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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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dvandorn
post Jun 13 2008, 08:16 AM
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I don't know, Stu -- there was a delightful Python-esque quality to Stephen's logic. Or should I say, Bruce's logic?

You don't mind if I call you Bruce, do you, Bruce? Eliminates confusion, mate!

(That and referring the everything as "thingy" -- definitely a lurking Monty Python dementia being acted out, here... laugh.gif )

-the other Doug


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Stu
post Jun 13 2008, 08:28 AM
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QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 13 2008, 09:16 AM) *
there was a delightful Python-esque quality to Stephen's logic.


Oh yeah, there was, it was a v funny post too smile.gif Not debating that. It's just that the view of this argument is rather different from the 'frontline', you know? To most people here it's a curiosity, a talking point inbetween new images from probes. For me it's a bit more personal because it is something I know in advance will need explaining and justifying at some point in the evening every single time I fire up my laptop and projector to do a talk. And when you're faced with a roomful of people who are genuinely baffled by the decision, and who now think astronomers are all squabbling, loony scientists, like the the one in Back to The Future or Larson cartoons, well, you see it differently. wink.gif


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Stephen
post Jun 13 2008, 11:02 AM
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QUOTE (Stu @ Jun 13 2008, 06:28 PM) *
To most people here it's a curiosity, a talking point inbetween new images from probes. For me it's a bit more personal because it is something I know in advance will need explaining and justifying at some point in the evening every single time I fire up my laptop and projector to do a talk. And when you're faced with a roomful of people who are genuinely baffled by the decision, and who now think astronomers are all squabbling, loony scientists, like the the one in Back to The Future or Larson cartoons, well, you see it differently. wink.gif

For what my opinion is worth those out on the "frontline" would (for the present) do better to ignore the IAU's pronouncements on the planet/dwarf planet/plutoid matter until such time as there is a wider consensus on the issue.

That means--again just MHO--that the manuscripts you and others pen and the lectures you give--especially in the case of those of the popular science sort--should continue to label Pluto as a planet. If that entails applying the forbidden word to Eris et al as well, then so be it! Only when a wider consensus has emerged should you consider changing your terminology. Quite apart from other considerations, to do otherwise is to leave yourself open to the very problem you have highlighted: having to change your manuscripts and lectures with every change in the IAU wind.

If the IAU keeps feeling the heat that wind may change again at some point in the not-too-distant future; and maybe more than once. If you don't want to keep flop-flopping back and forth as well I suggest you stick with the labels everyone is familiar with and which nobody (outside the astronomical community) seems to have had any problem with.

Hopefully once a wider consensus does emerge the problem will go away, but I can't see that happening via small committees of the IAU. Such a consensus would more likely require a plenary session with several thousand members of the IAU in attendance and voting.

Even then, however, I would balk at the idea of any body, especially a self-selected one, and no matter how august, issuing announcements about the definitions of general (as opposed to specialist) English language words like "planet", "star", and "moon". Shades of the French Academy! Those words are not just used by small numbers of specialists in specialist journals but by hundreds of millions of more ordinary people every day--people who themselves had no say whatsoever in the IAU pronouncements.

(The IAU may well think its pronouncements are for specialists only, but that is not the way it is going to be viewed, let alone portrayed. It will be looked upon as an official announcement by a body presuming to claim a right to set an official definition. That is, one that will appear in dictionaries and other books, be taught to school children, and eventually become the new de facto day-to-day version for English-speakers in general.)

I note that the geographers and geologists have their own definition of "mountain" (which when I went to school was a peak over 3000 feet, although I notice that the film "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain" lowered the bar to 1000 feet) but they generally keep that to themselves and don't seek to impose their definition on the wider population by making public announcements about it.

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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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