Science in Astronomy Now

[Stub Mandrel]

8 minutes ago, andrew s said:

You seem to respond as if I am criticising your publication

No, not at all; I just have some empathy for whoever edits Astronomy Now. ?

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention the magazine, but I think my own website (which is riddled with errors) in my signature has links to it.

[Stub Mandrel]

No-one is immune.

I've just emailed a BBC journalist about getting the common name of a plant wrong ?

[robin_astro]

Even where authors go to great lengths to get things right, editors can still screw things up. I recall  Many years ago  I wrote in a paper for a professional journal connected with my job that there was a "causal relationship" between two variables which someone changed to a "casual relationship" ?

Robin 

[Stub Mandrel]

17 minutes ago, robin_astro said:

Even where authors go to great lengths to get things right, editors can still screw things up. I recall  Many years ago  I wrote in a paper for a professional journal connected with my job that there was a "causal relationship" between two variables which someone changed to a "casual relationship" ?

Robin 

Not as amusing, but I have had the pleasure of going through reversing a proof-reader's work to change 'lead screw' back to 'leadscrew'. You can imagine that it occurred quite frequently in a book about lathes, possibly into three figures.

[andrew s]

At work I had "not explicitly modelled" changed to the possibly correct but not  intended "not expertly modelled".

Regards Andrew 

[Macavity]

I find BOTH "sides" (the main protagonists) persuasive. I note (wickedly),
aside from Email, "Astronomy Now" also have a phone number too... ?

I suppose, the expectation of being a "mine of (correct!) information"
reminds me of my latter years at WORK... As a "support" rather than 
front-line Physicist. I recall the Management Memo reminding us to:
Answer the phone within two rings and be polite (sic!) to customers...  ?
(My experience was that it destroyed any residual "colleague" thing)

Dunno about Journalism. I am lost in admiration for those who "got
the gig" in totalitarian states. Less impressed by the hired guns who
can dash of an article for whichever side is currently *paying* them? ?

I suppose my favourite daft quote is along the lines: "To explore this
phenomena, it is important to have a TOOL of suitable size"! (FNAR) ?
(I suppose it reveals my mental state... A perpetual adolescent boy?)

I do try hard to understand the idea that a mistake in a magazine is
the thin end of the wedge to a (life-threatening) anti-vaccine lobby?
I love activists. I wish the internet could accommodate apathy tho... ?

P.S. I LIKE "Astronomy Now"... I hope they still have ONE left today!
In the limited selection of magazines at a local WHS a real beacon? ?

[saac]

On 28/09/2018 at 10:50, Macavity said:

I
I do try hard to understand the idea that a mistake in a magazine is
the thin end of the wedge to a (life-threatening) anti-vaccine lobby?
I love activists. I wish the internet could accommodate apathy tho... ?
 

I think the point I was trying to get across is that we look, quite reasonably,  to authoritative publications such as AN to publish, well no other way of saying it, accurate information.  Spelling , punctuation quotation errors are of course trivial and are entirely excusable.  Factual errors on the other hand, poor/incorrect science  on what is supposed to be the magazine's specialist area are, I would have thought, somewhat less excusable - kinda undermines their authority.  The reference to the MMR vaccination issue was to highlight the dangers of so called sources of authority not paying due diligence to what they publish.   I look forward to AN's advocacy of flat  earth  

Jim 

[Macavity]

Well, I shall perhaps require A.N. to be more authoritative in the future! ?
I felt a slight "negative frisson" (triggered?) with their use of "Fake News"
in the Editorial... Is there no escape from the mundane? lol. But I concede:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-real-story-of-fake-news

My "word of the day" would definitely be Spallation (A.N. Oct 2018 P.47) ?
I had previously only associated it with start of Neutron Beam production. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spallation
+1 to AN on THAT one anyway! ?

[saac]

2 hours ago, Macavity said:

Well, I shall perhaps require A.N. to be more authoritative in the future! ?
I felt a slight "negative frisson" (triggered?) with their use of "Fake News"
in the Editorial... Is there no escape from the mundane? lol. But I concede:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-real-story-of-fake-news

My "word of the day" would definitely be Spallation (A.N. Oct 2018 P.47) ?
I had previously only associated it with start of Neutron Beam production. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spallation
+1 to AN on THAT one anyway! ?

spallation - i first came across it concerning brickwork on a previous house!   It's not something you would want

Jim

[ollypenrice]

I do remember seeing a scientific correction in AN. I can't remember the precise details but it concerned, if I'm not mistaken, the need to clarify the difference between the Doppler and the cosmological redshifts. 

I think the magazine tries hard to be accurate. I know that my own contributions have been peer-reviewed and that, on occasion, I've been asked to justify this or that point. In my tiny domain of deep sky AP I do sometimes take a minority or controversial view (which I try to defend) but I know that this will be scrutinized and I think that my last contribution was very effectively edited and substantially improved by Keith Cooper. I'm happy with the way I've been edited, if you like, which is pretty good since writers don't, in the main, like being edited!

Olly

[Peter Drew]

Never mind approaching black holes, I felt a sense that SGL was approaching CN for a while, thankfully it's been diverted. I used to happily subscribe to AN but my current narrowing of astronomical interests don't support the cost. My problem, not AN's.    ?

[SIDO]

This 20min vid attemts to explain the event horizon and this being a subject of some disagreement among astrophysicists I am curious to see what some commentators in this thread might think of it's accuracy in this regard.

 

[andrew s]

On 02/10/2018 at 07:15, SIDO said:

This 20min vid attemts to explain the event horizon and this being a subject of some disagreement among astrophysicists I am curious to see what some commentators in this thread might think of it's accuracy in this regard.

