[meteorite-list] Planets Galore

From: Gerald Flaherty <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Aug 19 17:12:11 2006
Message-ID: <007301c6c3d4$1eea1c20$6402a8c0_at_Dell>

Nice Francis, very nice.
Jerry Flaherty
----- Original Message -----
From: "Francis Graham" <francisgraham_at_rocketmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 7:31 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Planets Galore


> Dear List:
> I enjoyed the debate and conversation on this list
> on the subject of what a definition of a planet is. It
> was not acrimonious and personal, and was very
> interesting and worthwhile.
> Many of us do not care if Ceres is a planet or even
> if the old Apollo rocket stages are called planets
> --well, maybe I stretch it there--, the important
> thing is to have a definition of a term that must be
> used in scholarly journals and go on. Of course common
> usage will differ from the IAU definition, and that is
> OK. After all, we still speak of sunrise and sunset,
> although we no longer regard the Universe as
> Ptolemaic.
> As for astrologers, some will be confused and some
> will see it as a bonanza. That is their concern. This
> list is concerned with the scientific study and other
> aspects of meteorites, and the definition of planet is
> important to this list because meteorites can come
> from some of these bodies.
> The worst possible outcome is to have no definition
> approved. If the definition is later shown to be
> faulty, or fails to optimally facilitate the
> communication of scientific results, it can be
> ammended later.
> There is an analogy to this confusion. In some
> states of the USA people are permitted to marry at a
> young age. Having done so, they move to another state
> without such laws, and are arrested for sex crimes.
> While this is much more a serious non-uniformity
> problem than the definition of a planet, it adequately
> illustrates the problem that nonuniformity creates.
> What one journal calls a planet another will not
> allow, this is akin to the young-marriage problem. A
> popular science writer would have to have a separate
> list of acceptable planets for each editor. It is
> better to have even a mediocre uniformity than
> confusion. And by no means am I necessarily calling
> the proposed definition mediocre. It was clearly
> carefully thought out by many people. But even if it
> were mediocre, I would still favor it because it would
> end confusion on the issue.
> Mars with his war chariot, Jupiter with his
> thunder, it is nice to have little farmer Ceres
> finally joining the retinue.
>
> Francis Graham
>
>
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Received on Sat 19 Aug 2006 05:12:04 PM PDT