boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse
Yoda is in my astronomy book.
The chapter on the behavior of light uses an illustration of people in a movie theater, and lo and behold on the screen there is a little green dude with a stick and big ears. This makes studying astronomy all night a little bit better. Of course, so does the can of Vanilla Coke (two more before I have to start buying vanilla syrup!) I just opened up.
I almost think this test is going to go okay. This will change by morning.
Also, a book they use for a later example is a Heinlein novel, and there's a sidebar that discusses Douglas Adams's "flying method" (throwing yourself at the ground and missing) as a fair description of orbits.
The chapter on spacetime would make much more sense if I were high. Then questions like What's at the bottom of black holes? would not be so incredibly frustrating. In fact, I'd probably know what was at the bottom of a black hole, and I would post a great livejournal post saying that it was Fritos. Because by that point I'd have the munchies.
...Dude. For a second in chapter 15, I totally understood how the Sun Crusher worked. It disrupted the hydrostatic equilibrium and...I lost it. Damn, I really do sound like I'm high.
This is an actual quote from my notes: "One Helium (4) nucleus is less massive than four Hydrogen (1) nuclei separately. This does not make sense. Okay, so it's like a junk ship is worth less than all the good parts (grav boot, compression coil, primary buffer panel, etc.), because it costs you labor to take the ship apart and get the parts out." And that is the one concept of the entire chapter that makes sense to me. Clearly Firefly makes me smarter. For example: I rejected the lame mnemonic given for the spectral sequence of stars (Oh Be A Fine Guy/Girl, Kiss Me) and even the much more amusing one introduced by the sub (Ohio Bobcat Astronomer Flees Giant Killer Mole) in favor of my own admittedly not-so-clever version: Old Bastard Aims For Gunman, Kills Mudder. And I remember the concept. It's like the Fangirl's Guide to Astronomy. You can use Han as a (bad) example of parsecs, hyperspace to lead into spacetime theory, and Tatooine to discuss binary star systems. And of course you'd have to play Monty Python's "Galaxy Song" at every possible opportunity. And hope that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, 'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth...
I'm going to bed. I'll finish studying in the morning. For real.