Fuddland

It’s about time Pluto was stripped of its planet status: the significantly smaller, non-spherical, bizarrely-orbiting hunk of rock at the edge of the Solar System has enjoyed its false apotheosis for far too long.

I’ve visited the Arizona observatory where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, and noted at the time how prominently [and proudly] it was advertised that Pluto was the only planet to be found by a non-European [read: American]. It would be quite interesting to have a look at them nationalities of the subset of the 2,500 voters who decided to downgrade Pluto’s standing, and the nationalities of those who wanted to keep things how they are, but of course I can’t find this breakdown anywhere [I suspect the vote was anonymous].

Meanwhile, the mathematical world is agog at the news the man now generally accepted to have solved a hundred-year-old problem doesn’t want the various awards and prize monies to which he is entitled. Except I don’t believe it’s really the maths world that is surprised that he doesn’t want the Fields Medal or the $1million Clay Institute prize money; if he’s anything like some of the mathematicians I know, he has probably forgotten most of the details of his proof because they turned out to be obvious, and has already moved on to solving something more difficult — it seems to be a few journalists and science authors expressing their amazement at this shunning of notoriety, whilst being unable to draw any astonishment from professional mathematicians beyond, “Well, he’s just a bit odd.” Throw a rock at any maths department in the world and you’ll hit at least one academic just as odd — and what’s more, they’ll go on to tell you the velocity at which the rock was travelling at the moment of impact.

#1

Jann | 2006 / 08 / 25 – 17:37

…and then they’ll blog about it. ;)

#2

Hannah | 2006 / 08 / 25 – 17:39

It seems odd for an academic to turn down $1 millon worth of funding. Think of all the PhD student’s you could fund. It would pay my salary for a years. Once more proof that the more you study, the less common sense you have.

#3

bsag | 2006 / 08 / 25 – 18:10

In the current celebrity-infested world (crikey, I sound about 75), I think that a lot of people assume that we academic scientists do it for the glory or the money. Ha! If only we got either. While there are a few scientists who clearly love all the media attention they can handle (naming no names), most of us just do it because we find the subject interesting. Having said that, I take the money like a shot, particularly if I could do it without any media fuss. It would be cool if there was a ‘no publicity, please’ box you could tick, like when you win the lottery.

#4

Ade | 2006 / 08 / 25 – 18:17

I think I have to agree with the following, from astroprofspage.com:

“[The outcome of the IAU vote] doesn’t really matter. The reason that astronomers have never really bothered with a definition of “planet” before is that we don’t really care. The label doesn’t matter. We know what we are talking about.”

#5

David | 2006 / 08 / 25 – 21:13

I’ve just realised that half of my regular readers are academics, and the majority of those are scientists.

Re #4: Much the same as what Patrick Moore is quoted as saying in the above-linked Guardian article:

They’ve made it far too complex. What is a dwarf planet? I agree that Pluto is not a planet, but why not just call it a Kuiper belt object or a large planetoid? In the end, I don’t suppose it matters too much. It’s just a name.

#6

val | 2006 / 09 / 01 – 04:47

Sure everyone knows Pluto’s a dog..
Or am I on my own there
Brief discussions with other non-sums personages concluded with Pluto always being a planet, no matter where it goes or what it’s made of - even when eventually we’re told it’s not really there at all

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