and if you look along the edge
it’s very carefully you can actually see
tiny little bits of pink light that’s
actually hot hydrogen gas floating above
the surface of the Sun these are things
we call prominences that float above the
Sun sort of a surface tracked by the
magnetic fields of the Sun and there’s
one thing you might notice that on that
day when you look by eye
the moon was perfectly dark when you
looked at it by eye but if you take a
picture you can actually see the surface
of the Moon where the heck is the moon
where’s the light coming from
it’s reflecting off the Earth’s surface
back onto the moon darn the Eclipse so
that’s earth shine that you’re looking
at right there in that image so for us
time Stood Still for 121 seconds as we
enjoyed this this momentous or inspiring
eclipse
there’s tons of pictures you probably
have some of your own but of course
there’s photographers everywhere they
took so many more much better than what
we could ever do but again it’s that
moment when the eclipse ended that was
also just as exciting because soon as it
ended
we’re actually witnessing sunrise on the
moon’s surface the moon itself had been
blocking them the Sun for 121 seconds
also and the Sun will rise up through a
valley or crater and you’ll get a very
tiny bit of light on one side more so
than the others we call those Baily’s
beads but then as more and more light
appears around the edge of the Moon you
actually see something that looks like a
diamond ring hanging in the sky we call
this the diamond ring effect absolutely
it’s beautiful and it only lasts for a
second and then it’s gone
and that’s the thing the whole thing was
over and you get that sense that I just
saw something really oh it’s awesome and
spiritual and it actually made me cry
that day 7,000 people in the stands and
I’m the one down the field crying I’ve
never seen one before
but it hooks you because you want to see
another one you want to see another one
and the thing is you you go okay well
where’s the next one can I get to it
because we’re not due for another one
here in Greenville for a very long time
so maybe we can drive to the next one
well how do you find them how do you
find it find a win and where to go well
what you do is you just Google NASA
eclipse
it’ll take you you have one of the top
links you’ll find is that NASA Eclipse
website and you can navigate around and
find eclipses that have happened in the
past and in the future for a moment
that’s some really cool stuff because
that means they’ve gone through and
modelled the solar systems motions the
Sun the Moon the earth all of that and
using a computer actually predicted when
these things are going to occur and
where they’re going to be where they’re
going to come on earth so if you
navigate around you can find a place
where here’s the eclipses between 2021
and 2040 look for the United States do
you see a blue line or a blue curve
going across it that blue curve is the
next one in the United States well
there’s a red curve that’s an annular
cup so I’m not going to count that one
sorry I want to see a total one but the
blue one that’s gonna cap that’s gonna
happen in 2024 it’s gonna cut through
Mexico through Texas the Midwest through
western New York Maine into Canada you
know and then gone it’s gonna last it’s
gonna last a little bit longer than the
one we just observed last year I’m
certainly gonna drive to that one I
don’t care if those classes or not the
deans here I’m sure and you probably
heard that but that’s not the light
that’s not the next one the next one’s
actually somewhere else we have to leave
our our part of the world and move to
another part of the world in order to
see the next one in fact the next one is
going to be in 2019 that’s just next
year and it’s gonna be in South America
look at South America and you’ll notice
they’re actually two or three blue lines
crossing that continent at the very
bottom in 2019 you’ll have one that
crosses from Chile into Argentina ends
and Buenos Aires and in 2020 there’s
another one not even a year later
another one these people are so lucky
they could just see to within driving
distance in a year’s time and you get to
see another one in 2020 I have to wonder
I am Furman’s only astronomy professor
or if they would allow me to sponsor
made for a trip down there
if you continue navigating that side you
notice it also predicts and lunar
eclipses we had a lunar eclipse two and
a half weeks ago did you know that you
probably don’t remember the Eclipse but
you probably remember the moniker super
blue blood moon do you remember that is
in the news very briefly but the thing
is it was another eclipse less than a
year after the solar eclipse in August
we had one two and a half weeks ago it
looked kind of like that from here at
Furman I took this picture a couple of
students and I were brave the cold is in
the 20s it’s 6:00 in the morning we’re
just down above the playing fields above
the track just down the road from this
