Telling the Science Story |

The happy appointment of William Robins to the Victoria University (UofT) presidency had me thinking about the value of storytelling in different kinds of settings. For Robins, storytelling and humanities are the subject of his medieval studies research, and how he sees his mandate as a champion of the cultural value of both.

But consider the value of storytelling in the sciences, or at least with the vast and otherwise hard-to-fathom complexity of the Rosetta comet lander mission.

This is a mission that took decades to plan. More than ten years have passed since it was launched. Its objectives, most notably the spectacular comet landing that happened last November, have never been attempted before. The mission will involve hundreds of scientists (maybe even you!) before it is finished.

How does one put this across to the non-astrophysicists among us? The European Space Agency (ESA) responsible for the mission has thought of that, and has done an admirable job of keeping us posted by first naming the characters in the ongoing saga:

Rosetta: the comet orbiter named for the stone that provided the linguistic key to the ancient Egyptian civilization.
Philae: the little comet lander considered "little brother" to Rosetta, Philae was named for a similar archeological/linguistic key to knowledge.
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: the duck-shaped comet that is the primary object of the Rosetta mission, named for the people who discovered him
Rosina: one of a group of lesser characters very much attached to Rosetta. Rosina is an acronym for Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis.

Then their stories are told in different ways . . .

…including fanciful stories that convey the excitement, scope, and grand promise felt by the scientists who’re undertaking this mission.

Such stories are entertaining in themselves, but also pique interest, open the door to more.

Next week North York Central Library Science and Technology department is offering a talk by University of Toronto research fellow Sebastian Daemgen. We hope you can come.

“Rosetta: Deciphering the Language of Comets."

He will be talking about “highlights from one of the most exotic places ever visited."

North York Central Library 5120 Yonge St.

Wednesday, April 22

7:00 to 8:00 pm

in the Auditorium

(second floor, just above the library atrium).