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Plutoids: a new class of objects beyond Neptune, Astronomy, politics or damage control
Classification of Pluto
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dmuller
post Jun 12 2008, 09:44 AM
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Article on the BBC website: 'Non-planet' Pluto gets new class
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7449735.stm
QUOTE
Now an IAU committee, meeting in Oslo, has suggested that small, nearly spherical objects orbiting beyond Neptune should carry the "plutoid" tag.

It also goes on to say that not everybody is too excited about it:
QUOTE
"It's just some people in a smoke-filled room who dreamed it up," he told the Associated Press. "Plutoids or haemorrhoids, whatever they call it. This is irrelevant."



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nprev
post Jun 13 2008, 04:54 AM
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Oh, God....here we go again. sad.gif ...time to get out the Advil.

Let me just restate what seems to me at least to be the correct perspective. Natural objects exist along a continuum. Conversely, people tend to categorize things, and get upset when a given object doesn't seem to fit neatly into one category or another.

The ONLY top-level objects in the Universe that are apparently discrete, distinct, and identical to each other are hadrons & leptons; everything else is kinda fuzzy, somewhere in-between. (I do not expand that definition to include atoms because of isotopes; the exception that proves the rule is the chemical behavior of deuterium & tritium, which differs from that of basic hydrogen in many fundamental ways.)

Therefore, the term 'planet', undoubtedly like most of our terminology for probably all nouns, is subjective. Fomenting long, bitter debates over what does and what does not "deserve" this term doesn't serve any practical purpose at all, and frankly might become a seriocomic, rather embarrassing spectacle in the eyes of the general public...who well might be wondering why all these PhDs making the mythical big bucks are wasting time on the issue.

Pluto is a/an [insert opinion here]. Fine. Just insert an opinion, and then leave it alone.


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Stephen
post Jun 13 2008, 07:12 AM
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QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 13 2008, 02:54 PM) *
Oh, God....here we go again. sad.gif ...time to get out the Advil.

What's an "Advil"? Perhaps you mean soapbox. :-)

QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 13 2008, 02:54 PM) *
Let me just restate what seems to me at least to be the correct perspective. Natural objects exist along a continuum. Conversely, people tend to categorize things, and get upset when a given object doesn't seem to fit neatly into one category or another.

If it's all these categories which are the problem, then allow me to solve the whole messy business with a simple, straightforward solution: let's bring back the continuum by abolishing ALL the categories, along with all those fiddly, controversial terms attached to them which seem to have set the boffins at one another's throats. :-)

No more "stars". No more "planets". No more "moons" or "galaxies" or "plutoids". Instead one universal category will apply equally to everything in the sky. Naturally, having a single universal category would mean only a single all-embracing term would be needed to apply to it. Having a single universal term that applied equally to everything in the sky, irrespective of size, origin, or surface colouration, would mean that the days of unhappiness and division, of quibbling and discrimination, of having the plutoid-lovers battling with the planet-lovers over whether some miserable speck that took a telescope to see was a planet, dwarf planet, or plutoid, would all be at a thing of the past. Instead peace, order, and universal harmony will reign forever more throughout the world of astronomical boffin-dom.

So what word should we use, do I hear you ask? What will be the wondrous universal term that will set everything to rights and solve all of the IAU's self-inflicted astronomical categorisation problems?

I propose the word "thingy". It's universally beloved, roles easily off the tongue, is simple to spell, and will end all that silly confusion about whether someone is talking about THE Moon or A moon. (Instead people will be able to talk about "the Moon" and "those little thingies that go round those bigger thingies", which will, of course, be ever so much less confusing.)

Think of it! In future you will able to talk about the thingy Pluto and the Sun thingy, astronauts will be able to study the thingy Earth, while if a boffin writes in some obscure journal about the "great whirly thingy in Andromeda" everyone will know at once he's not talking about Pluto.

And best of all it's extensible! If some day the particle physicists go for each others' throat because their union wants to limit the number of subatomic particles bearing that highly prestigious title of "hadron"--no problem! They can abolish all those confusing terms like quark, lepton, and the like and call them all "thingies" too.

Problem solved!

With all these many excellent points in favour, the IAU needs to set the ball rolling by adopting this wonderful idea at its earliest possible convenience. rolleyes.gif

