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A: aberration thru aurora

New words are still being added so please don't tell me I've missed stuff out! I'm a student, I do have work to do beyond this!
The first definition of each term is the accepted, or most acceptable, explanation. This is followed by the interpretation according to the relatively new and exciting Goblin Theory that purports to explain the entire universe neatly and simply.

aberration, chromatic

(a) A defect in a telescope lens or mirror causes light of different wavelengths to focus at different points, resulting in coloured fringes around the edges of the image. This effect can be reduced by using an achromatic lens.
(b) Little goblins are playing with the light around the edges of the lens to make pretty rainbow patterns with a symbolism only they know.

aberration, spherical

(a) Spherical (but not parabolic) mirrors or lenses cause light hitting the surface at different distances from the optic axis to come to focus at different points, causing a distorted image.
(b) Many of the younger goblins see the sphere with its perfect symmetry as a mistake as it does nothing to hasten the entropy towards which they are striving. They seek to ruin this ugly beauty by appointing a small but dedicated work force to pull the light rays out of focus from each other, creating in the centre of the sphere a grey fuzzy area in which to reclaim their goblin sensibilities.

ablation

(a) Erosion of a surface due to vaporisation or friction.
(b) Erosion of a surface due to little goblins eating away at it.

absolute zero

(a) Theoretically the lowest possible temperature, at which all molecular motion ceases.
(b) All goblin motion, of course, is another matter entirely. The expression "minus 28 kelvin" only has no meaning in a goblin's world as they use a different temperature scale entirely; much simpler than ours, consisting of "Too hot" through to "Too cold".

absorption nebula

(a) Such as the "Coalsack Nebula" in the Milky Way, a cloud of cold dust and gas that may be the birthplace for new stars that obscures the light coming from objects behind it.
(b) Oh come on, you can guess this one - a great big goblin "Twin Peaks" convention is being held and we simply can't see through the assembled masses.

absorption spectrum

(a) A continuous spectrum in which black lines appear, corresponding to characteristic frequencies absorbed by atoms to increase their energies. An absorption spectrum can then act as an "atomic fingerprint", telling us what elements are present in, for example, a star's atmosphere.
(b) This is precisely the reason why they were invented. I mean how else is a goblin to know when a little atom isn't behaving as well as its mother would like?

accretion disc

(a) A disc of material flowing from a companion star onto a giant star, or a spinning black hole. In this case the matter may be heated to extremely high temperatures and X-rays produced, such as is thought to be the case with Cygnus X-1.
(b) Have you ever seen those machines at the fair that make candy floss? You hold a stick inside a swirling drum full of sugary strands and it all winds up in a big pink lump. That's what's happening here - goblins consider hot plasma a rare treat on their holidays.

achromatic lens

A composite lens, of two (or three) different kinds of glass, designed to reduce chromatic aberration.

active galactic nucleus, AGN

(a) See quasars, Seyfert galaxies and radio galaxies. Basically immensely powerful but unbelievably small regions in the nuclei of far-off galaxies, often attributed to black holes.
(b) Or goblins. But you'll have to see the individual entries when they're up.

Albert

(a) An asteroid. Yes really. No. 719, 2.6 km in diameter, made close approach to earth in 1911.
(b) Goblins have pets too. And asteroids are great - no messes on the carpet and no hair on the furniture. Even better, they don't need feeding.

Andromeda galaxy

(a) Similar to our own Milky Way, but twice the mass of our galaxy. This is one of the Local Group of galaxies and the most distant object visible to the naked eye.
(b) The Milky Way's big brother.

anthropic principle, the

(a) We exist because the conditions in our universe allow us to. This can be extended to the more controversial "strong anthropic principle", which suggests that all the wildly improbable coincidences that have allowed life to emerge mean that the universe must at some point contain observers.
(b) We exist because the goblins in our universe allow us to.

antimatter

(a) The opposite of matter. If you were to meet your antiself - not on the whole very likely as there isn't a great deal of antimatter in the universe compared with matter - you wouldn't shake hands unless you wanted to put on a really impressive fireworks display.
(b) However if a goblin were to meet its antiself, they would be just as likely to pop off down the nearest pub for a chat about old times. Whenever a goblin is created, so is an antigoblin, to keep the balance and avoid detection. This is also necessary from the point of view of manipulation. Goblins deal with the ordinary matter while antigoblins deal with the antimatter. Most goblins see this as a "cop-out" due to the substantial imbalance in workload, hence the antigoblins have attained the status of "arts students" amongst the goblin community.

aphelion

(a) The place where a body such as the Earth is furthest from the Sun.
(b) The place where the elastic band joining the Earth to the Sun is stretched really thinly, and the goblins push it back to stop the elastic from snapping.
Goblin deffynyshyn contributed by GK.

apogee

The place where an orbiting satellite is furthest from the Earth.

astrophysics

(a) Using physics to study and explain astronomical phenomena.
(b) Keeeeeewl!

ataxite

(a) A type of iron meteorite containing large amounts of nickel.
(b) Discarded goblin marbles.

aurora

(a) The Northern (or Southern) Lights, a display of brightly coloured lights seen by observers near the Earth's poles due to the excitation of molecules in the Earth's atmosphere by the energetic particles in the solar wind.
(b) Goblin fireworks. Earth is particularly famed as a provider of beautiful displays due to the abundance of nitrogen and oxygen in its atmosphere, which produce the red and green colours.

This page © Sparkli (that's me), 2001