2019-04-01_Astronomy

12 ASTRONOMY • APRIL 2019

D

id you ever have

that lost-at-school

dream? You know,

the one where

you’re in the

crowded hallway with every-

one rushing to their next class

— except you can’t remember

where you’re supposed to go?

Another common dream of

that type finds you on a city

street, where for some unex-

plained reason, you’re stark

naked. You keep hiding behind

cars, darting from doorway to

doorway, trying to get home

without being seen.

My actor friends tell me they

have recurring dreams where

the curtain rises and they have

no idea what they’re supposed

to say. The very worst for me, as

a 2,100-hour pilot, is that I

glance out the window of my

small four-seater, and there’s an

enormous airport beneath me.

Such airports are always con-

trolled, meaning I’m supposed

to be talking to the tower using

a specific frequency. Except I’m

not. I f lew here accidentally; I

don’t even know what airport it

is, with no way to find the right

frequency. So I’m screwed.

They’ll get my tail number

using binoculars, and I’ll lose

my license.

In dreams like these, the

dreamer has forgotten what they

were supposed to be doing or is

doing something notably wrong,

while everyone else is getting it

right. My question: What are

the “school dreams” of profes-

sional astronomers? My guess is

that they’d be revelatory.

I can easily guess the night-

mares of aerospace engineers.

Imagine working for

STRANGEUNIVERSE

BY BOB BERMAN

School dreams

in space

Perkin-Elmer’s Danbury

Optical System unit — the

world’s most prestigious

optical firm — in 1981. Their

telescopes were of legendary

quality, and they were awarded

the contract for the Hubble

Space Telescope. It had to be

the finest 94-inch (2.4 meters)

mirror ever made.

Imagine you’re in charge.

When the mirror is done, you

test it, and it looks perfect.

Except it isn’t. It has a serious

spherical aberration. You used

your most sophisticated testing

device, a ref lective null correc-

tor, but it was, itself, misaligned.

End result: Your telescope

blasted into space with a blurry-

image mirror, and your com-

pany’s reputation spirals so

deeply down the toilet, it’s sold

within a month of the Hubble

launch and pays a $15 million

fine. Definitely a nightmare

come true.

Or say you’re in charge of

some of the Apollo mission

preparations. Your forklift guy

drops an oxygen canister, and

here’s where you mess up. You

check it out, it seems OK with

just a scratch on the tank, so

you label it as “fine.” But a year

later, it blows up halfway to the

Moon, scrubbing the billion-

dollar mission and very nearly

killing the three astronauts.

Of course, those things really

happened. As for actual night-

mares, I’d rather not guess. To

find out for sure, I contacted a

few astrophysicists I know and

sent them this article up to this

point, then asked them to

kindly tell me their most recur-

rent astro-nightmare. To my

surprise, Debbie Elmegreen,

president of the International

Astronomical Union, said nei-

ther she nor her astronomer

husband Bruce Elmegreen has

ever even had an astronomy

dream. So I decided not to be

selective, but to go with the very

first response, which came from

Matt Francis, director of the

Prescott Observatory in Arizona

and formerly an electron

microscopist. I quickly realized

that it was his former profession

that undoubtedly provided his

nightmare’s storyline.

“A few years ago, my arthritic

shoulder pain was acting up and

causing me to lose sleep,” he

wrote. “I was also doing some

pretty intense reading about the

standard model of particle phys-

ics at the time. [My wife] Debbie

suggested I have a peanut butter

cookie she made with butter

containing a special ingredient

common nowadays here in

Colorado, which her sister had

given her to help me sleep. I

took one single bite from the

cookie and went to bed.

“Later that night, I dreamed I

was a free electron. From my

perspective as an electron, I

could sense I was moving at

great speed toward what

appeared to be a large collection

of silver spheres, which in the

dream I knew to be atomic

nuclei that were attracting me,

pulling me in. They were even

making a sound: a faster and

more frenzied version of the

static made by a TV when it’s

tuned to a channel that is not

broadcasting. I could feel myself

being pulled toward those sil-

very spheres with no control.

“When I entered the chaotic,

vibrating collection of atoms,

I was violently yanked one way

and then another for what

seemed like a long time.

The static sound was unpleas-

antly loud. When I jumped

awake in a panic, I immediately

became sick from the motion

and utilized a small trash can

near my bed.”

Hmm, well, thanks for that,

Matt. On second thought, maybe

this dream business wasn’t the

best idea for a science column.

Forget the whole thing.

What is an astronomer’s

biggest nightmare?

BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT http://www.Astronomy.com/Berman.

Hubble’s first images revealed a critical flaw in its mirror that required a shuttle

servicing mission and an entire engineering rig to correct. Prior to repairs in 1993,

the mirror produced blurry images that were a severe disappointment, such as

the shot of M100 on the left. The corrected mirror revealed crisp detail, at right. NASA

The “school dreams” of professional

astronomers might be revelatory.

Join me and Pulse of the Planet’s

Jim Metzner in my new podcast,

Astounding Universe, at

http://astoundinguniverse.com.