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Judi Lynn

(160,217 posts)
Thu Oct 2, 2014, 08:32 PM Oct 2014

People Want Pluto as a Planet Again

People Want Pluto as a Planet Again
Thursday, October 2, 2014 at 11:18AM by AuthorJeanette Torres

(NEW YORK) -- Remember when Pluto was a planet, then relegated to a "dwarf planet" in 2006?

Last month, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics hosted a debate in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where three astronomers wrestled with the question, "What is a planet?" After the debaters discussed science and history, the audience then voted that Pluto was, indeed, a planet.

The vote has galvanized a movement to return Pluto to planet status, according to the center, and led to its top ranking as a search term.

But even if the public is behind "Team Planet Pluto," it would take the International Astronomical Union to make the call, as it did in 2006.

http://abcnewsradioonline.com/world-news/people-want-pluto-as-a-planet-again.html#ixzz3F2NeXAZR

(Short article, no more at link.)

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

Prophet 451

(9,796 posts)
2. Irrelevent until the IAU weighs in
Thu Oct 2, 2014, 08:36 PM
Oct 2014

The problem is, if you define Pluto as a planet, you also have to accept quite a few TNOs that have been found in the last few years. Depending on how you count it, your solar system has 8 planets or upwards of twenty or even a couple of hundred.

Kalidurga

(14,177 posts)
3. it's all just a bunch of big rocks and some gasy masses
Thu Oct 2, 2014, 08:52 PM
Oct 2014

I don't care if they add it back as a planet or not. But, the argument for removing it in the first place was rather weak IMO.

FiveGoodMen

(20,018 posts)
4. Fucking stupid!
Thu Oct 2, 2014, 08:53 PM
Oct 2014

The cold, distant rock doesn't care what we call it.

It hasn't lost any government subsidies.

It doesn't need defending.

People who get this upset about some nomenclature from their childhood are ... an example of why this nation's in trouble.

Warren DeMontague

(80,708 posts)
6. Well, not to be mean about it, but tough shit for them.
Thu Oct 2, 2014, 09:00 PM
Oct 2014

Typical, people are mad because reality is more complicated than what they learned in school 40 years ago.

If Pluto's a planet, then so is Eris. Ask these people about Eris, or Haumea, or Makemake, or Sedna, and I'll bet most of them will go "Wha?? Hah? Harrrrmpp?? Derrp? Herrrrpprrrrr??" because they didn't learn about those bodies in school 40 years ago- so they don't "count".

It's fucking Inane. The whole point of science is that we adjust our understanding of reality as we acquire a deeper one. Not that we expect reality to remain in conjunction with our outdated beliefs.

Lionel Mandrake

(4,073 posts)
13. Why stop with Pluto?
Sun Oct 5, 2014, 05:16 PM
Oct 2014

The word "planet" comes from a Greek word meaning 'wanderer". For historical accuracy, anything that wanders among the "fixed stars" other than a comet should be called a planet. Before Copernicus, the "planets" consisted of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon (in that order). To that list we must add Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, etc. Perhaps stars that have observable proper motion should be added.

Oops, the list is getting very long, and it still doesn't include the Earth.

Hmm, maybe I should rethink this whole argument.

WillParkinson

(16,862 posts)
14. It helps with the memorization game...
Wed Oct 8, 2014, 05:31 AM
Oct 2014

My
Very
Excellent
Mother
Just
Served
Us
Nine
Pizzas

---

Otherwise it's more like:
My
Very
Excellent
Mother
Just
Served
Us
Nothing

 

BlueJazz

(25,348 posts)
15. I think it should be brought back to the status of a planet because of it's finder..
Thu Oct 9, 2014, 09:46 PM
Oct 2014

...Clyde William Tombaugh (1930)

Orsino

(37,428 posts)
16. If only people could get a tenth as excited about climate science.
Sun Oct 19, 2014, 10:50 AM
Oct 2014

Dogma still trumps science. Pity.

hunter

(38,264 posts)
17. Human languages such as English are a tool for telling stories and do not always reflect reality.
Mon Oct 20, 2014, 12:15 PM
Oct 2014

Too many people want language to be their reality.

Telling stories is so much easier for us than collecting the data and doing the math.

Storytelling languages often get confusing because words are often created and applied to natural phenomena and objects before they are understood.

An example would be the assertion that electrons have a "negative" charge. It doesn't matter much to the math, but the storytelling language implies that the common "ground" of one's automobile is a sink for electrons, not a source. Yet the "negative" ground is actually the electron "source" using hydraulic analogies of electric current, and these storytelling hydraulic analogies themselves have their own limitations. Comparing the electrons in a copper wire to water in a pipe introduces some very serious misconceptions about the nature of electromagnetism.

As a kid I built a relay computer, all "Direct Current," conceptually easy, right? DAMN that machine gave me some nasty shocks, as bad as anything I'd gotten playing with AC powered vacuum tube equipment.

How?, I wondered. With the relay machine disconnected I could touch both terminals of the DC power supply and feel nothing. But at finer levels of understanding one recognizes that all circuits are Alternating Current. In the case of an older flashlight, two "D" cells, a switch, and an incandescent bulb, the AC effects are negligible. As soon as a circuit gets more complicated, they are not.

The first transatlantic telephone cable was a horribly expensive failure because the "scientific" stories it's designers and financiers believed did not reflect reality.

In higher education undoing these misconceptions caused by rote memorization of "facts" expressed in the languages of storytelling is often more difficult than teaching a more accurate representation of reality in the languages of math and science.

If I was teaching astronomy to younger kids, I'd start with the visible planets, hopefully in a clear dark nighttime sky setting with a few planets visible. And then I'd build up from that observational foundation. A kid sitting in a classroom who has simply memorized the names of the "nine planets in our solar system" doesn't really know anything. It's just words.


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