The Blewbook of Bloopers™

© 2023 Norman Sperling. All rights reserved.

Buy the PoD Paperback 978-0913399-70-5; hardback 978-0913399-71-2; Ebook 978-0913399-72-9; audiobook 978-0913399-73-6. To be alerted when The Blewbook of Bloopers versions become available, contact normsperling@gmail.com.

Wonderful for the library of any college that teaches astronomy, and all astronomy clubs and planetaria.

Roughly 1/3 of these appeared in my 2002 book What Your Astronomy Textbook Won’t Tell You; the rest were recorded since then.

The Croatian of the Universe appeared in my astronomy class recently. Not a superhero astronaut from Dubrovnik. Just horrible handwriting by a student who meant “Creation”.

I give essay quizzes, and exams in blue books, because they tell me what students learned, instead of what I thought I taught. Students always find ways to garble. A howling-blooper may bend my mind so much I need a break. I get back at those students by compiling their blunders … anonymously. If a former student of mine tells you they wrote one of these bloopers, believe them. If they tell you they did not write any of these bloopers, believe them.

This is a collection for dipping into when you want a quick lift, not to read cover-to-cover in a single sitting. A few delightfully-confused words may make you guffaw. Then try to picture what Nature would be like if it worked that way.

Teachers can read selections to their class before a test, and ask “what’s wrong with this one?”

Have fun!

Aristotle said that the Earth was the center of the University.

Stars, little twinkling thing that rised up and down constantly.

Newton’s law is only mathematically right for objects that have a velocity smaller than the light of speed.

Telescopes are used to see fainted astronomical objects.

Reflecting telescopes consist of a lens that helps absorb all the radiation from the light waves.

There are two lens in a refractor. Light enters the tube and is gathered by the first len, and the second len magnifies the focus produced by the first len.

During a total solar eclipse, it appears from Earthlings’ perspective that the moon and sun are covering one another.

Io … is the only object in our solar system that does not have catering.

It was in the grounds of Cambridge University that a student and a professor discovered pulsars.

The Big Bang theory has been proved to be true from detecting cosmetic background radiation.

Fandom and Crowd-Sourcery

Fan illustrations are welcome! Funny pictures showing the funny situation, or illustrating the absurdity of an exaggeration, or whatever strikes the artist as a humorous portrayal of an entry. People whose submissions are accepted receive by-line credit, and their choice of 3 free paperbacks using their pictures, or 10 free Ebooks using their pictures.