Hi all,
Its me, Arjun, once again. Just wanted to inform you guys that I was interviwed by Straits Times about 2 days ago.
It was a phone interview and lasted for about 40 minutes. It was partially regarding my views regarding the demotion of Pluto from Planet to a Dwarf Planet and partially about the the reasons for the general increase in the interest in Astronomy among the local public.
He asked me several other stuff but all are in someway related to the above 2 questions.
What I replied was, in brief, that I am not so concerned with the demotion of Pluto as its just a change in the nomenclature and physically Pluto is still existent. =) I did mention though that several of my friends are "upset" regarding the name change as they (we) have been learning about our Nine Planets & The Sun since we were born. And now all of a sudden, there are only Eight Planets left. I do support the change in classification as otherwise, instead of Nine planets, we would have to increase to a ridiculous 50 planets in the near future! This is because they are continuously discovering Pluto like objects with the constan improvement in the technology.
As for the general interest in Astronomy being on a rising trend, I believe its due to the fact that news is more easily available (internet and word of mouth) and also these events are being publicised more and more by the respective organisations. As we all have witnessed it ourselves, more often then not you get an sms stating about some new event coming up like the proximity of Mars or the transit of Venus across our Sun.
So there you go! News delivered to you before it is published =D
The journalist has interviewed several other people including NUS Astronomical Society's President Leong Jin. The aritcle will be published tomorrow (3rd, Sunday) most probably. So look out for the article!
On an entirely different note, the main committee interviews very a big success. We were skeptical about the turn out after we got a word from other sources that the students are turning out in single digit numbers for the interviews. But in the end we had more then 35 people vying for portfolios from the main committee =)
Thanks one and all for making this a success =)
Best Regards,
Arjun
