Starship Asterisk*

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.">>

makc wrote:so,.... in short, what are you saying here? That the name "Pluto" was chosen as a hidden reference (aka harmless cryptic inside joke) to Percival Lowell?

Her grandfather... 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?' "

• "History is more or less bunk. It's tradition."
  - Henry Ford, Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916

makc wrote:well they didnt really have an alibi, since they voted out other options... but it is interesting coincidence that this name was even suggested. do you think that girl's underconsciousness came up with pluto for similar reasons?

Her grandfather... 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?' "

surely the paper mentioned Percival Lowell... that could trigger it, dont you think?

• <<Lord David CECIL railed in 1932:
  
  "Of course there are people who say that the caterpillar is a
  satire on Oxford logic and the Duchess a skit on Cambridge paradox.
  But they belong to the same tribe of pedantic lunatics who think that
  Macbeth is a topical hit at Essex and Cleopatra a satirical picture
  of Mary Queen of Scots.">> - Robert Phillips' _Aspects of Alice_

• Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice
  Introduction and Notes by Martin Gardner
  
  <<1. In these prefatory verses Carroll recalls that "golden afternoon"
  in 1862 when he and his friend the Reverend Robinson Duckworth (then a
  fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, later canon of Westminster) took the
  three charming Liddell sisters on a rowing expedition up the Thames.
  "Prima" was the eldest sister, Lorina Charlotte, age thirteen. Alice
  Pleasance, age ten, was "Secunda," and the youngest sister, Edith,
  age eight, was "Tertia." Carroll was then thirty.
  
  The date was Friday, July 4, "as memorable a day in the history of literature,"
  W. H. Auden has observed, "as it is in American history."
  [Coincidentally, both Adams & Jefferson died on the 50th anniversary! ]
  
  The trip was about three miles, beginning at Folly Bridge, near Oxford,
  and ending at the village of Godstow. "We had tea on the bank there,"
  Carroll recorded in his diary, "and did not reach Christ Church again
  till quarter past eight, when we took them on to my rooms to see my
  collection of micro-photographs, and restored them to the Deanery just
  before nine." Seven months later he added to this entry the following
  note: "On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of Alice's
  adventures underground . . ."
  
  Twenty-five years later (in his article "Alice on the Stage," The
  Theatre, April 1887) Carroll wrote:
  
  Many a day had we rowed together on that quiet stream —
  the three little maidens and I — and many a fairy tale had
  been extemporised for their benefit — whether it were at
  times when the narrator was "i' the vein," and fancies
  unsought came crowding thick upon him, or at times when the
  jaded Muse was goaded into action, and plodded meekly on,
  more because she had to say something than that she had
  something to say — yet none of these many tales got written
  down: they lived and died, like summer midges, each in its
  own golden afternoon until there came a day when, as it
  chanced, one of my little listeners petitioned that the tale might
  be written out for her. That was many a year ago, but I
  distinctly remember, now as I write, how, in a desperate
  attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent
  my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without
  the least idea what was to happen afterwards. And so, to
  please a child I loved (I don't remember any other motive), I
  printed in manuscript, and illustrated with my own crude
  designs — designs that rebelled against every law of
  Anatomy or Art (for I had never had a lesson in drawing) —
  the book which I have just had published in facsimile. In
  writing it out, I added many fresh ideas, which seemed to
  grow of themselves upon the original stock; and many more
  added themselves when, years afterwards, I wrote it all over
  again for publication. . . .
  
  Stand forth, then, from the shadowy past, "Alice," the child of
  my dreams. Full many a year has slipped away, since that
  "golden afternoon" that gave thee birth, but I can call it up
  almost as clearly as if it were yesterday — the cloudless blue
  above, the watery mirror below, the boat drifting idly on its
  way, the tinkle of the drops that fell from the oars, as they
  waved so sleepily to and fro, and (the one bright gleam of life
  in all the slumberous scene) the three eager faces, hungry for
  news of fairy-land, and who would not be said "nay" to: from
  whose lips "Tell us a story, please," had all the stern
  immutability of Fate!
  
