Official "Faits erronés dans de belles-lettres" thread

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by only_human

I read Anna Karenina while working a miserable stint of programming in Pennsylvania. There was a used bookstore next door and I was going though as much of their stock as possible. I told the owner that Anna Karenina was pulp fiction. He agreed, however I meant that the intertwining stories put me in mind of the stylized story handling in the movie Pulp Fiction. His agreement was to the older, more dismissive term often applied to cheap fiction.

We can debate whether AK is pulpy or not, but Leo T. should have studied his astronomy better - how do you say "gah!" in Russian?

It began to get dark. Venus, bright and silvery, shone with her soft light low down in the west behind the birch trees, and high up in the east twinkled the red lights of Arcturus. Over his head Levin made out the stars of the Great Bear and lost them again. The snipe had ceased flying; but Levin resolved to stay a little longer, till Venus, which he saw below a branch of birch, should be above it, and the stars of the Great Bear should be perfectly plain. Venus had risen above the branch, and the ear of the Great Bear with its shaft was now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky, yet still he waited.

Venus rising in the West? Suuuuuuuuuuure it is...

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Venus rising in the West? Suuuuuuuuuuure it is...

And during the part of the day when it begins to get dark, AKA "evening", to boot.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

We can debate whether AK is pulpy or not, but Leo T. should have studied his astronomy better - how do you say "gah!" in Russian?

Venus rising in the West? Suuuuuuuuuuure it is...

Presumably the narrative takes place on Earth?

Technically speaking, I believe that stuff rises in the west on Uranus because of its slightly retrograde rotation. Venus' rotation is severely retrograde but Venus wouldn't rise (at least not as an astronomical object) from there.

[LaurV]

Now that's odd.. Where does Venus rise? I always thought that it raises in the west... As it is in the same direction with the Sun, more or less in between the Sun and Earth all the time, you see it "rising" when you see the Sun setting... And that is on the west...

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Now that's odd.. Where does Venus rise? I always thought that it raises in the west... As it is in the same direction with the Sun, more or less in between the Sun and Earth all the time, you see it "rising" when you see the Sun setting... And that is on the west...

"Rising" means what it says. It passes from below the horizon to above it. Since it is always in the approximate direction of the Sun, it rises and sets at about the same time as the Sun, and in the same direction.

"Rising" does not just mean "becomes visible", which it may do in the morning or in the evening, depending upon whether it is ahead of or behind the Sun. In any case, in the passage quoted, Venus supposedly "rises" from below a branch to above it. Apparent movement, not visibility is clearly implied.

[davieddy]

There is no difference between Venus and any other astronomical object when it comes to "rising in the east and setting in the west".
The phenomenom is down to the earth's rotation.

David

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by davieddy

There is no difference between Venus and any other astronomical object when it comes to "rising in the east and setting in the west".
The phenomenom is down to the earth's rotation.

I do believe that the recent asteroid rose toward the southwest and set in the northeast.
http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2013/...fridays-flyby/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2012da14-news174.jpg

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

"Rising" does not just mean "becomes visible", which it may do in the morning or in the evening, depending upon whether it is ahead of or behind the Sun. In any case, in the passage quoted, Venus supposedly "rises" from below a branch to above it. Apparent movement, not visibility is clearly implied.

And if one did want to describe "becoming visible as daylight fades", one would use e.g. "brightening in the West".

[LaurV]

Trouble with mathematicians is that they don't understand poetry... When they meet, they talk like that, "Wow, where did you get a nice bike like that?", "Well, yesterday evening when I was walking in campus, a girl riding this bike stopped in front of me, she took off all her clothes and said, ‘You can have anything you want from me’.", "Hm... you did a smart choice! Her clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you.”

[davieddy]

Good joke.
I posted a link about Omar Khayyam.

Mathematician, astronomer and poet, who waxed lyrical about wine, women and life, and most to the point of this thread, the sun rising in the east and driving the stars to flight.

Typically, some philistine has moved it to the useless posts thread.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m

Yours despairingly,
David

[ewmayer]

Notice how when you actually indicate why the link you post is relevant to the thread, the post doesn't get junked? Notice how annotation-free "apropos of nothing?" Utube links and ones shown to to be relevant to the discussion also get disparate treatment?

If you still don't get it, let me spell it out: You long ago used up your "random links posted sans annotation or indication of relevance" privileges. If you saved your keystrokes for actual on-topic content rather than loud whining and PM-spamming the mods to whine some more, people might actually start getting the impression that you have something worthwhile to say.