Polarity Ensues

Posted on | January 24, 2008 | Comments Off

In my narrow world view, few sins are as egregious and unforgivable as those made with some basic science facts: Flinstones bedamned, dinosaurs did not live with people…Star Wars bedamned, there is no sound in space…Matlock bedamned, the Planck length is the smallest span of distance at which non-quantum descriptions of spacetime are meaningful, about the radius of a black hole within the Schwarzschild radius.

The worst, above all, is the notion that polar bears and penguins live in the same environments. Coke ads, Far Side* cartoons, and countless holiday displays bedamned, penguins live in southern climes and polar bears live in the Arctic. Outside zoos, there are no exceptions to this essential rule distinction, which forbids the very notion of transequatorial friendships within a natural setting.

I spent the holiday season teaching my toddler daughter that, while they’re both cute and they both can live on ice, penguins are from the South and polar bears will rend you limb from limb, even if you give them scarves and jaunty pom-pom-endowed woolen caps. Oh, and they live up North.

That’s why I’m glad to see this exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences: Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins. One hopes they take the opportunity to discuss the inherent geographical differences between penguin and polar bear habitats.

The exhibit runs from February 9 to April 27, by which time we’d all certainly be sick of seeing cold weather.

*Gary Larson gets a permanent pass for having made this error. The man invented the Thagomizer, after all.

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