  Alice twice recorded her memories of the occasion. The following lines
  are quoted by Stuart Collingwood in The Life and Letters of Lewis
  Carroll:
  
  Most of Mr. Dodgson's stories were told to us on river
  expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My
  eldest sister, now Mrs. Skene, was "Prima", I was
  "Secunda", and "Tertia" was my sister Edith. I believe the
  beginning of Alice was told one summer afternoon when the
  sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down
  the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of
  shade to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick.
  Here from all three came the old petition of "Tell us a story,"
  and so began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us
  — and perhaps being really tired — Mr. Dodgson would
  stop suddenly and say, "And that's all till next time." "Ah, but
  it is next time," would be the exclamation from all three; and
  after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another
  day, perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr.
  Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure, would
  pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay.
  
  Alice's son, Caryl Hargreaves, writing in the Cornhill Magazine (July
  1932) quotes his mother as follows:
  
  Nearly all of Alice's Adventures Underground was told on
  that blazing summer afternoon with the heat haze shimmering
  over the meadows where the party landed to shelter for a
  while in the shadow cast by the haycocks near Godstow. I
  think the stories he told us that afternoon must have been
  better than usual, because I have such a distinct recollection
  of the expedition, and also, on the next day I started to pester
  him to write down the story for me, which I had never done
  before. It was due to my "going on, going on" and importunity
  that, after saying he would think about it, he eventually gave
  the hesitating promise which started him writing it down at all.
  
  Finally, we have the Reverend Duckworth's account, to be found in
  Collingwood's The Lewis Carroll Picture Book:
  
  I rowed stroke and he rowed bow in the famous Long
  Vacation voyage to Godstow, when the three Miss Liddells
  were our passengers, and the story was actually composed
  and spoken over my shoulder for the benefit of Alice Liddell,
  who was acting as 'cox' of our gig. I remember turning round
  and saying, "Dodgson, is this an extempore romance of
  yours?" And he replied, "Yes, I'm inventing as we go along." I
  also well remember how, when we had conducted the three
  children back to the Deanery, Alice said, as she bade us
  good-night, "Oh, Mr. Dodgson, I wish you would write out
  Alice's adventures for me." He said he should try, and he
  afterwards told me that he sat up nearly the whole night,
  committing to a MS. book his recollections of the drolleries
  with which he had enlivened the afternoon. He added
  illustrations of his own, and presented the volume, which used
  often to be seen on the drawing-room table at the Deanery.
  
  It is with sadness I add that when a check was made in 1950 with the
  London meteorological office (as reported in Helmut Gernsheim's Lewis
  Carroll: Photographer) records indicated that the weather near Oxford on
  July 4, 1862, was "cool and rather wet."
  
  This was later confirmed by Philip Stewart, of Oxford University's
  Department of Forestry. He informed me in a letter that the Astronomical
  and Meteorological Observations Made at the Radcliffe Observatory,
  Oxford, Vol. 23, gives the weather on July 4 as rain after two p.m.,
  cloud cover 10/10, and maximum shade temperature of 67.9 degrees
  Fahrenheit. These records support the view that Carroll and Alice
  confused their memories of the occasion with similar boating trips made
  on sunnier days.
  
  The question remains controversial, however. For a well-argued defense
  of the conjecture that the day may have been dry and sunny after all,
  see "The Weather on Alice in Wonderland Day, 4 July 1862," by H. B.
  Doherty, of the Dublin Airport, in Weather, Vol. 23 (February 1968),
  pages 75Ð78. The article was called to my attention by reader William
  Mixon.>>

neufer wrote:"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition."
- Henry Ford, Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916

Steve Martin wrote:Daddy played the banjo, 'neath the yellow tree,
It rang across the backyard and wove a spell on me,
Now the banjo takes me back, through the foggy haze,
With memories of what never was, become the good old days.

Zargon wrote:what about uto?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/universal+time wrote:Universal Time (UT1) is determined from observations of the stars, radio sources, and also from ranging observations of the moon and artificial Earth satellites. The scale determined directly from such observations is designated Universal Time Observed (UTO); it is slightly dependent on the place of observation. When UTO is corrected for the shift in longitude of the observing station caused by polar motion, the time scale UT1 is obtained. When an accuracy better than one second is not required, Universal Time can be used to mean Coordinated Universal Time [UTC]. Also called ZULU time. Formerly called Greenwich Mean Time.

apodman wrote:

Zargon wrote:what about uto?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/universal+time wrote:Universal Time (UT1) is determined from observations of the stars, radio sources, and also from ranging observations of the moon and artificial Earth satellites. The scale determined directly from such observations is designated Universal Time Observed (UTO); it is slightly dependent on the place of observation. When UTO is corrected for the shift in longitude of the observing station caused by polar motion, the time scale UT1 is obtained. When an accuracy better than one second is not required, Universal Time can be used to mean Coordinated Universal Time [UTC]. Also called ZULU time. Formerly called Greenwich Mean Time.

