Slashdot Mirror
New Mexico Might Declare Pluto a Planet
pease1 writes "Wired and others are reporting that for New Mexico, the fight for Pluto is not over. Seven months after the International Astronomical Union downgraded the distant heavenly body to a 'dwarf planet,' a state representative in New Mexico aims to give the snubbed world back some of its respect. State lawmakers will vote Tuesday on a bill that proposes that 'as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet.' The lawmaker who introduced the measure represents the county in which Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto's discoverer, was born. For many of us old timers, and those who had the honor of meeting Clyde, this just causes a belly laugh and is pure fun. Not to mention a bit of poking a stick in the eye."
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
Well fine, I'm gonna start my own Pluto-recognizing state, with blackjack, and hookers!
In fact, forget the state, and the blackjack.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
Doesn't making laws which define what a word means violate the first amendment or something?
what to say more?
Doesn't this idiot have anything better to do - like work on laws that benefit humans on earth? Or are apart of his realm of responsibility? Leave all the planet business to the IAU.
They're just arguing on a slippery slope fallacy. First Pluto is stripped of its title, and before we know it, there will only be one Mexico again.
Don't submit to the international fascist conspiracy! Pluto IS a planet!
Idiocy.
And I suppose that state representative is getting a salary for employing her time in such a productive way.
Well, at least it keeps her out of the streets, I guess.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
It be declared a planet.
Given the relative scarcity of larger bodies of water there, I did not realize that New Mexico had any pirates at all, let alone some in the legislature. Good work!
Also, pi = 4. Or maybe 3.2. The government has spoken, let it be written!
I don't like the fact that scientists say the world is round so I'm going to petition my local government to enact legislation to make the world flat. Does that sound right?
Is it really that big of a deal that they want to pass this to honor the person that found Pluto? A link to the Memorial Text. This probably won't cost the state much money so let it be.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
I mean, really. Who would know more about astronomy? Astronomists? Or Representative Joni Marie Gutierrez, Landscape Architect? Let's just let her and her colleagues sort out stem cell research and evolution and global warming and blah blah.. I don't want to have to think about it. :P
...have been solved and they have time for important declarations such as this.
1) Argue with scientists
2) Pass a law declaring victory
3) ???
4) PROFIT!!!
Legally speaking, at one time tomatoes were not considered fruits.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Next they should outlaw disease. Just imagine the healthcare savings.
Sometime ago I wrote http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=45872 and I will write it here again.
Planet: A small, diminutive, little, miniature, minuscule, minute, petite, tiny, wee, dwarf object compared with the Sun.
Illinois to vote on a bill to define pi as 22/7.
Oklahoma's legislature to say that eclipses really are dragons eating the moon.
North Carolina is considering a bill to re-instate earth, water, air, and fire as elements.
in the entire state of New Mexico?
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
Politics. Pandering to the idiot vote. For Astrology believers, the 'downgrading' of Pluto was a slap in the face, provoking those feelings of religious outrage which politicians love to exploit. Millions and millions of voters in New Mexico have some sort of belief in Astrology, ranging from slight interest to passionate conviction. Many of those votes have just been guaranteed to those legislators responsible for this bill.
Being enlightened slashdotters, most of us have little appreciation for how stupid people really are. I am here to say that yes, they are that stupid.
Can't anyone see? This whole debate was created by Pluto itself as media hype to keep Pluto in the news!
Twinstiq, game news
The saddest thing about all this, to me, is that the legislators probably did this because their constituents demanded it. There are way too many people out there who think that Pluto being declared not a planet is the biggest astronomy story in recent memory. Hints as to the source of gamma ray bursts? Flowing water on Mars? The Hubble's main camera having trouble? Landing a probe on the surface of Titan? More beautiful photography of Saturn than you can shake a stick at? None of those seem to get a grip on the popular consciousness. But Pluto, subject to more anthropomorphizing than any planet should be, somehow gets to be the cute underdog, fighting for its rights against nasty scientists. Blech.
Yea, funny and even cute, until you figure that as they look at new science books for state public schools, the state will be more concerned with the books promoting the official state version of the planetary population than they will be with overall quality or cost to the taxpayers.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Connecticut has declared Pluto to be a social networking site.
which, by the way has more bearing on reality than the semantics of the word "planet".
this is *still* a non-story.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
This is what I see upon looking at the article:
"I'm right and everyone else is wrong! I'm going to believe it MY way, and that's that."
