Re: Tonight's Final Jeopardy clue

On 06/06/2025 01:58, Tony Nance wrote:

On 6/3/25 3:57 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:

On 03/06/2025 00:40, Tony Nance wrote:

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Category: Science Fiction
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Clue: Referring to what's wrongly believed to be a meteorite, "The Falling Star" is the title of Chapter 2 of this 1898 novel.
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The answer is below in rot13[1], though I believe the vast majority of you already know it.
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One contestant was correct (and jumped from 2nd to 1st).
One contestant was incorrect (and fell from 1st to 2nd).
The third contestant finished the second round in the red, and so was not eligible for Final Jeopardy.
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>
Tony
[1] Jne bs gur jbeyqf ol ut jryyf

>
"Falling star" is not an appropriate term in modern
understanding.  At the same time, where you will find
a meteorite is lying on the ground.  (The meteorite
is lying on the ground.  Whether you are is up to you.)
>
If that's a star, then your idea of a star
disagrees with modern understanding.

 Um...did you expect a book published in 1898 to align with modern understanding?
 Not sure what you're aiming at here.
Tony

I think H. G. Wells knew, or should have known,
that planets, meteors, and this, are not stars.
"The falling star" is the subject of the chapter,
and there is an astronomer in the chapter, so
I expect clarity.  At the same time, the book is
cast, at least in reprints, as memoirs published
After the Martians invaded, for a popular (and
terrestrial) readership, not a scientific treatise.
I'd say that allows casual use of the word "star",
but not of "meteorite".  Which was the issue
mentioned in "Jeopardy".
Wells had already published in 1897 apparently,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_%28Wells_short_story%29>
<https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27365>
"The Star", in which - spoilers - a small body
enters the Solar System in around 1900, absorbs
Neptune, becomes as luminous as a star,
and surprises astronomers by heading for Earth
(they hadn't counted the gravity of Jupiter)
and then missing (they hadn't counted the
gravity of the Moon), then plopping into the Sun.
Indeed, the effect on Earth is minimal,
Martian scientists said.
This is written as an omniscient narrator, for
the attention of beings interested in the
populations and societies of the Solar System
but perhaps not resident there and aware of
current developments.  And despite the coda,
it mostly describes events as seen from Earth.
And implicitly from Neptune, but I suppose no
one there saw it coming or had much to say when
it did.
I'm dissatisfied that in the story, the fused body
is described without qualification as a star,
as it cannot have enough mass to be what Wikipedia
calls "a luminous spheroid of plasma held together
by self-gravity".  And yet a star it evidently is,
and Wells was not able to consult Wikipedia.
And Wikipedia contradicts itself on whether
a White dwarf is made of plasma or is actually
a star.  And a neutron star is not plasma.
It seems to be accepted that a black hole is not
a star.
I accept that <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion>
wasn't known as the source of a star's energy
until 1920, and so I provisionally accept
that the object which approaches Earth in "The Star"
actually is a star by the science of 1897.
It does have a further attribution as planet -
"The new planet and Neptune, locked in a fiery
embrace, were whirling headlong, ever faster and
faster towards the sun" - but by now this is
one physical body - and therefore is not
two planets.  It's a star.
The Earth-acculturated omniscient narrator
also refers to Venus as "the evening star"
without blushing, if it has any physiological
characteristics with which to do so.