I Say "Planet," You Say "Pluton"
Pluto's whole sense of self-identity is apparently going through the wringer again. For billions of years, it's orbited happily around the sun, defying puny little earthlings to properly categorize it. Today on BoingBoing, I saw an article that says it may still get to be considered a planet (along with at least two other undefinable objects, increasing the number to 12--or even up to 53....), but that it is part of a new category called "Plutons." Apparently, the International Astronomic Union will be proposing a modified description of "planet."
This is all well and good. Sure, go ahead and make grade-school kiddies memorize potentially up to 50 planets in our solar system; it's good for them. But what I find most amusing about the whole situation is the scientist quoted in the BB excerpt:
"Astrophysicist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., is... critical of the proposed definition.
'It doesn't have the elegance I was hoping for," Boss said. "It looks like it was written by a committee of lawyers rather than scientists.'"
Ummmmm, because scientists are known for the elegance of their writing?
Comments
Scientists strive for the elegance of model. And yes, E = mc(squared) is simple, elegant, and utterly powerful in its description as an example. A planet is a this or a that or a something else is messy I think is the quote's point.
Posted by: Da Husband | August 25, 2006 01:43 PM