Annular eclipse should be visible Saturday

By Ethan Nahté

On a projector screen at the front of the Spencer Lecture Hall and on a television screen off to one side, the presentation entitled Eclipse 101, complete with an image of an eclipse, took up a lot of space along the walls. Yet, what dominated the attention of most attendees was the animated man with a sense of humor and relaxed mien gesturing between screens and a lighted model of the Earth, sun and moon that emulated how various types of eclipses work.

Chemistry and physical science instructor Gaumani Gyanwali, Ph.D., presented information about the upcoming eclipse that will cross North America to a nearly packed lecture hall on the UARM campus Oct. 6. The ages ranged from young children to seniors and included quite a few students from Mena, Acorn, Oden, and Cossatot schools who are part of the UARM Career Center.

Ouachita Mountains Regional Library (OMRL) received NASA approved solar eclipse viewing glasses from STAR Net, and in conjunction with UARM’s Lifelong Learning, OMRL was helping residents prepare for the annular eclipse happening on Saturday, Oct. 14.

Dr. G, as most of the staff and students call Gyanwali, discussed and demonstrated the difference between the various types of lunar and solar eclipses: partial, annular, penumbral and total.

Dr. G felt the turnout for the program was great. “Everyone was enthusiastic about what they wanted to learn and see in the coming days. It was great participation by everyone. I got question from the audience, too. I got to interact with several of the questions. It was a diverse age group. There were small kids, young people and older people.” The annular eclipse begins in Oregon at 9:13 a.m. PDT and ends in Texas at 12:03 p.m. CDT. It will be visible in in western Arkansas between 11:57 a.m. and 1:32 p.m. Also known as a ring of fire eclipse, an annular solar eclipse happens when the moon is at or near its farthest point from Earth. Because the moon is farther away than it is during a total solar eclipse, the moon appears smaller and doesn’t block out the entire sun when it passes in front of our star. Instead, the moon leaves a bright ring of sun visible at the eclipse’s peak, creating the ring of fire effect.

It will not have the same impact as April’s total eclipse but is expected to have approximately 65-70% coverage in Polk County. Since the sun is never completely blocked by the moon during an annular eclipse, it is not safe to look at the sun without specialized eye protection. Therefore, everyone in attendance received solar eclipse viewing glasses courtesy of STAR Net.

“The backside of the human eye has the retina that’s very light sensitive. This is how the retina works: When the light comes in, the pupil will let the light in for a little bit of time. That’s when it gets the image of the outside, when it is bright – it fixes the amount of light that goes in. The pupil will not be aware of the situation that the bright light is coming from somewhere at that instant of time. The pupil takes time to get dilated or contract. The reflex of the pupil is so low that it will not take care of the intense light that is coming instantly to fall into the retina, and it will probably damage that because the pupil will not know when to stop. Like the negative of the camera [film] it’s exactly like that and will be damaged in a very short time by high-intensity light. That’s the main reason we need to be protecting our eyes.”

With the exception of the brief moment of totality during a total eclipse, not an annular eclipse, it is never safe to directly look at the sun without proper eye protection. Regular sunglasses are

See ECLIPSE continued on page 9

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Recently, I saw a headline that said what is going on in many of our bastions of so-called “higher learning.” The headline said that 673 professors at the University of North Carolina signed a letter opposing courses on the founding of America and the U.S. Constitution.

This kind of prejudice and hostility to history is almost universal on the college campuses of America. We have abandoned our roots, and we have established an environment that is opposed to the free sharing and discussing of ideas. America’s universities used to be places in which people could disagree and discuss their disagreements, but now they have become factories of inculcation that repudiate disagreement and discussion. Our universities are ruled by legalism dressed up as scholarship.

inate classrooms of students, humiliating those who disagree, and refusing to brook any questioning of their ideologies.

Students who enter college with vast ignorance and many questions are forced into the strictures of a professor’s philosophy, without any chance of open debate or discussion.

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I have been a college professor for 50 years. I loved disagreement and discussion in my classes. When divisive questions arose, it gave all of us-student and faculty alike-opportunities to learn and to teach. When students asked questions that were against what was being taught, these questioned fostered more insight and clarity.

“Agreeing to disagree agreeably” is part of the growth of the mind.

We were encouraged to chase down all the rabbit trails that happened to come up. We had no “set pattern of absolutes.” There are absolutes, but each person has to arrive at them by their own reasoning, rather than forcing cookie-cutter ideology down students’ throats.

Today Marxist professors can force their ideas on unsuspecting students; they mock and show contempt for any disagreement. Today humanist professors dom-

Here is an example: Professor Phillip E. Johnson, a professor of law at Berkeley University, wrote a book on the logic of evolution (Darwin on Trial and other books). As he studied the writers of evolutionism, he said, “Something about the Darwinists’ rhetorical style made me think they had something to hide.” As a law professor, he knew how liars thought and spoke. The scientific community did not ignore this.· But his professor colleagues never read the book; rather they attacked and condemned him and tried to drive him from the university.

Because his book showed the lie of what many of them believed-and did so in a purely logical way-their faith in evolutionism caused them to revolt strongly against him. But he retained the title “professor” to his death. A festschrift in honor of Johnson was written, entitled Darwin’s Nemesis.

What can we do to change this legalism in our universities? I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is the Intelligent Design (Michael Behe and others) movement gaining momentum. I only wish these professors would rethink their aprioris, re-examine their own think-

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Email: NEWS@MYPULSENEWS.COM ing-and try to determine why they think as they do.

Going back fifty years, universities were clearing houses of information, discussion, debate, and dissention. Today there is no chance of dissention, no chance of any real discussion. Orwell’s “thought-control police” run the universities of America!

Dr. Mark Berrier, Mena