Shhhh! No one tell PZ about this cartoon. The next thing you’ll know, he’ll be applying these principles to stellar evolution.
Tip o’ the apple cart to Dave Morton.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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May 14th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I thought apples were designed to fall downward.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
davidlpf for the win! (And on the first post, too.)
May 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I liked trying to decipher the Spanish, not really sure why someone was called a Troll…but apparantly he wasn’t…:)
“no es un troll… se llama sarcasmo”
Heh
Pete
May 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
thanks ken.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Funny cartoon.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
No, no, no. Apples fall because their natural place is on the ground.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Actually, that only works for perfectly spherical apples in a vacuum.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Mom! Look! My blog is on Bad Astronomy!
Thanks, Phil. You made my day (and it’s only 00:31 here, but I don’t think anything will beat this).
May 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
[...] no lo escribo, reviento: me ha enlazado Phil Plait por la viñeta que puse el otro día. Chincha, rabiña, y esas cosas. | Trackback [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
What are you all talking about..? The apple doesnt fall down, the earth “falls” upwards to touch the apple.. Mother nature loves apples dontcha know..? She doesnt like feathers all that much thats why she doesnt rush to touch them but instead takes her own sweet time.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Nice.
Shane – Why perfectly spherical apples in a vacuum?
Since there would be no atmosphere for a spin to push against I wouldn’t think there shape mattered.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Funny cartoon.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Lee Smolin made this, right?
May 14th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
BTW, does anyone remember the “Dark Sucker Theory..?”
The joke started like this http://home.netcom.com/~rogermw/darksuck.txt
And all the parody sites that popped up in favor of “Dark Sucker Theory” remind me of the Creationist crowd. Sadly, THEY arent joking..
May 14th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Nice Terry Pratchett reference in that blogname, rinzewind! Discworld rox
May 14th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Naw.
Gravity doesn’t exist.
The earth sucks.
Though it’s a bit hard to calculate solar orbits that way….
May 14th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Geekoid: I was playing off an old physics joke.
A farmer hires a theoretical physicist to find out what’s wrong with his chickens. After a lot of diagrams and calculations, the physicist says, “Well, I’ve got a solution, but it only works for perfectly spherical chickens in a vacuum.”
May 14th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
davidlpf,
If you’re referring to the theory of “Intelligent Falling,” then you actually have biblical evidence to back you up. After all, it was an apple that led to the Fall of Man. ;-P
May 14th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I thought apples were designed to fall downward.
No, God pushes them down.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
It kinda reminds me that it all comes down to the perspective of the observer. Our own thoughts and beliefs shape the way we see things. A creationist might have thought of the apple falling on the guys head as the result of God commanding it to fall there. I really can’t say that the creationist is wrong, but I have an easier time beliving the biologist’s take on physics…
May 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
This is ridiculous. Obviously, the first apples to hit the ground did so with such force that their seeds were deformed, an acquired trait which was passed on to successive generations, thus making apples that are shaped to hit the ground the most common sort.
That’s right, I believe in Lamarckian Horticulture!
May 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Don’t believe this apple-gravity nonsense. Where are the transitional apples? If you cannot show me an apple in every stage of growth AND fall, I could never believe that apples fall from trees. If you want to believe that apples fall from trees, that is your religion and I resent paying taxes for it to be taught in public schools. Don’t get me wrong, I love science.
If you define gravity by the apples and apples by the gravity, that’s circular logic!
May 14th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Alex, I bow to your logic, and I for one welcome our new Apple overlords.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Hey I found this other cartoon, maybe PZ would like this one better:
http://www.thescientificcartoonist.com/?cat=4&paged=1
May 14th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Actually, this isn’t too far from some thinkers…
Quentin Smith and Lee Smolin (in that order) have formulated “Natural Selection Cosmologies” (or, Cosmogonies).
Check them out; very interesting.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Apples and apple trees are made of standard matter. Standard matter is naturally selected to “come down” after “going up”. We know this because all matter which didn’t come down isn’t here anymore.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Actually, I thought each apple flew off in all directions simultaneously (possibly into multiple universes if you subscribe to the many granny-smith interpretation), and it was only when Newton was underneath the tree observing that the fruit wave function collapsed onto his head.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Rinzewind – my mate in Manchester has a Spanish woman working for him (where I assume he got it from), passed it to me in Southampton, I passed it to the BA and then you read it!
May 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
It’s a little known detail, but that apple tree (an old and wise Flower of Kent had to retreat to dropping a bucket load of apples before Newton, historically lazy, woke up and got the message. This is suspected to explain Newton’s early retirement into alchemy and religious speculations.
The one I have heard goes something like this:
A leading diary company hires a couple of theoretical scientists in order to get higher production milk cows. The scientists study a farm, tells the company they need a year to develop a working theory, and gets to work.
After a year they meet with the expectant company directors. The leading scientists walks in front of an empty black board and begins: “Assume a spherical cow…”.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
[...] Via Bad Astronomy [...]
May 21st, 2008 at 3:49 am
[...] [via]) addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fscience.kukuchew.com%2F2008%2F05%2F21%2Fphysics-for-biologists%2F’; [...]
May 21st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
response 1: “I thought apples were designed to fall downward.”
response 2: “No, God pushes them down.”
definitive response: “God pushes them down because THE FSM
asked him to do so”