View From the Bushes

Well it's time to continue the discussion of whether Pluto is a planet. I came across another article on the subject. This guy is firmly in favor of continuing to maintain Pluto's status as a planet. In fact, his standard for defining whether something is a planet is whether it has sufficient gravity that when it cools it forms into a sphere. Using this criteria there would be probably be nearly a hundred planets. I must confess that it's not a bad standard, but I think he misses one really big thing with his argument...

He points out that a similar standard (fusion energy generation) is used to define what stars are and that there are all sorts of them, from blue giants to main sequences, all the way to the dwarfs. If we were to apply his gravitation standard to planets then, there would be a similar categories: gas giants, terrestrial planes, ice balls, etc. And the point I think he missed is that, yeah, under this fairly broad standard Pluto would certainly be a planet, but it would still fall into a different sub-category than the rest of the planets. In essence, he has only moved the issue one step farther away, but not really resolved it. As his daughter correctly points out, no one is going to memorize a hundred different planets.

In other news Le Tour de France discussion has already started on my otherwise completely dead messageboards. In my defense, it wasn't me that started it. And yeah it is a little bit early in the year, but you've got to believe me when I say that this year's Tour will be one for the ages.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross