View Single Post
  #19 (permalink)  
Old 25-June-2007, 09:53 AM
grant hutchison grant hutchison is offline
Order of Kilopi
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 7,616
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by UncleJohn View Post
Uncle John here: Thanks Grant. You cleared that up.
Glad to be of help.
It's interesting how the mangling of science by journalists contributed to the misapprehension repeated on your linked site, which references this piece of gibberish from Australian ABC: "The researchers determined that the magnetic field in interstellar space is propelling our solar system along at a 60-90° angle to the rest of the galaxy."
For comparison, here is the George Mason University press release that sparked the story: "Up to now, scientists have believed that the magnetic field outside of our solar system was parallel to the galactic plane. But Opher, Stone and Gombosi used two data sets to conclude that the magnetic field is actually 60-90 degrees perpendicular to the plane."

Matthew Perkins Erwin (researcher, technogeek, inventor, and recording artist) also seems to have had his ideas featured in Wikipedia over the last few days: I caught a cut-and-paste job from his website last night, although it's been reverted when I looked this morning. The Bickerpedia discussion page for the Sag Dwarf gives you an idea of the level of discourse involved in this particular claim.

Grant Hutchison
Reply With Quote