I’m excited. Reuters just reported that one of my favorite paintings has been recovered: “The Scream” by Edvard Munch (1893).
OSLO, Norway – Norwegian police recovered “The Scream” and another stolen masterpiece by Edvard Munch on Thursday, two years after the works were seized from a museum by gunmen. “We are 100 percent certain they are the originals,” police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. “The damage was much less than feared. (Reuters)
Several friends were perplexed by all the recent fuss about Pluto. Unfortunately, most of the media coverage was quite misleading. It focused on Pluto, when in reality the root of the question before the International Astronomical Union was a very fundamental one: How do we define a “planet”?
Although it seems strange, astronomers have so far called objects “planets” without ever clearly defining what a planet is. It’s an object that revolves around a star alright, but how does a planet differ from a comet or an asteroid?
Pluto has been called a planet ever since it was discovered in 1930, even though it is a very odd fellow. Compared to the other planets of our solar system, Pluto’s orbit has a different angle. And although it was often called the sun’s outermost planet, Pluto’s strongly elliptical orbit takes it closer to the sun than Neptune during a part of the plutonian year. It gets stranger: Pluto’s moon Charon is so large that it does not really orbit around Pluto. In fact, the two bodies orbit around a common center of gravity, a point in space. That would make Pluto and Charon double-planets, just like there are double-stars.
Because Pluto is so dissimilar to the other eight planets, some scientists have theorized that Pluto did not form out of the primordial solar system’s gas and dust cloud. Instead, it might have formed in interstellar space and was later captured in the Sun’s gravitational field. A “space orphan”?
A dilemma arose when better instruments discovered several other “oddball” objects outside of Neptune’s orbit. So far, we have found over 1,000 of them. We don’t know how many more there are. And there are more than 100,000 known asteroids. Which of these should we classify as planets? Clearly, a precise definition was needed.
So what the IAU’s debate was really about was the definition of “planet”. And then it turned out that if the agreed upon rules are applied, Pluto just didn’t make the cut. Neither did the newly found objects 2003 UB313 (“Xena”), 2005 FY 9, 2003 EL61, Sedna and Quaoar.
Science measures things in nature and then applies the observed measurements to a system of classification. Sometimes there are errors and misclassifications which need to be corrected in order to maintain consistency.
Thus, tomatoes are not really vegetables, but fruit. Bananas are not really fruit, but berries. And although it may be nuts to some: peanuts are really no nuts, but legumes. Cashews aren’t nuts either — they are seeds. And Pluto? Well, it’s not really a planet.
The current issue of Newsweek (Sept. 4, 2006) features an excellent cover story on the subject. (Their web site on MSN is terrible and does not run well on a Mac, which is why I’m not including a link here).
PS: On Sept. 7, the Minor Planet Center, which is responsible for collecting data on asteroids and comets, assigned Pluto’s new designation: Asteroid number 134340. There are currently 136,563 asteroid objects recognized by the MPC; 2,224 new objects were added last week. Other notable objects to receive asteroid numbers included 2003 UB313, also known as “Xena,” and the recently discovered Kuiper Belt objects 2003 EL61 and 2005 FY9. Their asteroid numbers are 136199, 136108 and 136472, respectively.
Of course, for practical purposes, Pluto will always be called “Pluto”.
http://nineplanets.org/pluto.html
PS: IAUC 8747 reports that Xena has been given the official name Eris. Its companion satellite provionally dubbed “Gabrielle” has been named Dysnomia (Eris I).
Just returned from Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. Unfortunately, this trip’s schedule allowed almost no time to stop and smell the roses. I didn’t even get a chance to partake in my usual San Francisco compulsions, among which are Anchor Steam on tap and cable car rides. (Alas, here is a link to the online edition of Of Cables And Grips – The Cable Cars of San Francisco by Robert Callwell and Walter E. Rice).
Attempted to gracefully order dim sum in Oakland’s Chinatown with a minimum of embarrassment to myself and tablemates. (I don’t speak Chinese. The waitress didn’t speak English. The challenging yet comical nature of the situation was enhanced by a menu consisting mostly of things I don’t eat — such as invertebrates and innards).
Attended an exhibition of artwork by Heisuke Kitazawa during a very brief “hit and run” visit to San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district.
UC Berkeley was buzzing with newly arrived college freshmen. And freshwomen. (“Freshpeople”?). Moe’s book store on Telegraph Avenue is still there and busy, which is reassuring. (Yes, I left money).
25 years ago, the Beatles performed at the Hollywood Bowl and, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, “escaped with their lives”. The report goes on:
“With 18,700 fans shrieking hysterically, not much of the mop-haired quartet’s singing could be heard”.
