Cute! Sagan is amazing -- I'm reading "The Demon Haunted World" -- pretty relevant to these times... --- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
Re-reading Sagan's "Broca's Brain", I laughed out loud when reading this passage, concerned with the story behind naming Martian surface features:
"Another suggestion, made by a European savant, was to name each volcano "Mons" (mountain) followed by the name of a principal Roman deity in the appropriate Latin genitive case: thus, Mons Martes, Mons Jovis and Mons Veneris. I objected that at least the last of these had been pre-empted by quite a different field of human activity. The reply was: "Oh, I hadn't heard."
I guess some astronomers really don't get out enough. ;)
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