The distribution is progressively decreasing

[Glizdka]

Have I made any mistakes?

"Although the Sun is a medium size star it does not mean it's an average size star. The distribution of stars in the stellar size classification is progressively decreasing, meaning that the smallest stars are far more common than the biggest. The Sun is somewhere in the middle of that classification, but its stellar type, G, is still pretty rare amongst all stars."

 

[Tarheel]

Perhaps:

Although the sun is a medium sized star, that does not mean it's an average sized star.

What do you mean by progressively decreasing?

 

[Tarheel]

Also:

The sun is somewhere in the middle of that classification (size), but its stellar type, G, is rare.

 

[Glizdka]

Perhaps:

Although the sun is an medium sized star, that does not mean it's an average sized star.

What do you mean by progressively decreasing?

Are you sure I should've used "an"?

"Progressively decreasing" was my attempt to name the characteristic of a function that grows ever more slowly with each step ahead (compare to square root of x).

Also:

The sun is somewhere in the middle of that classification (size), but its stellar type, G, is rare.

I really want to avoid brackets, how about "The sun is somewhere in the middle of that classification in regards to its size..."

 

[Tarheel]

Are you sure I should've used "an"?

What I am sure of is that I goofed.

 

[Tarheel]

"Progressively decreasing" was my attempt to name the characteristic of a function that grows ever more slowly with each step ahead (compare to square root of x).

Reading that makes me feel light-headed.
;-)

 

[Tarheel]

I really want to avoid brackets, how about "The sun is somewhere in the middle of that classification in regards to its size..."

You used more words than I did. But whatever floats your boat.

 

[Glizdka]

Reading that makes me feel light-headed.
;-)

I really wanted it to be easily understood, maybe you could help me find the words to describe this:

The stars of small size are very populous, but when seeking for bigger size stars you notice the pattern that every occurence of a bigger star is far less common. Astronomers have classified stars into groups: O, B, A, F, G, K, M in order of decreasing size (a popular mnemonic is "oh be a fine girl, kiss me"). There are many orders of magnitute more M stars than O stars, this could be written as a function roughly representing the shape of the square root of x function, i.e. the higher value for size you observe, the less items you find. The Sun, as a G type star, is in the middle of that categorization, it does not mean it's an average size star because there are way more lower size stars than there are bigger size stars.

 

[Tarheel]

I really wanted it to be easily understood. Maybe you could help me find the words to describe this:

The smaller stars are far more numerous than the bigger ones, and the superbig stars are rare indeed.. Astronomers have classified stars into groups: O, B, A, F, G, K, M in order of decreasing size (a popular mnemonic is "oh be a fine girl, kiss me"). There are many orders of magnitude more M stars than O stars. This could be written as a function roughly representing the shape of the square root of x function, i.e. the higher value for size you observe, the fewer items you find. The sun as a G type star, is in the middle of that categorization. That does not mean it's an average sized star because there are way more smaller stars than there are bigger stars.

 

[Glizdka]

Ok, thanks a lot, you got me interested:

(1) Why should I use "that" instead of "it" in the last line? Is it because "that" is more preferable in an explainatory context as the continuation of the prior statement? Because if so, I'm pretty sure I've seen "it" in that context quite a lot (not that "I've seen native speakers do that" is an argument when talking about exercising proper grammar).
(2) I know the Sun can be written either as a proper noun or with the definite article, but it is always to be capitalized, regardless. I'm curious why I should not have capitalized it.

The rest is self-explainatory, thank you

 

[Tarheel]

I'll concede that one. It's the Sun.

 

[tedmc]

Looking at the distribution of stars according to size, as we move from the smaller to larger stars, the number decreases exponentially (the sizes of the stars belong predominantly to the "small" category).

 

[GoesStation]

"Sun" should be capitalized when it means "the star at the center of our solar system". That's how your text used it, so it should be capitalized there.

Sometimes we talk about other suns — other stars.

 

[Tarheel]

From The New Universe by National Geographic, pages 26 & 27.

By almost any measure, the sun is the solar system.

--- ××÷×××--- -----×××----- ---×××---

The center of mass for the whole solar system--the barycenter, around which the sun and the planets all revolve--lies within the sun's own atmosphere.

-------×××÷÷----- -----×××××----- -----××××÷-----

As the planets and smaller bodies circle the sun, their ever-changing gravitational web tugs the sun back and forth, making it wobble around the central point.

-------×××××××--------- --------×××××××××-------------×××××÷----

The sun is an immense ball of plasma: intensely hot, electrically charged gases, mostly hydrogen and helium.

---------××××××××----------- --------×××××××------------ --×--

Yet our sun is a fairly typical star, middling in size, though bigger than many in the Milky Way, and big enough to burn steadily for ten billion years.

-----×××××----- -----×××××----- -----×××××----- -----×××××-----

Nuclear fusion powers the sun.

---------×××××××××-------- -----×××××----- ---×××---

The sun dominates the solar system not only through its gravitational influence, which extends to the Oort cloud of comets as far away as 200,000 AU (astronomical units--the mean distance between the Earth and the sun), but also through its solar wind of charged particles, which reaches beyond 100 AU, well past Pluto.

 

[Glizdka]

Hmm, I found this on the official website of NASA, "the sun" is not capitalized except for when it appears in the title.
I found this article on Wikipedia with a few citations that are contradictory to one another...

...now I'm confused... English, why you do this?

 

[GoesStation]

...now I'm confused... English, why you do this?

It's getting back at Polish for using up all those consonants.

 

[Tarheel]

Anybody can edit stuff on Wikipedia.

 

[Glizdka]

It's getting back at Polish for using up all those consonants.

Are you referring to words like "Szczebrzeszyn"?

The language wasn't taught for over a hundred years when the country was partitioned, this lead to a serious inconsistency in orthography. After regaining independance, Poland employed more than a few spelling reforms to ensure there's only one spelling for each sound, and only one sound represented by each spelling. You can see it like English "gh", "ch", "sh", you don't pronounce it as separate letters, it's just a spelling convention. My closest way of representing the example word, "Szczebrzeszyn", to resemble English orthography would be "Shchebzheshin".
The fact we tend to stack up all those inconvenient sibilants is just the "beauty" of this language, kinda like Parseltongue.

On a side note, we do have some bizzare capitalization rules, too. Proper nouns are always capitalized, but not adjectives. So "England" and "english".

 

[GoesStation]

Are you referring to words like "szczebrzeszyn"?

I am indeed! One of my proudest accomplishments is that I've mastered the epic poem Chrząszcz, which is set in that village. I think I can safely say not many Americans can make that claim.

Shouldn't Szczebrzeszyn be capitalized?

 

[Tarheel]

Hmm, I found this on the official website of NASA, "the sun" is not capitalized except for when it appears in the title.
I found this article on Wikipedia with a few citations that are contradictory to one another...

...now I'm confused... English, why you do this?

It's NASA. They'll get upset with you if you don't spell it right.
;-)