“The sight of ticket-takers wearing Army helmets presaged a possible blitz of World War II proportions. When nearly 3,000 girls in all manner of odd attire surged the gates at 5:20 p.m., officials decided to let them in 40 minutes early. Many broke into happy tears. ‘Oh, my God, we’re in, we’re going to see the Beatles,’ they screamed.” (From the L.A. Times).
Apparently, the concert lasted only for 30 minutes — enough to make pop history.
More information is here.
I’m highly skeptical of polls and tend to make fun of them. Some of them are fun. Or depressing. Or both. A poll by Zogby International yielded these gems:
60% of Americans were able to correctly name Superman’s fictional home planet (Krypton), but only 37% could name the planet closest to the sun (Mercury).
23% could name the recent winner of the TV show “American Idol” (Taylor Hicks), but only 11% could name the recently named Supreme Court Justice (Samuel Alito).
60% knew that Homer was the father of Bart on “The Simpsons”. But only 20.5% knew that Homer was the ancient Greek author of The Iliad and The Odyssey.
74% knew that Larry, Moe and Curley were the Three Stooges. But only 42% could name the three branches of government (judicial, executive and legislative).
57% could identify J.K. Rowling’s fictitional boy wizard (Harry Potter), but only 50% could name the British prime minister (Tony Blair).
Oh, dear.
In today’s edition, the L.A. Times reports an amazing survival story. A trio of lost fishermen from a Mexican village were rescued 5,000 miles away from home. Their vessel was found intact near Baker Island in the middle of the Pacific. After being blown away from shore in October 2005, they had been adrift for nine months. The men survived on rainwater, raw fish and the occasional seabird, but had to go without food for stretches of up to 15 days. They reported reading the Bible to pass the time, which I suppose they must know pretty well by now.
This year I’ve been visiting the Hollywood Bowl a lot.
So far, I’ve heard Beethoven’s 5th, 8th and 9th symphonies, Holst’s The Planets, Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, Berlioz’ Symphonie funebre et triomphale and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto 1 and 1812.
I was initially opposed to tearing down the old shell which had been in place for decades and had sheltered so many celebrated artists. But I’ve since become a convert and really like the new shell and setup.
During my last visits, I’ve each time observed several bats performing aerobatic maneuvers above the audience. They come out at dusk and disappear when it gets dark. I did not know that bats are such fast and agile flyers.
In one strange encounter, one bat flew so close that for a fraction of a second, it was about an arm’s lengh away from my face. I could even hear the whirring sound of its wings.
Now that the scare about self concocted liquid explosives bringing down planes is about to fade due to the complete elimination of all liquids and gels in the possession of passengers, all of us who like or need to travel are wondering what will be next. I’m not looking forward to my next flight to Europe or elsewhere. No more brushing teeth (no toothpaste), no more applying deodorant (yuck), no more water to drink. (Hello, flight attendant!?). And no more of the liquid meals I’ve preferred to the ghastly trays which airlines try to pass off as “in flight meal”.
Shoe bombs, toilet bombs …. what is next? Shall we install cameras in plane lavatories to prevent bombs from being assembled in there? Subject passengers to strip searches before each flight? X-ray everyone to make sure they don’t carry something dangerous inside their bodies?
I wonder when we will finally wake up and begin to rationally and honesty address the roots of terrorism instead of the symptoms.
P.S. 2016: Ten years later. Toothpaste and deodorants are not a problem, since small “travel sized” containers are now widely available. But air passengers suffer even more indignities, and surprisingly, people only grumble but still accept the new status quo. And yet, a relatively small portion of the general public is interested in examining the political, economic, ideological and religious factors responsible for creating and feeding the terrorism problem in the first place. But I suppose that would be too complicated.
In England, a guard dog went on a rampage, ripping apart a costly collection of rare teddy bears valued at more than $900,000. Among the victims of Barney the dog was Mabel, a brown 1909 bear once owned by a young Elvis Presley. All in all the six-year-old Doberman pinscher reduced hundreds of teddies to bits of limbs and fluffy stuffing. “He just went beserk”, said Daniel Medley, general manager of Wookey Hole Caves near Wells. A security guard chased the dog for several minutes before finally catching and subduing him. I guess Barney is in the doghouse now.
I’m a believer in self reliance and the “do it yourself” concept. But some people are taking it a bit far. According to a wire report, a Massachusetts couple was arrested for allegedly performing liposcutions in the basement of their home. One female patient has died. Luiz Carlos Ribeiro and Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro were charged with practicing medizine without a license. I wonder how they found their patients. Word of mouth?