A half century ago I was taught that Pluto was a real planet. A real honest to gosh heavenly body of orbital persuasion. Lies all lies! The truth is finally out. Pluto doesn't even have enough mass to be round. Even our Earth's lowly moon can pass that test. So out it goes, Cast into the Dustbin of History.
All joking aside, the International Astronomical Union's, secret committee intent on elevating many more planettes to planet status must have been dredged up from scientist wannabes. What were they thinking! (We might need a new definition of thinking.) It's revealing that more than 95% of the astronomers didn't take part in the voting for a definition of a planet. A definition, it should be noted, that is limited to planets in our solar system.
lw - What are you, my editor now?
ReplyDeleteI grew up with nine planets and now we have eight! But what caught my attention most in your post was that 95% of the scientists didn't even bother to vote! That is strange.
ReplyDeletemridula - I agree that it is strange. There were several things that could have contributed to the low voting.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the committee that was assigned the task to come up with a definition probably knew they were not going to please everybody. In my opinion, they chose nostalgia over science by keeping Pluto a planet. Sure enough, the discussion at the reading of the proposed definition grew contentious. Some astronomers may have abstained from voting to avoid taking sides.
Second, the committee's use of terms like "pluton" in the definition was sure to get a negative response from geologists even though they weren't at the conference. (see: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pluton )Some astronomers may have abstained from voting because of embarrasments over the process and/or the result.
Third, if I remember correctly, the final vote was delayed until the end of the conference when many astronomers had already left.