So, some friends of ours have learned about "Planet X" in school...

[Joshua Randall]

I love the "moon landing was a hoax" people. I like to skewer them with Occam's Razor:

Which is more plausible:

1. Through rapid advances in technology and based on well-understood physical principals and through the expenditure of enormous amounts of time and money, we were able to send men to the Moon.

or

2. A massive, far reaching conspiracy was created, encompassing all levels of government, media, and science both in the U.S. and abroad, that has been successfully hidden for decades.

Humph!

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

I did find out who was teaching them that the moon landing was a hoax!

Now I'm gonna have an eye twitch all day long. . .


My main arguement for why Pluto should not be regarded as a planet is that its (highly eccentric) orbit does not follow the same plane that Mercury through Neptune do.

A secondary argument is that its orbit is so eccentric that it is SOMETIMES more distant from the sun than Neptune, but sometimes closer.

Finally, my tertiary, and nit-picky, reason is that Pluto is so small in relation to its satelitte, Charon, that the two sort of tumble along together as a twin body: so why is Pluto a planet and Charon is not? Because it's the larger of a pair.

 

[Desdichado]

Oddly enough, none of those are good reasons for excluding it from planethood, although why Charon isn't a planet and the entire system called a double-planet system does somewhat elude me.

The main reason for objecting to Pluto being a planet is that it is part of a population; the Kuiper Belt. That was the reason Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, etc. were demoted from planets to asteroids, and that's the main objection to Pluto.

Due to historical reasons, though, I suspect that what is and isn't a planet will be an arbitrary size cut-off at Pluto itself, which doesn't really satisfy most planetary astronomers.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm just having some fun with you. I apologize if I came off rude. I didn't mean to insult you.

I didn't think you were insulting me, but I thought you might be insulting Samantha!

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Due to historical reasons, though, I suspect that what is and isn't a planet will be an arbitrary size cut-off at Pluto itself, which doesn't really satisfy most planetary astronomers.

And it shouldn't satisfy us, either.

I say let the experts decide facts in their own field of expertise. I'm perfectly happy to let planetary astronomers decide what is and is not a planet.

One of my linguistics professors had to track down a teacher at one of the local high schools to get him to stop teaching that the etymology of the word "woman" amounted to "womb" + "man." Just because you don't have the facts doesn't mean that you should go spewing forth ignorance. e.g. like I apparently did in my previous post.

 

[physicscarp]

Oh, for crying out loud!

<hangs head and sighs>

<looks back up with mischievious grin>

Kentucky, huh?

Actually, no. I just moved here so I'm not sure how good or bad education is here, so I'd hate for this state to get a worse name that it already has. The story I told above took place in a county just outside of Columbus, Ohio.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Defense? Pah!

DungeonMasterCal will be my Minister of Offense

Can I be Minister of Sarcasm? It would make my mother soooo proud. Y'know, prouder than she already is to have a son who posts on messageboards on a beautiful day.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Can I be Minister of Sarcasm? It would make my mother soooo proud. Y'know, prouder than she already is to have a son who posts on messageboards on a beautiful day.

*yoinked* for my .sig file.

Not that I ever actually use any of the quotes in my .sig file, but I very well could if I wanted to!

 

[freebfrost]

I would proceed to mention Sedna and Quaror and point out the Kupier Belt again, but they would assure me that they were taught there was a Planet X beyond Pluto. I could never find out who it was exactly that was teaching them that, but I did find out who was teaching them that the moon landing was a hoax!

Next you'll be babbling that the sun isn't on fire either Carp...

You should've taken me up on my offer to teach your class for a day. I would've taught them a thing or two about science...

 

[physicscarp]

Next you'll be babbling that the sun isn't on fire either Carp...

Yep, and metals can never be gases and concrete can't sway like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge either. Of course, they didn't believe me then either. You'd think I was trying to teach them that they can fly if they have fairy dust!