Naming Things: Planets in Our Solar System, Moon Rockets, Space Probes . . .

I like language, especially when "things" are named in imaginative ways. A few days ago, the European Space Agency landed a little probe about the size of a washing machine on Comet 67P -- a small mass of ice and metallic dust with an odd shape being referred to as a "rubber ducky" -- which is traveling at more than 47,000 mph. This was an astounding feat, a combination of imaginative thinking, physics and mathematics, precision design, and sheer audacity. The two-part probe was launched in March 2004, and for 310 million miles it chased the comet. After ten years the probe finally caught up with 67P in an area between Jupiter and Mars, the "mother ship" released the little probe, which seven hours later landed on the surface of the comet. Although the little probe weighs more than 300 pounds here on earth, the gravity of the comet is so slight that the probe weighs less than an ounce on the comet. It has lifted away from the comet twice, and returned, but the second return placed it in the shadow of a cliff so two of its three solar-powered batteries are blocked and this morning comes the news that the probe has gone silent. If the sun can get to those solar panels again, the batteries could recharge and thus the probe could start "talking" again.

Back to naming things. The tradition for naming things in our solar system (for things NASA has launched) has been to use names from Greek and Roman mythology, and so seven of the eight planets in order from the sun are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Curiously, our planet, Earth, is named from the Anglo/Saxon word "eorthe" generally meaning soil, or ground.

The ESA used names drawn from Egyptian history and culture for this project. The "mother ship" that carried the probe is "Rosetta," an allusion to the three-sided black basalt rock/stone found by French military forces in Egypt in 1799 near Rashid (Rosetta). The Stone is inscribed in three languages, the translations of which were finally made in 1822 by the French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion. He recognized that the inscriptions on one side were in Ancient Greek, which he was able to translate. Then he guessed correctly that the other two sides carried the same information, in hieroglyphics and in the Ancient Egyptian script "demotic." Thus the Rosetta Stone opened the door to reading and understanding the two written languages of Ancient Greece and thus the whole history of that remarkable culture. So Rosetta is a perfect name for the project that seeks to unlock, on that comet, some of the secrets even perhaps of the beginning of the universe itself. More: http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html

The little probe that separated from Rosetta and finally bounced twice and then settled on the comet is Philae, named for an island in the Upper Nile River that was the site of several ancient temples to the deities of Egyptian mythology. The original landing spot on the comet that Philae was aiming for was dubbed Agilkia, the name of another island in the Nile.

ESA could have just used the general system created by the Earthlings who have studied the heavens since the beginning of time and who (much more recently!) have been tracking objects either already known (like stars and comets) or sent from Earth into space and who have applied names like 67P (combinations of letters and numbers) or else names associated with cultures. Instead, ESA chose the names from Ancient Egyptian history and culture that specifically allude to an astonishing find (the inscribed Rosetta Stone) that led to unlocking the story of an extraordinarily rich ancient culture (Egypt) . . . and that lends a wonderful dimension of ideas and familiarity and promise of knowledge to come that can't possibly be conveyed with anonymous combinations of letters and numbers. The comet's name had no meaning other than its place on a list of similar number/letter combinations. But now it is home to an astounding expression of human ingenuity, with a name, Philae.

The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum. The source for the image is http://tinyurl.com/qjlrkre

Update: The Oscars Selfie That Went Viral

The combination of a little spontaneous fun by a collection of super-famous movie stars (except for Lupita N'yong'o's little brother, there on the right in the picture) at the Oscars, and Twitter, has actually become an influential storyline in just a few days.

Who doesn't like the freshness of the people in Ellen DeGeneres' selfie forgetting their celebrity personas and just being charmingly silly for a moment. But that storyline quickly evolved -- Ellen's challenge to retweet has now been taken up about 3.2 million times. And Samsung, handed this unexpected bounty, has announced that it will donate $1 for every retweet up to 3 million, with the money going to charities of Ellen's choice. She has directed that half will go to St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Research Center in Memphis, and the other half will go to the Humane Society of the U.S.
                                                                             

So here is a vivid demonstration of the lightning speed with which information can travel on Twitter,
and on modern social media more generally. It is one thing to read about  the power of Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and other social media channels, and another to see it flash so vividly. And the extra part is that those two worthy charities now have large and welcome donations to add to their resources. It's a lesson for those of us who are looking at social media as a cultural, business / economic, and social communications phenomenon. It's a win-win-win of benefits for all the immediate participants.                                           
                                                                         

A Tale of Twitter and Two Cellphones

Ellen DeGeneres was having a little fun as host of the Academy Awards the other night when she encouraged a group of aisle-sitting Hollywood "A-List" celebrities (Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey . . . ) to come join her in a cell-phone selfie that they could post to Twitter to try to "break it." They of course crowded in, all smiles. Bradley Cooper turned the phone from "portrait" to "landscape" so everyone would be in the picture, and click!