from this building and we took these
pictures and witnessed another Eclipse
super because it’s close to the earth
remember the ellipticity of the moon’s
orbit it’s closer to the earth it looks
bigger it’s blue because it’s the second
full moon of the month and then blood
because that’s the color of the Moon
turns when there’s a lunar close so now
for the last sort of a hundred
twenty-one seconds remaining of my talk
here I want to talk a little bit about
the history of eclipses just briefly the
thing is would it surprise you to know
that we’ve been able to predict these
things for over 2,000 years now you know
that the NASA Eclipse website didn’t
exist that long ago
we didn’t have computers there’s no laws
of physics but there were a lot of
clever astronomers people who watch the
skies but then you have to wonder how
could they have predicted when it closed
as a curve win when you look at that map
right there that’s twenty years worth of
eclipses and you look at any one
particular place you don’t necessarily
get an eclipse for years or even
generations from one instance to the
next and there are hundreds if not
thousands of miles separated by distance
on land so how could they have predicted
when solar eclipse has occurred we have
to go back to the very almost the very
first panel I showed you there’s two
sets of alignments that are possible one
Sun Moon earth the other Sun Earth Moon
which is what results oops which is what
results in a lunar eclipse they share
the same patterns in time and these
ancient Greek astronomers over 2,000
years ago actually figured out the
pattern because it turns out that when
the moon comes into the Earth’s shadow
at totality every one on the nighttime
side of the earth no matter where you
are can see that lunar eclipse and so
over this over the years decades
centuries they were recorded the
instance of all of these lunar eclipses
and of course solar eclipses and found
the pattern in a period of time of about
223 lunar months cycles of the moon
going around the earth you get the same
eclipse we call that a serous cycle it
actually takes a few serous cycles for
that Eclipse to come right back to your
location on earth it’ll appear somewhere
else and there’s multiples of these
cycles occurring in a given time each
one of these represents a different
sarah cycle and if you wait 303 sarah
cycles you’ll see this map replicated
again in time
that’s really powerful considering you
have a people who have no computers and
no concept of laws of physics but they
had eyes and they had brains and they
were very clever now they of course felt
that the earth was the center of the
universe and measured everything as if
everything we’re going around the earth
the Sun the Moon the planets and someone
they even built a machine what we
consider one of the earliest mechanical
computers this was a machine the
Antikythera mechanism was found in a
shipwreck in 1902 it was actually after
some studies over the years we found out
to be a very complex machine that you
turn a crank it acts like an
astronomical calendar in computer it
actually you can actually make the
planets and the moon and the Sun go
around and around and on the backside is
a little dial indicating when the next
Eclipse occurred there wasn’t a machine
of this life made anytime between that
time period in the end of the Middle
Ages and speaking of that that’s science
that’s science being able to predict or
model something and then it be repentant
repeating repeated over time and again
being able to predict events as they
occur that science even though the
scientific method didn’t really exist
but 15 centuries later notable
scientists like Copernicus Kepler and
Galileo you may have heard of these
people actually studied and actually
observed and found evidence that it
wasn’t the earth at the center of the
motion it was the Sun they challenged
the ancient Greek models it was sort of
an astronomical revolution which really
is a great example of how the scientific
method works and how science evolves
over time because in essence science
builds on the observations of previous
observations
basically the goal is the same the
pursuit of truth
politicians yeah maybe you know where
I’m going with this some politicians not
all kind of deny the science that we’re
actually teaching our students but you
can’t deny an eclipse we all came
together on that day in August last year
to observe to witness the great American
solar eclipse we’ve got to witness the
power the predictive power of science
that it wasn’t harmful to the mind and
body especially if you had a pair of
these and last it doesn’t have to be an
eclipse that brings us all together um
I’m happy to say that a few weeks ago we
also witnessed another event you might
remember this
kudos to Elon Musk for sharing his love
of science and for using it to actually
blaze a trail he really wants to go to
Mars but I think we’re gonna go beyond
Mars thank you
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
