And I liked Pluto as well....

[frannyo 2]

Bye bye

 

(Well, I suppose it's still there).

 

Post your pics of Pluto.

 

 

Can't remember when I took that one.

[soubriquet 0]

It does restore a nice symmetry, with four inner and four outer planets, all named after Roman deities.

[damian 0]

Pluto was named after a dog.

 

Loser.

 

[nzlegend 1]

I liked one headline in particular: "pluto stripped of its title". It sounded like an Olympic srpinter or pro Boxer who had been busted on drugs violation etc.

I doubt Pluto really gives a flying you know what in regards to what a bunch of nerds on planet Earth think about its "status"

What to do about all the school text books? they are all incorrect now, terrible thing really in light of some of the trivial earthly things that have been plaguing us lately....

 

I guess Mercury must be stoked to reclaim its title as the samllest planet.

[grungy-gonads 54]

I really don't care. I have never been.

 

Lots of books will need to be reprinted.

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by snowglider:
I doubt Pluto really gives a flying ....

Well you hit on something there, interesting. Absolutely nothing in the real world has changed an iota. Not a thing. We have just changed our label, our artificial perception. The only thing that has changed is that we are told something different by them.

[tsondaboy 0]

I just heard the most intelligent answer from a 10 year old kid in the news:

I was never interested in the planets and since its not going to change anything in my life I don’t care.

[fukdane 2]

Pluto Nash, great movie

 

[bushpig 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by tsondaboy:
I just heard the most intelligent answer from a 10 year old kid in the news:
I was never interested in the planets and since its not going to change anything in my life I don’t care.

The last part of his answer there is sadly revealing about why our planet is so ****ed up in so many ways. It doesn't affect me so I don't give a rats arse! That kind of attitude is such a hard one to unlearn.

But back to Pluto. Poor little bastard. First it has to hang around next to Ur anus, and now it gets treated like a drug-cheat and stripped of it's title!

[tsondaboy 0]

I would like to relocate the problem to, people failing to distinguish which of their actions affect their lives or other people’s lives, rather than being indifferent for something that obviously isn’t ones field. I don’t know many 10 year olds with a degree in astrophysics that could address the problem of, should Pluto be classified as a planet or not. If you ask a kid this kind of question, you don’t question its intelligence but your own. From that point of view I found the kids answer intelligent.

[bushpig 0]

Yeah, agreed Tsondaboy. My point wasn't really about that though, just more about the general ingrained attitudes that we grow up with that if something doesn't affect me then I don't care. Obviously that Pluto is no longer a planet is quite irrelevant to everyone. And quite aside from the idea of him not having any knowledge of the field of astrophysics, I was thinking more along the lines of the attitude often found in many countries that if it doesn't benefit me economically and the consequences of my choice may affect someone somewhere else in the world but not me directly, then I don't really care. Smart kid definitely, and that was really just a side thought. Sorry to derail the thread.

[soubriquet 0]

I saw an interview with the widow of Pluto's discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh. When asked how she thought he would have responded, she said something along the lines of:

 

"he would have been disappointed, but he knew that science is bigger than it's practioners, and you have to be ready to move along".

 

[Roger's head 0]

Saw that too. Cool lady.

 

(That Pluto Nash really was a terrible terrible movie - well the first 30 minutes I saw anyway).

[Yuki's Passion 1]

ummmm, can somebody clue me in? Pluto is nolonger a planet? What is it? a moon? asteroid?

comet?

[soubriquet 0]

It is now classified as a dwarf planet.

 

From Wikipedia.

 

A dwarf planet is a category of celestial bodies in the solar system defined in a resolution passed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on August 24, 2006. The definition currently applies only to the Sun's solar system.[1] It applies only to the English language, and terminology may differ in other languages. In the usage approved by the IAU, the category "dwarf planet" is distinct from that of "planet" and also from another new category, "Small Solar System Body".

 

The resolution describes a dwarf planet as an object that:

 

* Is in orbit around the Sun

* Has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape

* Has not "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit

* Is not a satellite of a planet, or other nonstellar body

 

It differs from the definition of the planet in that the dwarf planet has not cleared its orbital neighbourhood. This definition reclassified Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet because it has not cleared the neighbourhood of its orbit (the Kuiper Belt).

[Yuki's Passion 1]

how bored are these people nowadays at the I.A.U.?

[soubriquet 0]

Well, we scientists can be a bit anal about terminology, but there's usually a good reason. In this case, there has been another dwarf planet (Xena, informally), discovered in the Kuiper belt. It is larger than Pluto, which many astronomers already considered too small to be a proper planet. Hence the change of the classification system.

 

That's the nature of science. The classifications we use are attempts to organise our understanding in simple and useful ways. With developments in understanding and new discoveries, we sometimes need to modify or abandon old schemes.

 

Geology used to use a terribly complex classification system of valleys (geosynclines) and mountains to order to organise our understanding of what made stuff go up and down. Then came plate tectonics, and a century or more of theory was binned overnight. Everyone, except Wegener was barking up the wrong tree. In retrospect, everyone was barking.