_____ As You Like It > Act V, scene I
TOUCHSTONE: Is thy name William?
WILLIAM: William, sir.
TOUCHSTONE: A fair name. Wast born i' the forest [of Arden] here?
--------------------------------------------------------------
_____ King Lear > Act I, scene V
Fool: The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
KING LEAR: Because they are not eight?
Fool: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto wrote:
<<In 1906, Percival Lowell, a wealthy Bostonian who had founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1894, started an extensive project in search of a possible ninth planet, which he termed "Planet X". By 1909, Lowell and William H. Pickering had suggested several possible celestial coordinates for such a planet. Lowell and his observatory conducted his search until his death in 1916, but to no avail. Unbeknownst to Lowell, on March 19, 1915, his observatory had captured two faint images of PLuto, but did not recognise them for what they were. Due to a ten-year legal battle with Constance Lowell, Percival's widow, who attempted to wrest the observatory's million-dollar portion of his legacy for herself, the search for Planet X did not resume until 1929, when its director, Vesto Melvin Slipher, summarily handed the job of locating Planet X to Clyde Tombaugh, a 23-year-old Kansas man who had just arrived at the Lowell Observatory after Slipher had been impressed by a sample of his astronomical drawings. Tombaugh's task was to systematically image the night sky in pairs of photographs taken two weeks apart, then examine each pair and determine whether any objects had shifted position. Using a machine called a blink comparator, he rapidly shifted back and forth between views of each of the plates, to create the illusion of movement of any objects that had changed position or appearance between photographs. On February 18, 1930, after nearly a year of searching, Tombaugh discovered a possible moving object on photographic plates taken on January 23 and January 29 of that year. A lesser-quality photograph taken on January 21 helped confirm the movement.
The discovery made front page news around the world. The Lowell Observatory, who had the right to name the new object, received over 1000 suggestions, from "Atlas" to "Zymal". Tombaugh urged Slipher to suggest a name for the new object quickly before someone else did. Name suggestions poured in from all over the world. Constance Lowell proposed Zeus, then Lowell, and finally her own first name. These suggestions were disregarded.
The name "PLuto" was proposed by Venetia Burney (later Venetia Phair), an eleven-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England. Venetia was interested in classical mythology as well as astronomy, and considered the name, one of the alternate names of Hades, the Greek god of the Underworld, appropriate for such a presumably dark and cold world. She suggested it in a conversation with her grandfather Falconer Madan, a former librarian of Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Madan passed the name to Professor Herbert Hall Turner, who then cabled it to colleagues in America.
The object was officially named on March 24, 1930. Each member of the Lowell Observatory was allowed to vote on a short-list of three: "Minerva" (which was already the name for an asteroid), "Cronus" (which had garnered a bad reputation after being suggested by an unpopular astronomer named Thomas Jefferson Jackson See), and PLuto. PLuto received every vote. The name was announced on May 1, 1930. Upon the announcement, Madan gave Venetia five pounds as a reward.>>
- --------------------------------------------------------------
Neufer's Law: Any intelligent talented person who has
the opportunity to plant a harmless cryptic inside joke
& also get away with it (e.g., with a valid alibi like 11 year old Venetia Burney)
WILL plant a harmless cryptic inside joke.
--------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051203286.html wrote:
Came Up With Name for (Then-New Planet) PLuto
By Martin Weil Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
<<Venetia Burney Phair, 90, who as a child in England was credited with providing the name for PLuto, long regarded as the ninth planet, died April 30 at her home in Epsom, a town south of London. No cause of death was reported.
In a 2006 interview with NASA, Mrs. Phair told how she named the remote and mysterious chunk of rock and ice that orbits the sun in the far reaches of the solar system. It was March 14, 1930, she was 11, and the family was at breakfast, she said. Her grandfather, the retired head of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, read a newspaper account of the discovery of the mysterious new planet. He wondered aloud what it should be called. "And for some reason," she told NASA, "I, after a short pause, said, 'Why not PLuto?' "
Acquainted with classical mythology, Mrs. Phair knew the planets. She knew how they, according to their size, color or speed, had been given the names of the ancient gods. She said later that she had not really tried to connect the darkness of the mythic PLuto's dominion with the darkness far from the sun. It was mostly, she suggested, that the name PLuto had not been used.
Her grandfather, Falconer Madan, quickly saw the merit in the girl's suggestion. He carried it to an astronomer he knew.
Endorsed speedily at Britain's highest astronomical levels, the proposal went on to the Lowell observatory in Arizona, where the discovery had been made. Names were under consideration there.
The announcement came May 1, 1930: PLuto. Mrs. Phair was given public credit. (The ensuing revival of interest in the mythical figure reportedly inspired the naming of the Walt Disney cartoon dog: PLuto.)
"Yes, I certainly was thrilled," Mrs. Phair replied when asked about her response to the goings-on. "It was very exciting for a small girl, really, at the time." She recalled a few newspaper stories and a limited amount of other publicity. A new wave of attention came her way 54 years later, prompted by an article in Sky and Telescope magazine.
When PLuto was named, her grandfather gave her a five-pound note. Over the years, an asteroid was named for her, as was an instrument carried on a NASA spacecraft that was sent to PLuto.
For years, she was the only living person to have named a planet. But few of the people she met had any idea. "On the whole," she said, "it doesn't arise in conversation, and you don't just go around telling people that you named PLuto."
Venetia Katherine Burney was born July 11, 1918. Her father, the Rev. Charles Fox Burney, was a professor at Oxford. She studied mathematics and economics at Cambridge University, and she taught the subjects to girls in British schools. Her husband, Maxwell Phair, trained in the classics, was also a teacher. He died in 2006. A son survives.
In recent years, PLuto was stripped of its planetary status because of its failure to meet the criteria, an outcome that dismayed many who grew up with a traditional family of Earth and eight other planets. Mrs. Phair was unruffled by the debate, saying that at her age, she was "indifferent" to it. "Although," she added, "I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet.">>
]
an experiment was made upon several subjects in which they were shown photos of kids they used to know back in their childhood and asked if they can tell anything about these kids. some recognized kids in photos right away, the rest was given two weeks to remember anything and report. after two weeks all of them remembered a story or two. now, the core of experiment was that they never ever actually met these kids in their whole lives. so yes, I could accept that memory of Venetia Burney Phair, 90, could be flawed. but then, who would whisper "Pluto" in her ear?