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Stephen
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Posts in this topic
- dmuller   Plutoids: a new class of objects beyond Neptune   Jun 12 2008, 09:44 AM
- - akuo   While classified as a plutoid, Pluto is still a dw...   Jun 12 2008, 09:51 AM
|- - David   Plutoid, wow. That must have taken a lot of thoug...   Jun 12 2008, 12:36 PM
- - hendric   Jovoids? *ba-dump dump ching*   Jun 12 2008, 01:49 PM
- - ngunn   Ganymoids?   Jun 12 2008, 02:11 PM
- - hendric   Galleoids? Does that make ring particles saturnoi...   Jun 12 2008, 02:18 PM
|- - Greg Hullender   QUOTE (hendric @ Jun 12 2008, 07:18 AM) G...   Jun 13 2008, 03:29 AM
|- - mchan   The ones there are classed as hemorrhoids.   Jun 13 2008, 04:22 AM
- - climber   If they rotate in 24h40 minutes, they'll be So...   Jun 12 2008, 03:14 PM
- - Decepticon   LOL   Jun 12 2008, 07:13 PM
- - laurele   They actually are considering calling Ceres a ...   Jun 12 2008, 09:55 PM
- - volcanopele   I propose Ioids, terrestrial bodies with silicate ...   Jun 12 2008, 10:44 PM
- - hendric   Duh, we're missing the most obvious one: Eart...   Jun 13 2008, 02:22 AM
- - Stephen   A space.com article on the issues gives a few quot...   Jun 13 2008, 04:26 AM
- - nprev   Oh, God....here we go again. ...time to get out ...   Jun 13 2008, 04:54 AM
|- - Stu   QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 13 2008, 05:54 AM) The...   Jun 13 2008, 06:36 AM
||- - pumpkinpie   QUOTE (Stu @ Jun 13 2008, 01:36 AM) And t...   Jun 13 2008, 06:23 PM
|- - Stephen   QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 13 2008, 02:54 PM) Oh,...   Jun 13 2008, 07:12 AM
|- - tedstryk   Would asteroids in the Hermian region (near the or...   Jun 13 2008, 12:55 PM
|- - ElkGroveDan   QUOTE (tedstryk @ Jun 13 2008, 04:55 AM) ...   Jun 13 2008, 05:48 PM
- - Stu   No "soapbox" Stephen, just concern, frus...   Jun 13 2008, 07:54 AM
- - dvandorn   I don't know, Stu -- there was a delightful Py...   Jun 13 2008, 08:16 AM
|- - Stu   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 13 2008, 09:16 AM) ...   Jun 13 2008, 08:28 AM
|- - Stephen   QUOTE (Stu @ Jun 13 2008, 06:28 PM) To mo...   Jun 13 2008, 11:02 AM
- - dvandorn   Oh, and Advil is an American brand name for ibupro...   Jun 13 2008, 08:18 AM
- - nprev   Stu, I see your point. Did not mean to be dismissi...   Jun 13 2008, 11:20 AM
|- - jamescanvin   QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 13 2008, 12:20 PM) des...   Jun 13 2008, 12:34 PM
|- - TheChemist   QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 13 2008, 02:20 PM) I d...   Jun 13 2008, 01:04 PM
- - tasp   Instead of "Plutoid", how about using th...   Jun 13 2008, 03:29 PM
- - alan   Forum Guidelines QUOTE 1.9 Other banned subjects ...   Jun 13 2008, 04:26 PM
|- - centsworth_II   QUOTE (alan @ Jun 13 2008, 12:26 PM) ...i...   Jun 13 2008, 04:31 PM
|- - Stu   QUOTE (alan @ Jun 13 2008, 05:26 PM) Lets...   Jun 13 2008, 10:10 PM
- - hendric   Stu, Here's an idea on how to explain it. F...   Jun 13 2008, 05:39 PM
- - laurele   "Is this a joke?" It depends on what th...   Jun 13 2008, 06:03 PM
- - ElkGroveDan   As Alan noted above, we need to get away from this...   Jun 13 2008, 07:06 PM
- - SpaceListener   I like tto Stephen proposal with the word thingy.B...   Jun 13 2008, 07:30 PM
- - Greg Hullender   Say, did I tell you guys I'm taking Linguistic...   Jun 13 2008, 10:59 PM
- - imipak   Everything's an object. And they expose publi...   Jun 13 2008, 11:25 PM
- - David   I have long since ceased to care whether Pluto is ...   Jun 14 2008, 05:10 AM
- - nprev   Hell with it; Tasp is right. We marklars have spen...   Jun 14 2008, 06:08 AM
- - Stu   Just to put things in perspective... Found a refe...   Jun 14 2008, 06:17 AM
- - dvandorn   Stuart! You *cannot* seriously tell me you...   Jun 14 2008, 06:25 AM
- - nprev   ...Stu, that's from a now-defunct US cartoon s...   Jun 14 2008, 06:28 AM
|- - Stu   QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 14 2008, 07:28 AM) Thi...   Jun 14 2008, 06:35 AM
- - Stu   Ah... "Animaniacs"... yes, heard of thos...   Jun 14 2008, 06:30 AM
- - J.J.   Can't add much other than to say that I totall...   Jun 14 2008, 01:45 PM
- - Betelgeuze   I like the term 'dwarf planet', what I don...   Jun 15 2008, 12:13 PM
- - Greg Hullender   Nearly all English words are a bit fuzzy -- even s...   Jun 15 2008, 02:02 PM
- - tanjent   I don't understand why this topic provokes so ...   Jun 16 2008, 05:18 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (tanjent @ Jun 16 2008, 10:18 AM) I...   Jun 18 2008, 06:53 PM
|- - Stephen   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 19 2008, 04:53 AM) ...   Jun 19 2008, 08:23 AM
|- - Greg Hullender   QUOTE (Stephen @ Jun 19 2008, 01:23 AM) ....   Jun 19 2008, 02:44 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Jun 19 2008, 07:4...   Jun 19 2008, 05:28 PM
|- - Greg Hullender   Sigh. People are getting too serious again; it...   Jun 19 2008, 10:32 PM
|- - David   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Jun 19 2008, 10:3...   Jun 20 2008, 01:35 AM
- - Greg Hullender   Note that there was a small fuss when they renamed...   Jun 17 2008, 03:50 AM
|- - dvandorn   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Jun 16 2008, 10:5...   Jun 17 2008, 04:24 AM
- - Stu   Not another comment on the basic debate, I'm d...   Jun 17 2008, 07:33 AM
- - alan   I noticed this in the IAU's press release QUOT...   Jun 19 2008, 05:13 AM
- - peter59   In my opinion, IAU should only officially sanction...   Jun 19 2008, 08:13 AM
- - laurele   "Since this is another "argument from li...   Jun 19 2008, 05:02 PM
- - dvandorn   Honestly, if you're hung up on making differen...   Jun 19 2008, 06:35 PM
- - tedstryk   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 19 2008, 06:35 PM) ...   Jun 20 2008, 01:40 AM


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