What's So Great About Ushas?

Roy C. Lackey · 10 Jun 2008, 05:04 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:04:50 -0500
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas?
Message-ID: <000a01c8cab7$8642a680$d6cf4a0c at rclackey.stic.net>

Gwern Branwen quoted and wrote:
>> Against this are Typhon's comments about his astronomers being wrong in
>> their predictions about the rate of change in the sun's output. Contrary
to
>> their predictions, it had declined by a small but detectable amount in
just
>> a "few years", followed by crop failures, famine and riots. So Typhon had
>> *some* reason to be keeping an eye on the sun even before effects of the
>> change became apparent. The change seems to have happened on his watch.
>...
>> -Roy
>
>I'm not sure this is useful to know. Of course he has reason to keep an eye
on the Sun, but that tells us nothing. After all, *we* [modern-day humanity
in general] would definitely notice a decline in luminosity in a few years -
we keep a very close eye on the Sun for all sorts of reasons, none of which
are because we rule an evil empire or anything.<<<

Maybe I didn't convey the sense of it clearly enough. In context, it is
apparent that something unusual had happened to the sun *before* the
astronomers made there predictions as to what the effects of the change
would be, a change that they didn't think would be noticed in a human
lifetime. Here is the quote.

"It was a period of great confusion as well. My astronomers had told me that
this sun's activity would decay slowly. Far too slowly, in fact, for the
change to be noticeable in a human lifetime. They were wrong. The heat of
the world declined by nearly two parts in a thousand over a few years, then
stabilized. Crops failed, and there were famines and riots. I should have
left then." (SWORD, XXV)

-Roy

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