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PLUTO!!

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 9:20 pm
by PurpleMustReign
What a cool time we are in right now, as soon, clear pictures of the 9th planet (not a "dwarf planet" or whatever they want it called) will be posted and we will see the surface of Pluto!!
How exciting!!
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I will post more pics tomorrow when everything is online.

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 1:55 am
by DK Sweets
Am I the only one who sees Pluto the dog at the bottom of Pluto the planet?

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:59 am
by Cliff
The problem is that Pluto was named a planet before we knew there were around 70,000 objects made up of the same stuff as Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. There are at least 7-8 that are roughly the size of Pluto.

In other words, if we define Pluto is a planet, we've got to add an extra 8-9 more planets to our solar system and potentially hundreds more than that as we continue to explore.

Sorry I had to go there :)

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:36 am
by dead_poet
Cliff wrote:The problem is that Pluto was named a planet before we knew there were around 70,000 objects made up of the same stuff as Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. There are at least 7-8 that are roughly the size of Pluto.

In other words, if we define Pluto is a planet, we've got to add an extra 8-9 more planets to our solar system and potentially hundreds more than that as we continue to explore.

Sorry I had to go there :)
Neil deGrasse Tyson uses Pluto's mass and its orbit crossing with that of Neptune as two major sticking point for classifying it as a dwarf planet.

http://www.space.com/29949-neil-degrass ... video.html

He also said that he'd like to consider four other "rocky" planets (including Earth) as dwarf planets.

Colbert grills Tyson: http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/15/89697 ... uto-planet

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 1:29 pm
by DK Sweets
All the science!

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 7:50 pm
by Cliff
A topical comic;

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Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 8:41 am
by PurpleMustReign
Cliff wrote:A topical comic;

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I love it!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:09 pm
by S197
I find Neil deGrasse Tyson rather annoying. He seems to go out of his way to correct people's errors when 99.9% of the population probably doesn't care.

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:40 am
by HardcoreVikesFan
S197 wrote:I find Neil deGrasse Tyson rather annoying. He seems to go out of his way to correct people's errors when 99.9% of the population probably doesn't care.
You know, Tyson was a pretty chill dude a few years ago. Now he is just pretentious and arrogant. We get it - you have genius-level intelligence. It is really disheartening to see a person with an intellectual gift try to make his mission to discredit, belittle, and chastise other individuals who may (may not) hold an incorrect view.

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 9:25 am
by Cliff
HardcoreVikesFan wrote: You know, Tyson was a pretty chill dude a few years ago. Now he is just pretentious and arrogant. We get it - you have genius-level intelligence. It is really disheartening to see a person with an intellectual gift try to make his mission to discredit, belittle, and chastise other individuals who may (may not) hold an incorrect view.
I've never gotten that vibe from him. He does correct a lot ... but he presents himself as an educator, I imagine just letting that kind of stuff slide doesn't align with that. I think of it like an English teacher correcting you when you if you write your instead of you're in the improper place.

If 99.9 percent of people don't care, count me in the .1% that does. Many things he corrects I didn't know and had he not corrected it, I probably wouldn't have known otherwise.

I don't know that I've ever seen him chastise anybody. He might correct people that are presenting a scientific fact incorrectly, but I don't think that's the same as belittling them.

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:52 am
by dead_poet
Cliff wrote: I've never gotten that vibe from him. He does correct a lot ... but he presents himself as an educator, I imagine just letting that kind of stuff slide doesn't align with that. I think of it like an English teacher correcting you when you if you write your instead of you're in the improper place.

If 99.9 percent of people don't care, count me in the .1% that does. Many things he corrects I didn't know and had he not corrected it, I probably wouldn't have known otherwise.

I don't know that I've ever seen him chastise anybody. He might correct people that are presenting a scientific fact incorrectly, but I don't think that's the same as belittling them.
I agree. I always found him to be a lot of fun and his approach to explaining things has been unique and, often, pretty entertaining. I also don't mind him correcting things that are false. It frustrates me to no end when politicians spout incorrect facts and the public has to seek out whether or not some of the crap they were told was actually true or not (most people don't take that extra step). So I'm all for more education out there. It's a rare quality to find a teacher that can not only teach the material but make it engaging.

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:18 pm
by DK Sweets
Consider me on Team Tyson as well. A lot of what I have learned about science (and for that matter, what a lot of people in the general public have learned in the past few years) is because of his ability to teach in an engaging way. I also agree that it is necessary to correct people - it's the only way to stop false knowledge.

He's not perfect, but I find him to be a great public figure.

Re: PLUTO!!

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 9:23 pm
by S197
There's a difference between educating someone and being the loudest guy in the room so everyone knows how smart you are. Pointing out how the stars were wrong in Titanic or all the mistakes they made in Gravity tends to lead me towards the latter. That's not educational to me, that's trying to flaunt your intellect.

I'm not doubting his contributions, they're certainly far greater than anything I'll do in my lifetime but that's why I find him annoying and made the 99% comment. If he stuck to just teaching but in an engaging way, I'm fine with that but I think he definitely goes out of his way to make sure he's the front and center of attention.

PLUTO!!

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 10:02 pm
by DK Sweets
I watched the video of Tyson discussing the sky issue, and in my opinion, that is just him being funny. In a way, yes, he is flaunting his intellect. But I believe his main point is that he knows that it is a minor point, he knows that most people won't notice it, but he's poking at a guy who went out of his way to be as accurate with the movie as he could be. I view it as him jokingly saying "you missed a spot".

As far as the criticism of Interstellar, in the top video on YouTube he rates the science as an 8 or 9 out of 10 and repeatedly says that he's okay with movies taking cinematic a cinematic license to increase drama. Again, I would say he is joking around with criticisms. And further, by looking up that video I just learned more about science, which is what I feel he is really trying to do (teach science to the general public).

I feel like when he does things like this, what he's really doing is trying to find a cultural point of emphasis to bring people in so he can explain science to them without them quickly getting bored. I don't think he does it to belittle others or to flaunt his intellect. It's completely open to interpretation without actually knowing him, though.

...SKOL Vikings?


[EDIT:] I see now that you said Gravity, not Interstellar. My bad. I don't have time to look it up right now but I might leave a post later if I think he acts like a dick.