This is the best summary I could come up with:
As early as 763 BCE, ancient Assyrians were charting the process by which the path of the moon temporarily obstructs the sun, and astronomers have continued to do so for thousands of years since.
Unconvinced by thousands of years of scientific inquiry, as well as driven by a general sense of apocalyptic bloodlust, many on the right are trading conspiracy theories about the upcoming eclipse, ranging from the belief that it signals the End Times to the idea that the Biden administration is using it as an opportunity to shut down cellphone service or bring in the National Guard in an effort to make beautiful blond children who play sports transgender.
The post, which has more than 3,000 retweets and 1 million views, illustrates how the trajectory of the most recent solar eclipse viewable in the United States, as well as the trajectory of the upcoming eclipse, form an “Aleph” and “Tav,” which (as anyone who was forced to go to Hebrew school instead of staying home and using cheat codes to make your Sims woo-hoo naked knows) are the first and last letters in the Hebrew language, signaling the beginning and end times.
While this explanation sounds both highly rational and surprisingly efficient by county bureaucracy standards, it is not one that has been accepted by the slew of mini-Alex Joneses on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Ostensibly, the title of the project, which is intended to measure changes in electric and magnetic fields, is a clever (albeit nerdy) reference to ancient Egyptian mythology.
So coming from the perspective of someone who very much understands science and how eclipses work: On Monday, if you’re standing in the right place at the right time and wearing stupid-looking glasses, you may or may not see the sun go black for a moment, as has periodically happened since the recording of human history.
The original article contains 1,030 words, the summary contains 310 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