I mean cripes... I wonder how many of them still believe the world is flat? Just because you say that it's true doesn't mean that it is.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
It would be fun to stand on the border between New Mexico and Texas and hop back and forth over the borderline, thinking "now it's a planet, now it's not. Planet again...."
Table-ized A.I.
Teacher: When is Pluto a planet today?
Student: Today from Albuquerque Pluto is overhead between 2:28am and 1:00pm. It's night before 7:23am and after 7:10pm. Answer: 2:28am-7:23am and 7:10pm-midnight.
in related "matter of semantics" stories..., Mexico might declare "New Mexico" a trademark violation.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Clyde Tombaugh.
He found Pluto at a time when detecting planets was done with glass plate negatives and telescopes that were manually driven. He knew he was looking for a planet but where to find it was a matter of subjective debate. But he was the consummate scientist; as his wife noted after the demotion of Pluto, he would have been disappointed but he would have understood.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I, for one, like this resolution. The IAU decision last year consisted of one of the most ridiculous definitions I have ever seen and it is nice to see a legitimate resolution being offered to attack it. There was a resolution last year in the California statehouse, but that read more like a joke, than something more serious like this one. I've emailed my state assemblyman this story so maybe Arizona will do the same thing. After all, this PLANET was discovered using an Arizona telescope. For those who think this is a waste of money, how much money do you think this will cost? This is a symbolic resolution, no appropriations are associated with it. The text looks like it took 10 minutes to write. As commented earlier, this will take about a minute to vote on. So certainly compared to other government wasteful spending, this ranks pretty far down there.
The Gish Bar Times - Blog covering Jupiter's moon Io
Isn't astrology a lot older than the discovery of Pluto? In fact, it old enough that the sky no longer matches the astrological symbols.
Also, pi = 4. Or maybe 3.2. The government has spoken, let it be written!
3.14159... etc rounds down to 3.1416, or 3.142, or 2.14, or 3.1, or 3.... Remeber, five or more, round up... Less then five round down....
And this is goverment we are talking about here... "Pi = 3 and a bit"...
We can use this new declarative techology to "win" the Iraq war. Cheney's used something similar with his "last throws" speech.
Table-ized A.I.
Sad? I'd love to live in a place where legislators did what I demanded.
...if Pluto was discovered by a Russian.
It is dumb to try and legislate it though, I suppose.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
In soviet Russia, classifies you!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
...Alabalma have redefined the value of pi to 3, and French scientists have succeeded in getting to the centre of the earth with a lawnmower!
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Save_pluto.jpg
Table-ized A.I.
Someone needs to tag this article "wikiality."
What exactly gives this guy the idea that government should be involved in deciding to meddle in what is a politically approved "fact" or not?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Rather than further limiting citzen rights and increasing the size and reach of government. We should encourage our government to focus more on stupid things like this, then more bills like the Patriot Act and DMCA might not happen. ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I for one welcome our political-boundary-dependent overlords while in New Mexico, but welcome them as underlords while in Utah.
Table-ized A.I.
tag this old news
Unfortunately, there are some Representative jackasses in my country (Brazil) trying to push this etymology-purity agenda, forbidding any use of foreign expressions where a translation is available. Before anyone says that would violate freedom of speech, I should inform that this agenda is mainly lead by a Communist Party of Brazil representative. 'Nuff said.
I remember once a crappy CHI teacher I had, who said foreign/loan-words should be written in italics or quoted (this is right) and gave "deletar" as an example. "Deletar" is how "to delete" was adapted into Brazilian Portuguese computer-related lexicon, and its use is widely accepted and understood. I argued with him that this word was already officially accepted, and was even listed in Brazilian Literary Academy latests dictionary updates, to which he replied the Academy is not defending the purity of Portuguese well enough. He then mentioned that there at least seven good translations for "to delete" in Portuguese but, as it turns out, all translations he suggested fail to capture the computer-semantic of deletion. I proceeded to show how successfully loaned words from other languages like French and no one seems to bother: "capô" (vehicle hood/bonnet) is derived from "capeaux", just like most car parts in Brazilian Portuguese (maybe because the first cars were brought here by French people). He just shut up.
Completely OT: This same teacher also was against CSS because it made impossible to the user to enlarge fonts, against PDF for text because it is an image format. He also said that human adaptability to absence of light increases with time (this is right) and that if you remained 60 minutes in a dark room, you'd be adapted enough to be able to read a text on a paper. WTF??
In my opinion, people should be incentive and taught to write and spell properly, but if rule-of-law is necessary to achieve it, something is really wrong deep down.
