An Introduction

Hi there!  I'm Joanna and I am a junior physics major in Ay 20 at Caltech.  I like most of physics and I like many parts of astrophysics, so I'm really interested in where the two collide: cosmology!  But enough about me for now...

Tycho Brahe was an astronomer from the late 1500s who had an Danish island on which he conducted all sorts of experiments and built an observatory.  The island was named Uraniborg, after Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy.  I am borrowing that name for this blog.  Ideally, such a name will keep me inspired to write about the sky.  And I'm pretty sure Tycho followed the do-it-yourself method of astronomy on the island of Uraniborg and he discovered quite a bit, so I'm sure it will work for us in Ay 20 as well!

I am interested in seeing how this blog goes, because I am also interested how science and writing go together.  I often get the feeling that students at Caltech look down upon the English majors.  But I think that if scientists had more respect for writing in general, and popular science writing in particular, we would be much more welcomed by the public.  I guess some scientists enjoy obfuscation and the idea that nobody else can understand their work, but, I'll just say it, I think these are characteristics of a bad scientist.  When somebody without a scientific background asks us a science question, we shouldn't just brush it off with a "oh, it's too complicated to explain."  Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and try an explanation.  That's where popular science writing comes in handy.  We can reach a greater audience that way.  People fear the unknown, and this includes science that they can't understand.  If we write about science, and write accessibly, we can help minimize that fear.  I know this blog probably won't be read outside of Ay 20, but hopefully it will help prepare me to write about science clearly in the future so I can do my part to help clear science's name in the eyes of society.