Geologists Angry About New 'Pluton' Definition

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday August 21, 2006 @02:34PM from the what's-in-a-name dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to a story over at Nature, some geologists are ticked off at the International Astronomical Union for using the word 'pluton' to describe a round object orbiting the sun with a period more than 200 years. A pluton, it seems, is a common type of rock formation that exists in most Geology 101 curricula. IAU head Owen Gingerich is quoted as saying that he was only peripherally aware of the definition, and because it didn't show up on MS Word's spell check, he didn't think it was that important."

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Re:Wow, that's an interesting take... by zero_offset · 2006-08-21 22:49 · Score: 0, Redundant

Only in everyone's favourite 'most important' country, would Joule be classified as not having significant meaning in poular culture. Travel to the outside world, where people use decimal measurement systems, and you'll see kilojoules in the nutritional information of everything in your supermarket.

You're on an American-homed, American-run website trafficked largely by American users.

Get over it.

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