Going lightly
Natural History, Nov, 2001 by Joel Marks
This hardly seems the time to be lighthearted, but I would like to comment on Neil deGrasse Tyson's amusing (and interesting) "Universe" article entitled "By Any Other Name" (7/01-8/01). I am a lifelong amateur astronomer and sometime philosopher of science, but I had never consciously taken notice of the curious fact highlighted by Tyson: that astronomical nomenclature is user friendly.
May I suggest an even simpler and better term for what he says astronomers call dark energy (the force now held accountable for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe)? I propose "levity." I think this would serve as an apt counterweight to its opposite, that heavy term "gravity."
Joel Marks West Haven, Connecticut
COPYRIGHT 2001 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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