• UTO : Up The Owls (Sheffield Wednesday Football Club Fans)
  
  - http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/UTO

neufer wrote:

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".

apodman wrote:Bring back Pluto!

Chris Peterson wrote:

apodman wrote:Bring back Pluto!

It never left. Just do what I do: call it a planet, include it in discussions about planets. I do that in the classroom, I do it in public outreach, and anyplace else it comes up. I don't hear many objections, and when somebody does question it, I use it as a point of discussion.

Common usage is far more powerful in determining what's a planet and what isn't than any resolution of the IAU.

makc wrote:few years back I have read a paper describing interesting experiment. Unfortunately the forum where we were discussing it went down so I cant find that damn url... maybe some other time. any way, let's trust my memory here 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?

mark swain wrote:So even though it has been declassified ,, to Chris Peterson its still a planet...? Spread the word....

Your having a laugh. Tells me a lot about your writing on other theories...

aristarchusinexile wrote:Upside The Outside?

Unforseen Thick Obstacle?

Untimely Tax Official?

Up The OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?

Etc. The possibilities are many .. which do we choose. This is the question, not that Shakespere stuff.

apodman wrote:Thompson, Rutherford, and Bohr have come and gone. Mendeleev and Avogadro have come and gone. Untold generations of alchemists, chemists, and physicists have come and gone. And we still refer to earth, air, fire, and water as the four elements. Pluto will not go quietly.

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?' "

Chris Peterson wrote:

mark swain wrote:So even though it has been declassified ,, to Chris Peterson its still a planet...? Spread the word....

Your having a laugh. Tells me a lot about your writing on other theories...

It is still a planet... that never changed. The word "planet" has many meanings, and the IAU resolution only addressed the term in a narrow context- recommended usage in scientific publications. And in fact, more than half of the astronomical community doesn't even agree with that change. So in common usage, "planet" hasn't changed. In scientific usage, there is no consensus and you see Pluto called different things. Of course, it doesn't matter in the slightest, since it is what it is, likewise for the other bodies of the Solar System. And there's no risk of confusion, since "planet" always needs qualification anyway.

mark swain wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

mark swain wrote:So even though it has been declassified ,, to Chris Peterson its still a planet...? Spread the word....

Your having a laugh. Tells me a lot about your writing on other theories...

It is still a planet... that never changed. The word "planet" has many meanings, and the IAU resolution only addressed the term in a narrow context- recommended usage in scientific publications. And in fact, more than half of the astronomical community doesn't even agree with that change. So in common usage, "planet" hasn't changed. In scientific usage, there is no consensus and you see Pluto called different things. Of course, it doesn't matter in the slightest, since it is what it is, likewise for the other bodies of the Solar System. And there's no risk of confusion, since "planet" always needs qualification anyway.

Want me to help bail? There are a lot of things in that short statement... ''It is still a planet'', Incorrect, ''That never changed'' Incorrect. ''In a narrow context- recommended usage in scientific publications'' Its one or the other dude... Just like bang or no bang...
''In scientific usage.... ''there is no consensus and you see Pluto called different things. Of course, it doesn't matter in the slightest, since it is what it is, likewise for the other bodies of the Solar System''. It does not matter? Are you teaching people this? Your going to spend a long time naming all those planets in the asteroid belt don,t you think?

So to this note, I take everything else you said with a pinch of salt?

Mark

BMAONE23 wrote: I take it that you disagree with Chris and Others that Pluto should retain it's former PLANET status? I also understand that you further believe that Pluto should never again be refered to as a "PLANET"? Further, that refering to PLUTO as a PLANET, even as a form of protest against the IAU's decision to demote PLUTO would therefore discredit any other scientific expertise you otherwisw hold in any other field?

apodman wrote:The fringe contributors rant against the consensus most of the time, but they rant in favor of it when it suits them.