# Get Your Freaking Light-Years Right! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 9, 2007, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352 "2007-05-09T03:27:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/41 "2007-05-09T22:20:13Z")
[QUOTE=nameless] I also am a loser for checking that. [/QUOTE] No shit. Us cool kids know a proper dose of aspirin as 4.48767136 × 10[sup]32[/sup] electron volts. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/42 "2007-05-09T23:29:23Z")
[QUOTE=vibrotronica] If you don’t mess with that sign, you’re going to have to change your user name. [/QUOTE] At the urging of the Teeming Masses, **mischievous** borrows a camera from a co-worker, and bravely sallies forth! She goes but rarely to the back elevators, as that is a part of the building to which she needs not venture, but now she has a mission! After trials, and tribulations, and having her I.D. checked by the guard, she finds the fabled elevator… …apparently they finished the construction a month ago. All of the signs have been taken down and new labs are moving in. Poo. Besides, I thought the sign had a sort of intrinsic wholeness to it as it was. Further commentary was unnecessary. I just really wanted a picture to show all of you. Mostly because of the overall ugliness of the sign, which completely defied description. mischievous ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/43 "2007-05-09T23:39:53Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] Then what’s the ultimate mistake? [/QUOTE] Probably people who think that “penultimate” means something like “super duper ultimate”. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/44 "2007-05-09T23:54:50Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] I think most of that is simply because it’s more interesting that way, and they can get more plotlines with that sudden change. I did see evolution prtrayed correctly in a story in (Niven? Pournelle? _Someone_’s) _The Nine Billion Names of God_, in which this reclusive scientist created life that had a very short generation, and over several years, applying natural pressures, caused the stupider ones to die off. Then they invented loads of stuff for him under the same constraints he used to guide their evolution. (For example, he’d put an slowly descending iron bar in the cage, and the only way they could survive was to make really strong aluminum and use it to prop up the bar. That was fairly late in the story, when they had the capacity to do that.) [/QUOTE] Was that perhaps Theodore Sturgeon’s _Microcosmic God_? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/45 "2007-05-10T00:44:48Z")
[QUOTE=essell] And I have to think that there are no I.D. people in Startrek for the same reason there are no Arabs. [/QUOTE] Arabs were wiped out in the Eugenics War. ---
**Author:** ![nameless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/779978/32.png) [@nameless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nameless)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/46 "2007-05-10T00:46:05Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] Was that perhaps Theodore Sturgeon’s _Microcosmic God_? [/QUOTE] [Quote=CalMeacham] The plot you describe belongs to Theodore Sturgeon’s “Microcosmic God” [/QUOTE] Maybe it was Sturgeon’s “Microscopic God.” That story had Death Rays of a certain style in it, didn’t it? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/47 "2007-05-10T01:07:33Z")
In 1980 I went to a college-level summer school program and took a course in astrophysics. The exam asked what was wrong with an old SF film\* where our heroes pilot their ship to a region of space known as [“the Main Sequence.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence) \*Anyone know it? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/48 "2007-05-10T01:19:24Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] In 1980 I went to a college-level summer school program and took a course in astrophysics. The exam asked what was wrong with an old SF film\* where our heroes pilot their ship to a region of space known as [“the Main Sequence.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence) \*Anyone know it? [/QUOTE] Now that’s funny. The main sequence is a region on a plot of spectral type (blue, red, white) vs. luminosity (Hertzsprung-Russell diagram) where most stars are located. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/49 "2007-05-10T01:25:10Z")
> [@](#): > > In 1980 I went to a college-level summer school program and took a course in astrophysics. The exam asked what was wrong with an old SF film\* where our heroes pilot their ship to a region of space known as “the Main Sequence.” > \*Anyone know it? This sounds like a misremembering of the narrator’s opening to **Forbidden Planet** , but FP didn’t make any mistakes themselves in that film. The narration goes something like: “…Cruiser C57D, now one year out from Earth Base, on its way to the grwat Main Sequence star Altair.” Altair is, indeed, on the Main Sequence, and about where you’d expect it to be to possibly have planets with Earth-like life on it. But it isn’t implied that the ship is going to a region called the Main Sequence. If FP is what your instructor had in mind, he’s confusing this high-quality film with bad sf. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/50 "2007-05-10T02:54:55Z")
On revisiting I now see your asterisked footnote refers to the TV show. (Walks off, hands in pockets, whistling, with pretended nonchalance, hoping to be mistaken for someone else.) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/51 "2007-05-10T03:00:18Z")
[QUOTE=nameless] Maybe it was Sturgeon’s “Microscopic God.” That story had Death Rays of a certain style in it, didn’t it? 😉 [/QUOTE] :smack: D’Oh! Time for new bifocals, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/52 "2007-05-10T10:01:13Z")
Listen – you smell something? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/53 "2007-05-10T11:45:52Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass] Confusing the meaning of light-years is the penultimate mistake in sci-fi writing. [/QUOTE] You may mean “quintessential”. “Penultimate” means second-to-last. And antepenultimate means third-to-last. And post-antepenultimate means penultimate. As does ante-postpenultimate. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/54 "2007-05-10T11:58:48Z")
[QUOTE=Giraffe] Spoken like someone who’s never made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. [/QUOTE] This could make sense, sort of, if he had some kind of warp drive. Maybe his engines are able to warp space to such a degree that the Kessel Run is only 12 parsecs. Just sayin… ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/55 "2007-05-10T13:00:05Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] Listen – you smell something? [/QUOTE] I’m not seeing where you’re going with this … ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/56 "2007-05-10T17:20:43Z")
[QUOTE=Ponder Stibbons] I’m not seeing where you’re going with this … [/QUOTE] My feeling is that your response is in bad taste… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/57 "2007-05-10T17:48:56Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] You may mean “quintessential”. “Penultimate” means second-to-last. [/QUOTE] I can almost smell the sound of the whoosh. ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/58 "2007-05-10T18:53:14Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] I can almost smell the sound of the whoosh. [/QUOTE] No kidding! That was the penultimate whoosh! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/59 "2007-05-10T18:58:44Z")
[QUOTE=Ponder Stibbons] I’m not seeing where you’re going with this … [/QUOTE] Me neither, but I’ve got a feeling . . . ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2007, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352/60 "2007-05-11T17:51:18Z")
I can smell an ad coming up for some candy… “Taste the Whoosh”. Main Sequenceburst [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-your-freaking-light-years-right/403352.md?page=4)