Oh, we were talking about Pluto here? Almost forgot. I'm still amazed there is still no NGO named "Friends of Pluto" (portuguese text warning. babelfish is your friend) using vast incentives from government and big companies (which in turn get nice tax-reductions) to defend this unjust arbitrarity.
do you go to jail for stating that Pluto is not a planet, or does the Freedom of Speech trump this stupid law?
You can't handle the truth.
As a former resident of New Mexico (along with Bill Gates :), I'd hope that a state representative would focus aim on the poverty of the south valley barrios in Albuquerque, the fact that NM has the highest rate of police shooting people in the back, or maybe even the violence and drug problems on the SE side of Abq. That should be a priority... but then again, that is just me.
Perhaps we should rework our labels entirely. Rather than draw an arbitrary line, why not draw bunches of arbitrary lines. To borrow from Star Trek a bit:
B-Class rock: Mass between 5 to 20 Earths
C-Class rock: Mass between 0.75 to 5 Earths
D-Class rock: Mass between 0.2 to 0.75 Earths
E-Class rock: Mass between 0.05 to 0.2 Earths
Etc...
Table-ized A.I.
Good thing Galileo doesn't live in New Mexico.
Daylight Savings Time gave me an idea: Between November and March, Pluto is a planet, but a dwarf-planet between April and October.
Table-ized A.I.
Pluto is recognising New Mexico as a country.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
'as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet.'
God spoke to me.
This is what happens when a poorly thought definition change occurs. The dynamics of the Pluto orbit were known for a long time. There's been no sudden increase in scientific insight due to this capricious change. Let's look at the facts. Pluto was considered a planet for more than 75 years. In recent times, many Kuiper Belt objects (which by definition interact gravitationally with Neptune) were found, one which is probably even larger than Pluto and at it's closest approach can be closer to the Sun than Pluto is at it's most distant. There may be many such objects larger than Pluto. So yes, if Pluto were discovered now (ignoring the new definition), it probably would not be considered a planet.
But let's look at the definition. Pluto satisfies the first two conditions, it is in orbit around the Sun and is massive enough to form a sphere. The third condition is that "it must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit". That phrase has yet to be defined. So we're saying Pluto is not a planet even though we don't yet know the meaning of a critical term. Let me point out what should be obvious. Namely, if one defines the neighborhood of an orbit as a locus of the trajectory (in four dimensional space-time, eg, the space within distance d of the object at time t), then anything big enough to be round most likely has cleared an impressively large neighborhood of anything of similar mass. I assume reasonably that "cleared" means here that no amount of mass similar in order of magnitude routinely runs through this neighborhood. Also, it ignores the grief that the definition change causes to the outside world. Science textbooks need to be modified to reflect this new definition. Given that the definition is "official" yet is still mostly incomplete, the IAU will need to complete the definition of planet (and you can bet that Pluto == planet is still on the agenda). Finally, the definition explicitly only defines "planet" in the Solar System. The related definition of "dwarf planet" (ie, if it is massive enough to be rounded by gravity, it's a dwarf planet) does apply to exosolar dwarf planets (by a 2003 decision by the IAU).
So all this effort fails to apply to other star systems. This is quite relevant. First, the Solar System is a mature star system, more than 4 billion years old with no signs of recent perturbation. Second, all the orbits of the "planets" are circular. That's unusual. Most of the objects yet discovered have very elliptical (ie, large eccentricity) orbits. The definition would be hard to observe anyway since one would need to be able to account for most of the nonstellar mass in the star system before they could claim that anything has "cleared its orbit".
Finally, the decision was made with little concensus. The IAU is not an open-membership body. My impression is that it admits members directly by election only or at the behest of a "national member", a national level organization (like the US National Academy of Science's Board on International Scientific Organizations) which may have similar membership requirements. IMHO, IAU membership isn't constituted in a way conducive to concensus outside the astronomy community. Second, as noted before, only 5% of the members of the IAU actually voted on the definition in question. Further, only IAU officials had the power to modify the definition when it was being voted on. Finally, no report of the actual vote has ever been made public, as far as I can tell. We know that 424 members voted on it (this is widely reported in the media), but I have never seen reported the actual vote tally.
In summary, a redefinition of a common term, "planet" which manages to remain ill-defined and to have little scientific value by an international body that failed to generate any concensus either inside or out on the decision.
Instead, we should lobby for a bill to declare New Mexico a Planet!
Pluto is a Kuiper belt object.