is everybody ready for an astronomy
lesson this will be the second largest
class I’ve taught the first one I’ll
talk to you about today I’ve titled the
talk 121 seconds because that’s how long
the eclipse lasted at Furman well let me
get into a little bit more what else can
happen in 101 121 seconds well let’s
think I can make a bowl of oatmeal I can
pop a bag of popcorn on a more nerdy
side you can actually bounce radar from
the Earth to Venus at the speed of light
and it takes about two minutes yeah of
course there are certainly things that
are much shorter lives yeah for example
121 seconds is an eternity to Higgs
boson in the Large Hadron Collider
before it disappears in a puff of
subatomic particles it was very
difficult to find that object because it
didn’t last very long but 121 seconds is
nothing compared to basically the
basically the breath and of time and
space of our universe this image
represents an echo the Big Bang which
Herald at the beginning of the universe
14 billion years ago
what 121 seconds means to me and what it
meant for all of us that were around
that very hot summer day on August 21st
2017 once that was the day of the great
American solar eclipse it was a
coast-to-coast solar eclipse that travel
that basically the shadow of the moon
went from basically the Pacific coast in
Oregon across the United States to the
Atlantic coast of Charleston it took
only 90 minutes to cross the United
States but the thing is it crossed right
over Furman and we knew it was going to
cross over from in years ago I was
employed in 1999 and I knew it was gonna
be here we’ll talk a little bit about
how I knew that
well the thing is there’s many steps
that have to happen for an eclipse to
happen
and among those one you have to have an
alignment of the Sun the moon and the
earth a syzygy they call it in which the
basically the moon shadow strikes the
earth but that can only happen every
once in a while the moon’s orbit is
tilted with respect to the orbit of the
Sun of the earth around the Sun by about
five degrees so we don’t get eclipses
every every month we don’t get a solar
eclipse every month we don’t get a lunar
eclipse every month because it misses
the shadows miss all the time
but there are two places in these
orbital conjunctions that can occur
they’re called nodes and if the moon
happens to be new phase on one of these
nodes you get a solar eclipse the second
thing that has to happen is well the
shadow actually has to reach the earth
and the moon’s orbit is not circular
it’s elliptical sometimes a little
closer sometimes a little bit further
away you’ve probably heard of super
moons and that’s when the moon’s a
little bit closer to Earth well if the
moon’s too far its shadow can’t actually
touch the earth and you end up getting a
different kind of apparition you get
what’s called an annular eclipse where a
ring of sunlight ends up going around
the moon and I’ve actually seen one of
these they were quite nice but I’ve
never actually saw a total eclipse until
last year the third thing is you have to
be at the right place at the right time
now for those of us who are fortunate to
live underneath the Eclipse path or have
the means to actually travel to it
that’s great you actually get to see an
amazing thing and for most Americans a
hundred million people could actually
drive and get to see one of these that’s
why we call it the Great American solar
eclipse the shadow itself is only 70
miles across so if you’re here in
Greenville you got to see it for
21 seconds if you happen to be in say
they Anderson jockey lot you could see
it for 158 seconds and the shadow itself
is traveling across the United States at
90 minutes across the United States
means it’s moving at 2200 miles per hour
that’s faster than Iike mercial air
aircraft I can only think of one
aircraft in history that’s actually be
able to go that fast it was a spy plane
that they have discontinued the
Blackbird well because we knew this
eclipse was happening at Furman we we at
Furman hosted an event called Eclipse at
Furman and we didn’t know how many
people were going to come but we were
really amazed at how many did so we had
on that day parents students which by
the way was move-in day for a lot of
upperclassmen that was a lie was chaos
in its purest form of course we had
faculty and staff and we had visitors
from the Greenville community we even
had visitors from a far away as Scotland
I met a man from Scotland and I met a
man from Japan did people come to these
things we have Eclipse junkies that try
to go to every one of these things and
of course when we when we set when we
were planning this we had to make sure
that everybody had a pair of these and
there’s a reason why because you know
there’s so people are really scared of
clips –is when I was a child they
wouldn’t let us go out and look in an
eclipse because you’ll burn your eyes
out
well we solved that problem everybody
got a pair of glasses we also gave her
