The God Con
  • The God Con
  • About
  • Book Purchase/Contact Author
  • Index
  • HMS Terror Wood Model
Tap the quote to scroll...

​
​The God Con
Pay
Pray Obey​

Certainly not The Good Book,
But perhaps a good book.
Picture

How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming; Mike Brown; Spiegal and Grau; 271 pgs; index

19/7/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
This book came to my attention by way of Blythe Nilson.  It is not deep, but rather a slice of science life. The topic is current. Pluto has been demoted because it had to be.  This was a quick and easy read, approachable by anyone.


Like life sciences, astronomy has jumped forward by leaps, especially with the passing of photographic plates in lieu of digital technology. No longer do astronomer freeze their asses off 10,000 feet up and far from anywhere, only to get clouds and rain. Like the life sciences, astronomy has leapt forward from even just a decade or two ago. Especially planetary astronomy. The fly-by shot of Pluto was an amazing feat of technology.


This book was written before the Pluto fly-by of 2105. Also, I think the IAU has since modified its definition of "planet" yet again, although without changing the conclusions of the book or the now eight planets. My only real criticism of the book is that the author weaves the birth of his daughter into the story a bit much. Forgivable, of course.


Mike Brown and his associates discovered three Kuiper Belt objects, nick named Santa, EasterBunny and Xenu.   The Kuiper belt is the suburbs of the solar system (not top be confused with the Oort cloud which is even further out). This generated the well known blitzkrieg of navel gazing, semantic hair splitting and so that led to the demotion of Pluto. The IAU reminds me of the various law societies... who are ironically a law unto themselves. Labels are important and every science gets involved in them to a greater or lesser degree.


The most interesting story from the book is about Santa. The usual course when a scientist discovers something is to study it; write a paper, name it, and announce and publish together. If all this happens in a dignified timeframe, it is all good. Brown et al sat on their discovery for some months, and then scheduled a talk that referred to  K40506A (K = Kuiper; 2 = 2004; 05, 06 = month and day; and the "A" is a serialization). Within a few days of announcing the talk, a Spanish astronomer named Ortiz announced that he had discovered Santa, scooping Brown. In the modern world, telescopes are operated by one or two people, images are digital, and astronomers can call up telescopes and ask for a picture of an object at such-and-such coordinates, and it is emailed to them. A database of images, ID'd by their name (K40506A) with coordinates! They smelled a rat. And when the database was queried, the found the digital fingerprints of Ortiz all over them. They has stolen the discovery! Bastards. 


Scientists in general think themselves above such things . Would that it were so. People are people, lab coats notwithstanding.


All in all, two thumbs up.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Lee Moller is a life-long skeptic and atheist and the author of The God Con.

    Archives

    December 2024
    August 2024
    May 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Comment
    Critical Thinking And Skepticism
    Donald Trump
    Quotes
    RCC
    Reviews
    Science
    The God Con

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • The God Con
  • About
  • Book Purchase/Contact Author
  • Index
  • HMS Terror Wood Model