Our members

I am getting so much enjoyment and understanding out of our forums

I agree, Brian... I think the forums have made an excellent start. Considering we've been up and running for less than a month, there have been some great discussion threads already. This was always intended to be a "soft" go live, just to test the concept and build a decent platform. I hope that, come September and the start of the new season, more members (and non-members) will get involved in discussions. We will certainly be pushing the forums at every opportunity.

In the meantime, for the "hardcore" contributors to the forum, keep posting! You're doing a great job!!

other sites...bordering on the edge of metaphysics

Ha! I had to laugh at this. Yes, you're right, of course. Something we have avoided like the plague so far, and rightly so. But, gosh, it's so tempting now you've raised it 😉 Is space real, or is it an illusion?... Why does anything exist?... What is time?.... oh, this is great fun, I could go on for weeks 🙂 All utterly pointless discussions, of course, and it would achieve nothing... but that's metaphysics, right? 😉

"Knock, knock."

"No one's there."

🙂 🙂 🙂

Right, if we're going down that route, you can't beat this. The philosopher's football match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E_8EjoxY7Q

Classic quote: Socrates scores, got a beautiful cross from Archimedes. The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside.

Sorry, had to be done!

Emmanual Kant was a real p**s ant, no more monty python references please or I will call in the Spanish Inquisition.

No nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition…

*slowly side-steps out of the forum*

Now look, I'll admit to extreme provocation, as I raised Monty Python in the first place, but there is no excuse for the whole "Spanish Inquisition" thing... none whatsoever... and it goes completely against all of the forum rules wot I've just made up.

Clearly deserving of a...

I think you deserve this as well Mike.

Have you all forgotten the Monty Python Galaxy song? (Frightfully rude in the middle, though...)

You mean this?

I know, I know, red card… Out.

Yes Brian Cox re wrote it with Eric Idle.

Oops! That didn't seem to work… Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQPlFLtWDwM

Once again our members are participating in a very interesting debate. The level of contributions are an example of how good and involved in astronomy our members are.

On the exoplanets thread I think it would have helped if we could have raided the Open University toy box for some papier maché spherical models so we could demonstrate to each other more easily the points we were all trying to make. I came damn near to cancelling my holiday so I could go to the Flamsteed pub evening on Monday to pick Mike's brains about this live and in person.