buy a glass of water because it was like
in the 90s that day was really hot
of course the glasses came in handy
everybody standing in the stands
watching the Eclipse happen and of
course people are breaking out their
cell phones you know how hard it is to
take a picture of the Sun with your cell
phone
even harder when you’re trying to take
it through one of those classes I know I
tried but there was an even better way
to watch this you don’t even have to
look up you could look down if you are
sitting under a tree and that as the
Eclipse progressed as partial went to
total you can actually watch Sun
filtering through leaves and trees and
making tiny images of the Sun on the
surface on the ground below because each
leaf acts like a pinhole camera or a
camera obscura as they used to call them
it makes an image of the Sun underneath
it’s really cool way to watch it of
course I started off the day by setting
up a small telescope outside the outside
the stadium and as the day progressed we
had more and more people show up in
total we had about 14,000 people come to
our event and it was totally free it’s
not like Clemson that charged $50 for
tailgating spots we wanted the community
to share this experience with us
for free it was great publicity too but
my first view the park of the clips
started about 1o 9 p.m. the telescope I
had set up just projected Sun onto a
onto a board so that I could other
people in the inn and the people
standing outside the stadium could
actually watch it progress didn’t have
to look at a TV screen didn’t have to
use their glasses at about the same time
and I set this up you notice on the on
the image on the right what is it that’s
there on my shoulder a cicada flew on
and landed on me and stayed with me for
a while and the poor little guy was
actually confused as the Sun began to be
blocked by the moon it got confused and
it just flew around erratically and
landed on me and stuck around for a
while I thought that was pretty cool
just up the road inter-caste gorgeous a
friend and local teacher my name of pari
Weinberg he actually asked me if I had a
solar filter he could borrow to take
pictures of the Sun and I let him borrow
one and he took these amazing photos
of of the Eclipse starting from first
contact when the moon’s shadow begins to
cross over until until we reach totality
and those are amazing pictures I
couldn’t take any I was stuck him seeing
the event at the stadium I couldn’t I’m
an astronomer I wanted to do that but I
also wanted to share about I’ve learned
to share the science with the people now
in the stands we had that some dedicated
students and and others in the stands
who actually wanted to capture the day
in fact these are images taken by one of
our physics majors ray garner he
actually captured the approach of the
moon shadow see if you’re up if you’re
at high altitude you can actually see
the shadow going across the Earth’s
surface but if you’re on the ground you
really can’t tell it so it starts to
getting darker and so he actually
captured you just go from the top left
bottom and then to the right you can
actually watch the shadow come but and
how you know it’s there is sure the sky
is getting darker but notice the clouds
are getting darker at a distance of
course my favorite and this is one that
the people over in marketing actually
gave me a couple of days ago this is a
video showing the eclipse time-lapse
photography it got crazy here you want
to watch it again
because when this was happening the Sun
is being blocked by the moon the
temperatures were cooling off and Ryan’s
totality began to start the cicadas and
the crickets and the woods behind the
stay and began to sing and if you round
them behind around the lake you probably
notice the same thing I had a friend of
mine Mike spec who teaches in education
here he actually had a thermometer set
up to a computer he actually watched the
temperature drop by 8 degrees when it
reached totality isn’t that amazing
of course the pictures that follow are
just spectacular because when totality
happened at to roughly to 38 that
afternoon the crowds that were cheering
it on Olson they just became hushed and
quiet silent we were all watching time
Stood Still for us for 121 seconds and
we look up we look around and everything
was Twilight all around and we look up
and we see things that you normally
can’t see in daylight skies you can’t
see the corona of the Sun you can only
see it during the clubs or from a
spacecraft you can’t see stars in the
daytime by eye but here there’s a
picture another one by ray you can
actually see the star regulus right next
to the Sun of course the most amazing
photograph of all is one that I wanted
to take but I’m glad somebody else did
take this is taken by a professor named
Rucker Muller it was out west taking
this image you actually see the corona
in it’s basically its glory these
tendrils of light following the sun’s
magnetic field extending from the
surface of Sun all the way out into
