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Letter: Letters : Dodgy discipline

Published 7 September 1996

From John D. Barrow, University of Sussex

Regarding your question “what is the difference between astronomy and
astrophysics?” (Feedback, 17 August, p 76), an American
astronomer/astrophysicist who was asked the same question replied: “I don’t know
what the difference is, but I do know that if I tell US Immigration at the
airport that I’m an astrophysicist they search my luggage, but if I tell them
I’m an astronomer they send me straight on through.”

Issue no. 2046 published 7 September 1996

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