 

It seemed to me to do a good job but I suspect the Penrose diagram is a bit advanced for many. The words however were as I understood the situation to be.

Regards Andrew 

 

[andrew s]

It is now almost a week since I wrote to the editor of AN and not even an acknowledgement.  Maybe Neil or Olly could try to see if their more nuanced approach gets results?

Regards Andrew

[Stub Mandrel]

40 minutes ago, andrew s said:

It is now almost a week since I wrote to the editor of AN and not even an acknowledgement.  Maybe Neil or Olly could try to see if their more nuanced approach gets results?

Regards Andrew

i can't really write a complaint to a magazine I have never read

[andrew s]

1 minute ago, Stub Mandrel said:

i can't really write a complaint to a magazine I have never read

No but you could refer to this discussion and how you would have managed my letter had it been to your magazine!

(I do realise this is unlikely to happen.)

Regards Andrew

[Stub Mandrel]

I recently missed a typo in an article on using Arduinos so it declared "Make sure modules are insulted properly... ".

[JamesF]

1 minute ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I recently missed a typo in an article on using Arduinos so it declared "Make sure modules are insulted properly... ".

I've found insulting tape to be useful for all sorts of different jobs

James

[humblepigeon]

I suspect its time and money related Andrew. I have done some publication (not science related), and my mistakes were always due to tight deadlines. The proof reader rarely knew what the subject matter was about and just looked for spelling and grammatical errors before firing the mag' off to press.
If the content is of written importance however, then i think the game changes slightly (as the editors should then be obliged to get the content right). The proof reader should thus be clued up on the subject matter.
Its amazing how easy it is to miss errors though. I consider myself pretty vigilant and slightly OCD when working on content, yet it still amazes me how many mistakes appear in the final printed mag'.

Don't even get me started on predictive text algorithms and spell checkers.

[andrew s]

5 hours ago, humblepigeon said:

I suspect its time and money related Andrew. I have done some publication (not science related), and my mistakes were always due to tight deadlines. The proof reader rarely knew what the subject matter was about and just looked for spelling and grammatical errors before firing the mag' off to press.
If the content is of written importance however, then i think the game changes slightly (as the editors should then be obliged to get the content right). The proof reader should thus be clued up on the subject matter.
Its amazing how easy it is to miss errors though. I consider myself pretty vigilant and slightly OCD when working on content, yet it still amazes me how many mistakes appear in the final printed mag'.

Don't even get me started on predictive text algorithms and spell checkers.

The odd typo never bothers me even if I spot them. The problem is the basic physics is wrong. I suspect the editors think they understand what they write about in "Ask Astronomy Now" but unfortunately they don't. 

Yes money is probably  the issue they can't or won't pay for a knowledgeable person to provide the answers.

Regards Andrew 

[ollypenrice]

On 15/12/2018 at 19:34, andrew s said:

The odd typo never bothers me even if I spot them. The problem is the basic physics is wrong. I suspect the editors think they understand what they write about in "Ask Astronomy Now" but unfortunately they don't. 

Yes money is probably  the issue they can't or won't pay for a knowledgeable person to provide the answers.

Regards Andrew 

Alan Longstaff's will be a hard act to follow...

Olly

[andrew s]

16 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Alan Longstaff's will be a hard act to follow...

Olly

I fully agree. When it was ask Alen iit was almost impossible fault. 

Regards Andrew 

[Tiki]

On ‎26‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 15:45, andrew s said:

 

"If a person were to fall into a black hole, time would come to a halt for them at the event horizon, so photons would not even reach their eyes"

Regards Andrew 

Unfortunately not only wrong but also actively misleading.

Perhaps a correction will be published. After all, a scientific magazine has a responsibility to the public understanding of science. The consideration of objects falling into black holes are a great way of looking at GR, it is a shame that it has gone so badly awry in this most public case.

[andrew s]

2 hours ago, Tiki said:

Unfortunately not only wrong but also actively misleading.

Perhaps a correction will be published. After all, a scientific magazine has a responsibility to the public understanding of science. The consideration of objects falling into black holes are a great way of looking at GR, it is a shame that it has gone so badly awry in this most public case.

I have emailed them pointing out errors on several occasions but never even had an acknowledgement.  So I have given up.

Regards Andrew 

[Keith Cooper]

I've just seen this thread, and thought that I ought to reply.

First, I should apologise to anyone who sent me an email about a mistake in the magazine who I didn't reply to. I try to respond to everyone when I can, but sometimes life and work gets in the way and so I'm not able to find time to respond to everybody.

I am greatly disappointed that I seem to have made factual mistakes in the magazine, and I look back on my own performance in that particular October issue and it wasn't the best. In my defence I was moving house and all the stress that comes with that, as well as dealing with various deadlines, editing, writing etc. However, that is certainly not an excuse because there shouldn't be big mistakes in the magazine - certainly not for the price magazines cost these days – but I just wanted to explain why I ended up making errors in that issue. I'm certainly embarrassed by my mistakes such that I've redoubled my efforts to do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again. 

Clearly, my answer to that question about black holes was gibberish and I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I wrote it. I seem to have confused myself about the different frames of reference.

I welcome correspondence and critique from any reader about anything they've seen in the magazine and I'm happy to stand corrected if I've messed up. I'll be at AstroFest Friday afternoon and all Saturday, so if any SGL members are attending and would like to come and chat with me about it, I'd be more than happy to talk to you.

Kind regards,

Keith Cooper