space and if you look along the edge
it’s very carefully you can actually see
tiny little bits of pink light that’s
actually hot hydrogen gas floating above
the surface of the Sun these are things
we call prominences that float above the
Sun sort of a surface tracked by the
magnetic fields of the Sun and there’s
one thing you might notice that on that
day when you look by eye
the moon was perfectly dark when you
looked at it by eye but if you take a
picture you can actually see the surface
of the Moon where the heck is the moon
where’s the light coming from
it’s reflecting off the Earth’s surface
back onto the moon darn the Eclipse so
that’s earth shine that you’re looking
at right there in that image so for us
time Stood Still for 121 seconds as we
enjoyed this this momentous or inspiring
eclipse
there’s tons of pictures you probably
have some of your own but of course
there’s photographers everywhere they
took so many more much better than what
we could ever do but again it’s that
moment when the eclipse ended that was
also just as exciting because soon as it
ended
we’re actually witnessing sunrise on the
moon’s surface the moon itself had been
blocking them the Sun for 121 seconds
also and the Sun will rise up through a
valley or crater and you’ll get a very
tiny bit of light on one side more so
than the others we call those Baily’s
beads but then as more and more light
appears around the edge of the Moon you
actually see something that looks like a
diamond ring hanging in the sky we call
this the diamond ring effect absolutely
it’s beautiful and it only lasts for a
second and then it’s gone
and that’s the thing the whole thing was
over and you get that sense that I just
saw something really oh it’s awesome and
spiritual and it actually made me cry
that day 7,000 people in the stands and
I’m the one down the field crying I’ve
never seen one before
but it hooks you because you want to see
another one you want to see another one
and the thing is you you go okay well
where’s the next one can I get to it
because we’re not due for another one
here in Greenville for a very long time
so maybe we can drive to the next one
well how do you find them how do you
find it find a win and where to go well
what you do is you just Google NASA
eclipse
it’ll take you you have one of the top
links you’ll find is that NASA Eclipse
website and you can navigate around and
find eclipses that have happened in the
past and in the future for a moment
that’s some really cool stuff because
that means they’ve gone through and
modelled the solar systems motions the
Sun the Moon the earth all of that and
using a computer actually predicted when
these things are going to occur and
where they’re going to be where they’re
going to come on earth so if you
navigate around you can find a place
where here’s the eclipses between 2021
and 2040 look for the United States do
you see a blue line or a blue curve
going across it that blue curve is the
next one in the United States well
there’s a red curve that’s an annular
cup so I’m not going to count that one
sorry I want to see a total one but the
blue one that’s gonna cap that’s gonna
happen in 2024 it’s gonna cut through
Mexico through Texas the Midwest through
western New York Maine into Canada you
know and then gone it’s gonna last it’s
gonna last a little bit longer than the
one we just observed last year I’m
certainly gonna drive to that one I
don’t care if those classes or not the
deans here I’m sure and you probably
heard that but that’s not the light
that’s not the next one the next one’s
actually somewhere else we have to leave
our our part of the world and move to
another part of the world in order to
see the next one in fact the next one is
going to be in 2019 that’s just next
year and it’s gonna be in South America
look at South America and you’ll notice
they’re actually two or three blue lines
crossing that continent at the very
bottom in 2019 you’ll have one that
crosses from Chile into Argentina ends
and Buenos Aires and in 2020 there’s
another one not even a year later
another one these people are so lucky
they could just see to within driving
distance in a year’s time and you get to
see another one in 2020 I have to wonder
I am Furman’s only astronomy professor
or if they would allow me to sponsor
made for a trip down there
if you continue navigating that side you
notice it also predicts and lunar
eclipses we had a lunar eclipse two and
a half weeks ago did you know that you
probably don’t remember the Eclipse but
you probably remember the moniker super
blue blood moon do you remember that is
in the news very briefly but the thing
is it was another eclipse less than a
year after the solar eclipse in August
we had one two and a half weeks ago it
looked kind of like that from here at
Furman I took this picture a couple of
students and I were brave the cold is in
the 20s it’s 6:00 in the morning we’re
just down above the playing fields above
the track just down the road from this
