Brian Lehrer: Joining us now is Joshua Winter. He's a physics teacher at the school called BASIS Independent Brooklyn. He's got 20 years of experience teaching astronomy topics. He was scheduled to join us now to give us a preview of the eclipse that is going to take place on Monday. We'll talk about both things a little bit to the extent that his expertise can cover both things. Joshua Winter, welcome to WNYC. Hello.
Joshua Winter: Hello, Brian. Thank you for having me. It's been a crazy day.
Brian Lehrer: Everybody's been saying all week there's going to be an unusual natural occurrence that's going to make everybody feel weird and disoriented. We just thought it was going to be an eclipse on Monday, not an earthquake on Friday.
Joshua Winter: Exactly.
Brian Lehrer: Where were you at 10:23? Were you in class?
Joshua Winter: I was in school. I did not have a class at the moment, but I was in my office adjacent to a classroom and we definitely felt the shaking. The students were a bit, obviously, disoriented. It was quite an experience. We evacuated the building just out of precaution, but now we're back in and doing the best we can to keep going with a regular school day. Everybody's a little excited for sure. It's been quite the Friday.
Brian Lehrer: There's a trick trying to get-- I presume this is a high school, right?
Joshua Winter: Correct. Yes.
Brian Lehrer: Trying to get high school students to get back on task after an earthquake and an evacuation of the building. Good luck.
Joshua Winter: Exactly. We're doing our best, though.
Brian Lehrer: Obviously you were here to talk about an eclipse, but are there any earthquake physics that, off the top of your head, you would share with us?
Joshua Winter: One thing I would like to say about the earthquake in relation to the eclipse is that the two events are in no way related. I've been seeing a lot of conspiracy theories about how there's an increased risk of earthquakes during eclipses. There's absolutely no scientific evidence for that. About a thousand of these 5.0 earthquakes happen every year around the world. That averages to three or four a day. Obviously, it don't happen in New York very often.
As humans, we like to find patterns and connections even where they don't exist. People are obviously going to try to connect the event with the eclipse which is a dramatic event and this earthquake which is also a dramatic event and try to find connections to them, but they're completely unrelated. Both are very interesting but completely unrelated.
Brian Lehrer: The eclipse didn't cause the earthquake. We had somebody before who asked, "Could the earthquake affect what happens Monday during the eclipse?" I assume that- well you really already answered the question, but also since really the eclipse is something that happens all the way up there, unless it affected the trajectory of the moon, then there would be no effect of the earthquake on the eclipse, right?
Joshua Winter: Yes, correct. The eclipse will happen as scheduled.
Brian Lehrer: Yes. Anything else, as a physics teacher, in terms of just stuff going on on the ground when you hear the governor and the mayor saying all seems good but we're inspecting the infrastructure, but all the MTA trains and everything are running? I don't know. Any other physics of earthquake that you would share off the top of your head?
Joshua Winter: Just that it sounds like we're fine. I am by no means an earthquake expert. My expertise is in physics and astronomy. This is a geoscience field, so I'm tangentially aware of earthquakes and how they affect the earth, but my expertise is not that deep. I know that as the governor said, there is a slight risk of aftershocks, but with an earthquake at this magnitude, my opinion is that's not something we really need to worry about.
Brian Lehrer: We just have two minutes left in our segment, and I apologize because you got cheated. Give us a little bit of a preview of the eclipse. From a physics teacher professor perspective, what are you telling your kids?
Joshua Winter: First, I'll say that it's probably too late to make travel plans, but if you're close to the path of totality, which we're lucky here in New York that the path of totality is going fairly close, Buffalo and Rochester are right in the middle of the path to totality, if you can get there to observe this firsthand, do it because it's an indescribable experience to see the moon cover the sun in that way.
If you're stuck in New York, it's still going to be a pretty good show. We had an eclipse in 2017. From New York City in the 2017 eclipse, about 60% of the sun was covered. This time, it's going to be nearly 90% of the sun being covered. It's going to get distinctly dimmer. It's not going to be anywhere close to totality.
If you're able to observe the sun safely, you'll see a pretty good chunk of the sun covered by the moon from the city. Even if you're still here in the city, it should be a very spectacular event. I know I'm almost out of time so one thing I will say is please make sure that if you're observing it from New York, that you observe it safely. Make sure that you have NASA-certified eclipse glasses because even though only 10% of the sun is going to be uncovered by the moon, that is still plenty to cause eye damage if you look at the sun unprotected.
Brian Lehrer: Yes. I'm glad you repeated that reminder. They are giving out the appropriate sunglasses, I guess you'd call them, at public libraries in New York City. Also, public libraries in a bunch of other places, so that's one place to get them pretty easily. Joshua Winter, physics instructor at BASIS Independent Brooklyn, thank you for jumping on with us for a few minutes. I'm sorry you got eclipsed by the events of the day.
Joshua Winter: [chuckles] I totally understand. Thank you for having me.
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