The Minivan That Could

Today I'm thrilled to feature another guest post from a friend of mine! Meredith Rawls and I met years ago in San Diego while both getting our masters in astronomy. I remember she drove this great old van around, and swore up and down it was the most reliable car she'd ever known. When she told me recently they had been keeping data on every tank of gas purchased since '96, I was thrilled! Take it away, Meredith!

Way back in 1996, my parents decided to buy a minivan. I was in middle school, so I don’t remember much about the decision-making process, but it had something to do with taking more family camping vacations and wanting a new vehicle that was versatile and reliable. Apparently they did their research, because today I am still the happy driver of a 1996 Toyota Previa with 200,000 miles and counting.

Meredith and her husband with their Toyota Previa at White Sands.
Photo by David Morrison

Happy MLK Day

Today is notable for (at least) two reasons:
1) it marks the public Inauguration of President Obama's 2nd term
2) it is Martin Luther King day for America

As someone employed in higher education, and a strong believer in education as the best remedy for our society, I have high hopes that the next four years will see increased attention and passion for education equality.

In that spirit, here's a map derived from a previous article I wrote:

Food for thought: Why are rural colleges/universities more likely to have fewer black students per capita than their state as compared to urban schools?

Good luck, Mr President. I don't envy your job.

1 Year of Blogging

Today I felt rather proud: my blog turned one year old! The first post was mostly a placeholder, something to get the ball rolling. In it I posed the question: how long does the typical blog last? I still think this would be an interesting problem to gather data on... anyone have a good source of data?

So far If We Assume is a roaring success in my eyes. I've managed to publish about 4 posts per month on average, I've had some notable pickups/press, met some fascinating people, and I feel my blog traffic has been quite good!

A year of traffic on ifweassume.com

The blog itself has changed, grown, and shifted focus. I think it's fascinating to look back at my earlier posts, seeing what worked, what didn't. I definitely wonder: what will my blog look like in a year? What will I be writing about? I'd like to do some more astronomy related posts, and I thoroughly enjoy having guest posts on my blog.

Thanks to so many people for all the awesome conversations, ideas, support, and opportunities! I know Year 2 will be even more exciting!!!

Mapping Constellations

Astronomers use coordinate systems in the sky to keep track of where celestial objects are; the most common is the Equatorial system. When I teach this, I try to get students to imagine a world globe extended out to the stars. On this globe the constellations look like political boundaries...

Today this got me thinking: what if we laid the 88 constellation boundaries on top of a world map? This is what you get:

It's a cute idea, a bit confusing. Labels are placed at the "center of mass" for each region. Constellations are larger in the north, which I believe is due to historical European bias in defining these regions.

Then I took it a step further and asked: what if we used the constellation boundaries to draw the political lines for our planet?

If the world's political boundaries were drawn using constellations.

 FULL RESOLUTION MAP HERE