from this building and we took these
pictures and witnessed another Eclipse
super because it’s close to the earth
remember the ellipticity of the moon’s
orbit it’s closer to the earth it looks
bigger it’s blue because it’s the second
full moon of the month and then blood
because that’s the color of the Moon
turns when there’s a lunar close so now
for the last sort of a hundred
twenty-one seconds remaining of my talk
here I want to talk a little bit about
the history of eclipses just briefly the
thing is would it surprise you to know
that we’ve been able to predict these
things for over 2,000 years now you know
that the NASA Eclipse website didn’t
exist that long ago
we didn’t have computers there’s no laws
of physics but there were a lot of
clever astronomers people who watch the
skies but then you have to wonder how
could they have predicted when it closed
as a curve win when you look at that map
right there that’s twenty years worth of
eclipses and you look at any one
particular place you don’t necessarily
get an eclipse for years or even
generations from one instance to the
next and there are hundreds if not
thousands of miles separated by distance
on land so how could they have predicted
when solar eclipse has occurred we have
to go back to the very almost the very
first panel I showed you there’s two
sets of alignments that are possible one
Sun Moon earth the other Sun Earth Moon
which is what results oops which is what
results in a lunar eclipse they share
the same patterns in time and these
ancient Greek astronomers over 2,000
years ago actually figured out the
pattern because it turns out that when
the moon comes into the Earth’s shadow
at totality every one on the nighttime
side of the earth no matter where you
are can see that lunar eclipse and so
over this over the years decades
centuries they were recorded the
instance of all of these lunar eclipses
and of course solar eclipses and found
the pattern in a period of time of about
223 lunar months cycles of the moon
going around the earth you get the same
eclipse we call that a serous cycle it
actually takes a few serous cycles for
that Eclipse to come right back to your
location on earth it’ll appear somewhere
else and there’s multiples of these
cycles occurring in a given time each
one of these represents a different
sarah cycle and if you wait 303 sarah
cycles you’ll see this map replicated
again in time
that’s really powerful considering you
have a people who have no computers and
no concept of laws of physics but they
had eyes and they had brains and they
were very clever now they of course felt
that the earth was the center of the
universe and measured everything as if
everything we’re going around the earth
the Sun the Moon the planets and someone
they even built a machine what we
consider one of the earliest mechanical
computers this was a machine the
Antikythera mechanism was found in a
shipwreck in 1902 it was actually after
some studies over the years we found out
to be a very complex machine that you
turn a crank it acts like an
astronomical calendar in computer it
actually you can actually make the
planets and the moon and the Sun go
around and around and on the backside is
a little dial indicating when the next
Eclipse occurred there wasn’t a machine
of this life made anytime between that
time period in the end of the Middle
Ages and speaking of that that’s science
that’s science being able to predict or
model something and then it be repentant
repeating repeated over time and again
being able to predict events as they
occur that science even though the
scientific method didn’t really exist
but 15 centuries later notable
scientists like Copernicus Kepler and
Galileo you may have heard of these
people actually studied and actually
observed and found evidence that it
wasn’t the earth at the center of the
motion it was the Sun they challenged
the ancient Greek models it was sort of
an astronomical revolution which really
is a great example of how the scientific
method works and how science evolves
over time because in essence science
builds on the observations of previous
observations
basically the goal is the same the
pursuit of truth
politicians yeah maybe you know where
I’m going with this some politicians not
all kind of deny the science that we’re
actually teaching our students but you
can’t deny an eclipse we all came
together on that day in August last year
to observe to witness the great American
solar eclipse we’ve got to witness the
power the predictive power of science
that it wasn’t harmful to the mind and
body especially if you had a pair of
these and last it doesn’t have to be an
eclipse that brings us all together um
I’m happy to say that a few weeks ago we
also witnessed another event you might
remember this
kudos to Elon Musk for sharing his love
of science and for using it to actually
blaze a trail he really wants to go to
Mars but I think we’re gonna go beyond
Mars thank you
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