Jacob Stewart

PHYS-1040
Van Ausdal
April 16, 2015
Conversation Class Paper
When I started to plan for having a discussion about astronomy, it was already halfway
through the course. By that time I had already had a few discussions that had been unplanned
and found myself looking back to those when trying to formulate ideas of what to talk about. The
more thought I put into it, the more I realized that those conversations actually satisfied the
requirements for this assignment. That being the case, I decided to narrow things down a bit
further and just cover two of those conversations specifically.
The first conversation happened just a couple weeks after the course began. My girlfriend
was taking the same course as me and we were both learning about the lunar cycle. I had taken
different classes in astronomy while growing up as a boy scout, so I grasped the concepts fairly
quickly. My girlfriend, however, was struggling to understand all of the information and getting
frustrated with the whole thing. Seeing her frustration, I jumped in and began explaining the
different phases of the lunar cycle to her by demonstrating how holding a ball at the same level
as your head while spinning to the left with a stationary light shows the moon cycle by watching
the moving shadows on the ball (The Essential Cosmic Perspective, page 40-41). While I was
doing this, her son and his friend (both around age 8) saw me spinning, overheard what I was
explaining, and began asking more questions about it. This lead to about a half hour discussion
about the effects the moon has on the surface of the Earth.
I was unable to prepare much beforehand for this conversation, but I was able to use the
freshly learned information from the course to explain concepts to others I would have been
unable to otherwise. This was a very good opportunity for me to learn also, because Ive always

felt that you dont completely understand something until you can teach someone unfamiliar with
the subject-matter about it, and have them understand it as well. Even without preparation, I
consider it a successful conversation because I was able to solidify my own newly acquired
knowledge and help others learn it as well. This was not however, the only time I was able to
teach concepts to others I had just learned myself.
The other conversation Id like to discuss happened at my work with my two co-workers
and my supervisor. We usually go to lunch together to save time and gas for travel, so
conversation is usually par for the course during our lunch breaks. I had been stressing about
planning a conversation specifically about astronomy for two reasons: one, because I dont talk
to other members of my immediate family for personal reasons; and two, because I have a very
difficult time making friends and only have one friend I felt like I could persuade into talking
about astronomy, and needed three or more to participate. So when my supervisor asked me why
I was stressed when our group sat down for lunch that day, I told him and it ended up striking up
the conversation Id been stressing about planning.
I didnt quite know where to begin, so I brought up the lunar cycle since Id already had
successful experience discussing it. The conversation got underway and I was surprised to find
that they all had some knowledge about it, but none had full understanding of it. I was again able
to share my knowledge and, since I had already been thinking of different topics to talk about, I
was able to direct the conversation towards those topics. Most of the conversation went smoothly
with little incident, however when the topic of age in a cosmic perspective came up, things
became a little tense.
The reason for the tenseness became apparent after a few sentences into the topic:
religion. Most of our group (myself included) does not care much for religion, but do not look
down on those whom practice religion either. However, there is one person in the group who
considers himself a devout member of the Latter-Day-Saint church. So when the age of the earth

began being discussed, he got a little touchy on the subject because his church teaches that the
Earth was created in seven days. We kindly agreed to disagree on that subject to avoid
confrontation, but it led into another related topic: evolution.
Now when most people hear the word evolution, the first thing they think is, Humans
evolved from monkeys. Well, my work group was no exception. Along with the obvious
differences of opinion stemming from religious teachings, yet another of my co-workers did not
agree with the idea of being the same as a monkey. I was able to explain the theory of evolution
in a nut-shell, and explain that if humans evolved from monkeys, then according to the nut-shell
theory, there would be no monkeys alive today. The fact that there are still monkeys means that,
although humans may have evolved from a species similar to monkeys that they did not evolve
from monkeys. This idea soothed everyones qualms on the subject and the conversation ended
because we all had to get back to work. Since then, weve all had several conversations
discussing various topics ranging from black holes to Darwinism.
When I was preparing for this assignment, I thought that it would end up being a
torturous and grueling event. However, the conversations Ive discussed here, along with
numerous other conversations, have taught me that most of the negative notions associated with
astronomy are really just misunderstood concepts. Learning fallacies in my own thinking has
dramatically reduced my reluctance to learn more, and helped me better prepare for teaching
moments that arise.
Works Cited
Bennett, Jeffrey O., M. Donahue, Nicholas Schneider, and Mark Voit. "Chapter 2: Discovering
the Universe For Yourself." The Essenatial Cosmic Perspective. 40-41. Print.