The World

[asterroc]

I'm trying to understand something. Please answer the below questions to the best of your ability.

[Poll #1397877]

What I'm trying to understand is why my students are unable to distinguish between the planet Earth and the entire universe. For example, I said "1. How is the world (the planet Earth) going to end?
2. Which of the three scenarios for the end of the universe do YOU think is most likely?" And they answered #1 with "Big Crunch, Big Rip, or Heat Death," and for #2 picked their favorite. The correct response for #1 is "When the Sun runs out of Hydrogen in its core, it will expand as a red giant and engulf the planet Earth."

This time I explicitly wrote "(the planet Earth)" in the question to try and avoid the mix-up from the colloquial usage of the word "world". I think I need to just never ever use the word "world" again in astronomy.

Comments

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I really love it when you post stuff like this as it has been a very long time since I took any science classes and I never took physics in high school either. It's always so enlightening.

[q10.livejournal.com]

you have to remember that humans usually don't so much read the directions as skim them and haphazardly extract key phrases and general hints.

also, normal rules of conversational structure make people assume that one question is an elaboration on the previous question if at all possible.

and, unfortunately, one of the easier important words to insert or drop in misreading is ‘not’.

if you want to minimize misreading, i would:

1. avoid the word ‘world’.
and
2. not put those two questions next to each other.

[fireaphid.livejournal.com]

Neat little poll! I guess for students, you have to be very specific. . .

[q10.livejournal.com]

a few examples of cases where ‘world’ means universe:

1. in metaphysics and semantics, one sometimes talks about ‘possible worlds’ when defining notions of metaphysical necessity or discussing the kinds of alternative, unreal states of affairs that we think about when we think about possibilities and uncertainties. in these areas, nothing is special about planets - its very clear that most writers in these areas (David Lewis is a striking example) are using ‘possible world’ to mean ‘possible way that the totality of everything that is’ could be, which, in ordinary talk, is pretty close to ‘possible universe’.

2. similarly, in epistemology, writers often draw distinctions between one's own mind and the external world (that can only be perceived through the senses) - here again planets aren't special - looking up at the sky on a clear night is still taking in sensory impressions of the world.

3. in theological contexts, people frequently use ‘the world’ to mean ‘the sum of all creation’ - see e.g. Cat Faber's deist hymn The Word of God - when she writes ‘Humans wrote the Bible, God wrote the world.’, it's pretty clear she means the whole of natural reality, including at least the sky that was mentioned in a pervious verse.

4. i'm pretty sure the many worlds interpretation of QM isn't about planets being special.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

The correct response for #1 is "When the Sun runs out of Hydrogen in its core, it will expand as a red giant and engulf the planet Earth.

okay, i got that one wrong :) was sure earth was too far away to be engulfed

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

*blushes*

I totally thought "world" meant universe. I mean, if I had taken your class I probably wouldn't have because I probably would have noted your usage, but taking your poll without clicking the answers first, I just assumed universe for some reason.

Hmm...a possible reason: world is translated as Shi4jie4 (World Journal!) in Chinese, which means basically "everywhere that people can perceive." There's another word that more specifically denotes universe or cosmos -- yu3zhou4 -- but shi4jie4 definitely doesn't necessarily end at the borders of the earth.

Of course, having lived (and been educated) here for 21 years, the "I speekee no good Engrish" defense doesn't work :P .

[sirroxton.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the Earth's orbit will change when the sun goes red giant, and that it won't be engulfed (at least not right away).