                                                                               

The photo was posted on Twitter, and within two hours or so had in fact "broken" Twitter -- becoming the most widely distributed photo of all time at nearly 800,000 retweets within half an hour. Another photo was taken at the same time and then also posted to Twitter, taken by someone in the audience just behind those crowded into Ellen's picture. And there in that second photo was petite Liza Minnelli (at the Oscars with her sister Lorna Luft and their brother for the special tribute to the 75th anniversary of the film "The Wizard of Oz" starring their mother Judy Garland), in blue and on tiptoes, wanting to be in the picture but not tall enough to be seen.

That wonderful, spontaneous "class photo" selfie was taken with a Samsung cellphone: Samsung was a major sponsor for that very long telecast. A little later, at an after party, Ellen was photographed again, holding an iPhone and taking another selfie with someone. That one went to Twitter also, though it didn't go viral.

 But what an nice if unplanned comment about both Samsung and iPhone, and of course the power of Twitter. Use the sponsor's product in the sponsor's "environment," and then use the cellphone you really favor in a different environment. The iPhone was probably her own, the one she brought with her that evening, and so it was natural to reach for it at the party. For anyone attentive to detail, it was a small but ironic and unplanned visual comment on which product she preferred (Samsung would have been delighted to have her keep the selfie-phone!).

[Image: Microsoft Clip Art]

Measures of Success: "Grit" May Be Even More Important than Intelligence

In 2012, Paul Tough stirred up considerable discussion in the world of education, even controversy, with the publication of his book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. The book draws on both scientific research and anecdotal evidence to propose that the traditional perspective in education that abundant native intelligence is the key to academic achievement, is only part of the story as a predictor of success in school. The other part, and for Tough the more important part, is that high levels of achievement require a mindset that includes determination, persistence, self-direction, conscientiousness, self-control, optimism, and a boundless tolerance for detail. Taken together, these are qualities of one's character that Tough referred to as "grit."

In the book, Tough points out that children at either end of the spectrum -- those who grow up in comfortable, even privileged circumstances and who attend schools rich in both opportunities and reosurces, as well as children at the other end who live in unsettling circumstances and whose schools are typically stressed for just the basics for learning, like textbooks and never mind computers -- are both hampered by that traditional view of the path to success. Of course, one's circumstances, whatever they are, are not automatically limiting. There is abundant anecdotal evidence of people who succeed in spite of -- rather than thanks to -- circumstances, because they were born with the potential for those qualities of self-awareness and determination that Tough proposes as grit. But Tough's perspective is general.

How does one develop that gritty mental and emotional strength of character, and why do we care? First, says Tough, strength of character is developed through facing challenges, and learning to deal with failure. Children of privilege are broadly protected from failure, and children of disadvantage encounter too much of it in their lives without the support systems in place to help them learn from it. Both of those extremes, and all the stops in between that influence children's learning in the context of this view, need attention and amelioration.

It turns out that the qualities of character that signify achievers, summed up in that short word, grit, are the very qualities that the professional world is also looking for. Companies and organizations want problem-solvers, people who are self-directed, conscientious, attentive to detail, forward-looking, curious and persistent in following that curiosity, unafraid of challenges and setbacks, able to withstand failure and make something of it. Being smart, or really smart, is an advantage, of course. But success, whether in school or in the professional world, is built on stronger stuff. John Wayne's movie of years ago had the right words: True Grit. 

Here's a link for The New York Times' detailed review of the book: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/how-children-succeed-by-paul-tough.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  
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I'd Like to Buy a Vowel, Please!

My computer and keyboard have been through some heavy-duty use in the past dozen years – the amount of time I’ve been teaching online as well as working on a graduate degree online myself. The classes I have been teaching are short courses, just five weeks, and I have to keep close track of them as well as participate in order to keep students on the rails; be available as a ready resource; try to stay out of the way of their learning; douse sparks before they cause fires – the normal things teachers do in online classes. Then there are papers to read, grade reports, and assorted administrative matters, all of which require more keyboard time. I add my own classes, lots of email, regular stops at favorite websites, frequent searches for information . . . and, to paraphrase the late Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen (who was talking about million-dollar allocations in the federal budget), an hour here, an hour there, and pretty soon it adds up to real time.

I noticed the other day that with the gazillion hours I’ve spent typing on three different keyboards over those years, on each one I’ve nearly worn the “E” off the E key, with the N key not much more legible. Who knew that N was such a frequently used letter in the English language? Good to remember if you're ever on "Wheel of Fortune."