And that little midge has had a free ride for far too long. The sooner Pluto learns to deal with the new reality, the better. Ultimately this move will do Pluto more harm than good.
Stop the celestial pandering now!
I really don't understand the hostility here. I did't understand it when it started and I don't understand it now. A subquorum of scientists at a particular venue voted for change the definition of an arbitrary system of classification. Yet people are treating people who call Pluto a "planet" like they were flatearthers or holocaust deniers.
It's just a friggin name!
Yes, it's stupid for the New Mexico legislature to be involved in an issue like this. But it's just as stupid for you guys to be taking sides in this absurd political tempest. Stop pretending you're an enlightened progressive just because you don't call Pluto a "planet". Sheesh.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Slow news day? No slower than the IAU (International Astronomical Union) who spend Lord knows how much time and publicly funded dollars for the world's biggest wankfest. Has the IAU ran out of things to do?
Maybe New Mexico can also declare the IAU not to be a real International Astronomical Union.
Astronomers changed the definition of a State excluding New Mexico and reducing the number of states to 49.
The lawmaker who introduced the measure represents the county in which Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto's discoverer, was born.
Huh? Clyde Tombaugh was born in Illinois and grew up in Kansas.
What about Eris (previously 2003 UB313, aka Xena), which is spherical and bigger than Pluto? Based on your criteria, there are at least half a dozen objects that would qualify as planets.
Perhaps it is a bit pertinent to get your facts straight. I apologize for my bluntness, but according to the US Census Bureau, NM has a population of a meager 1,928,384 people (2000 census). Certainly a great deal can happen in 7 years since the 2000 census, but as a resident of the State, I can vouch that the growth rate is quite low. The rest of your points are quite entertaining, facts notwithstanding. Here are some other demographics you might find useful, including the fact that NM has a higher-than-average percentage of people who stake no claim on any religion in particular. Okay, granted, perhaps your bias against the State comes from the unfortunate book burning that took place here in Alamogordo. Shameful actions, really, but I assure you they aren't representative of the population as a whole (though I'd assume I might be labeled a heretic should they read this particular post).
So, that brings me to a quote from your post:
Being enlightened slashdotters, most of us have little appreciation for how stupid people really are. I am here to say that yes, they are that stupid.
Enlightened, eh? Speak for yourself. For being clever enough to post on Slashdot, I'm rather appalled you didn't take the five minutes' time to seek out demographical facts. Shameful indeed.
He who has no
This is reminiscent of an attempt to redefine Pi in the Indiana legislature 100+ years ago. Politicians should not be meddling with science that they are ignorant about. Especially something so inconsequential. It is a waste of taxpayer's money just to have this crap brought forth. Furthermore, it is pretty dumb to consider Pluto a planet and ignore Eris, which is larger.
One measure for establishing the amount of "neighborhood clearing" clearly isolates the asteroids and KBOs from the rest of the objects orbiting the sun. While the details of how to derive these measurements are disputed. It is clear that no small change will alter the status of Pluto as anything other than a non-planet.
A good article on this topic was published not long ago in Scientific American. If the Honorable Representative Gutierrez from New Mexico is capable of reading maybe someone should direct it his way.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
This is totally a crack at having politics dictate over science. This is utterly insane for a bunch of effing morons that want to over-rule a scientific reclassification. Sorry folks, doesn't work that way. People that *know* a whole lot more than you about the subject have spoken. There is still debate going on within the scientific community, and that's fine. Again, people that *know* a whole lot about the subject are trying to make the decision. This is not a process that needs input from the ignorant (of the subject) populous. Get over it and let the smart people decide what to call Pluto!!!! This would set a very, VERY, *VERY* bad precedent if allowed to become.
Do these jackasses in the government not have anything better to do then come up with stupid meaningless laws and declarations... do something useful or get the fuck out you lazy bastards.
it's the first step to separate from United States and join Mexico. or Pluto. or whatever.
asshat!
This is exactly why people are fed up with the government. I'm not the only person who is sick of the government trying to dictate what should or shouldn't pass as scientific knowledge. Funding science is one thing, but passing laws to counter what scientific knowledge comes about is another.
Besides that, shouldn't New Mexico be more concerned with illegals and their detrimental impact to the local area?
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Dude, Pluto not being a planet is the biggest science news of the last 5 years. I don't know about you, but I spent a chunk of my childhood education learning about my very educated mother, and her nine pizzas. Changing a fundamental fact that we all learned to be true and believed throughout our lives is something scientific that involves almost everyone in America, rather than just us geeks.
Rather than complaining about it, I suggest you see it as an opportunity to explain what a planet is, or try to excite people about other, more important astronomical discoveries.
....personally, applying the logic from my own fields of study to this problem I can state only one conclusion -- the definition of a planet must be so carefully derived as to reach the "proper" end conclusion that it must be classified "pseudoscience". A real taxonomy of heavenly bodies, might look something like this:
Next Level: Mass / Energy (other?)
Next Level: Emits Enegery (in net) / Absorbs Energy (in Net)
Next Level: Common Matter / Anti-Matter / Dark Matter / Anti-DarkMatter? (is such a thing possible?)
Next Level: Orbits Something with Fusion / Orbits Something Without Fusion / No apparent orbit
Next Level: Density
Next Level: Mass
Meta Data: Temp, Atmosphere, etc, based on similarity to Earth.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Imagine living in a state where the only thing to be concerned about is the name of a planet.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't believe that people should be able to vote on what science we accept and don't accept.
"I don't like the fact that scientists say the world is round so I'm going to petition my local government to enact legislation to make the world flat. Does that sound right?"
:)
Which church are you meeting at?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
That's fine, let anybody in New Mexico who actually sees it call it a planet.
Wait! Actually I think some states have legislation stating the value of PI. And it is sometimes quite funny. I think some places legislate it to be 22/7 (which is not a horrible approximation has only a 0.04% error!). I also seem to recall that the bible says it is 3...
As a man that grew up down the street from Dr. T in Las Cruces, NM I have to agree that he would laugh. My Dad also taught at NMSU and I heard the lecture/story of the discovery of Pluto more times than I care to count. The 3 or 4 formal lectures were not quite as good as the one I got when I stopped by on the way home from school one time. Or the evening in his back yard looking through his homemade telescope in High School. Dr. T had a great sense of humor and was an excellent teacher. He was also one of the most quiet and unassuming people I have ever met. I do wish there were more like him.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Pluto has an irregular orbit around the sun, and is actually locked in binary orbit with its "moon", Charon. Additionally, if it were closer to the sun, it would grow a vapour trail. I need absolutely no reason to classify Pluto in the same category as Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc.
In a show of quid-pro-quo, Pluto has announced that it will pass a law to declare New Mexico as an official part of Mexico.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
New Mexico has been itching to invite the Plutonians back to Roswell. They figure, "We need to drive up tourism in the state."
What the hell, Plutonians are not party-poopers like those damn Martians.
Coderz 4 Life
There's an online petition:
http://plutopetition.org/
-j
... welcome our new Pluto-recognizing overladies.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
But is there _consensus_ that Pluto is a planet? What about planet deniers? What punishment will they get?
Judging by the intellectual caliber of their most vocal constituents, it seems to be working.
http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/
'as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet.'
:)
Teacher: When is Pluto a planet today?
Student: Today from Albuquerque Pluto is overhead between 2:28am and 1:00pm. It's night before 7:23am and after 7:10pm. Answer: 2:28am-7:23am and 7:10pm-midnight.
Sorry, NM (and zero marks for the student, there) but Pluto never gets 'overhead' in NM.
Pluto may be somewhere _above the horizon_ some time today, but that doesn't make it overhead.
To get 'overhead' anytime at the latitude of NM, Pluto would need to reach a north declination of more than about 31 degrees (or whatever NM's southern border latitude is exactly). In fact Pluto's orbit never takes it to a north declination of more than approx 23 degrees. Today, and for about the next hundred years, Pluto is even south of the equator, and isn't due to get anywhere north of the equator again until sometime around 2109.
So NM has a really long time to wait before its 'declaration' gets to be effective
-wb-
State lawmakers will vote Tuesday on a bill that proposes that 'as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet.'
If the legal code in New Mexico is so good that there's no need to pass, repeal or ammend any laws maybe all the "lawmakers" should go home and give the people there a refund on their taxes instead... Alternativly maybe they should do their actual jobs!
n/t
I think this is stupid, but then again I thought it was stupid to downgrade Pluto anyhow. While redefining what a planet is I don't mind, but they should have just grandfathered Pluto. 10 million school books already proclaim it is and I'm not going to change.
All Hail the planet Pluto. Eat shit International Astronomical Union.
Hi.
Being ignorant is not a joke.
You, however, are.
Fuck off.
it's funny but not nice=> though i wish they would
You should be more open minded, after all this is the year of the fruitbat ^^
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.