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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Et Tu, Pluto? How Pluto got PLUTOED, April 22, 2010
This review is from: The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference (Hardcover)
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"Mercury may be a burnout case, and Mars isn't what he used to be. Venus is a hottie, but she'll make your life hell. With Saturn, it's all about the rings and the bling. Jupiter takes himself waaaaay too seriously. Uranus won't stop with the off-color puns, while Neptune's jokes will leave you cold. But Pluto? Now, that's one funny planet!"
The above comes from this extremely interesting book by Alan Boyle. Boyle is science editor for MSNBC dot com.
As you probably can deduce from above, this book is about what was historically the ninth planet of our solar system: Pluto. Boyle goes into the history of Pluto's discovery (I never thought a space object's history could be so interesting!) and then goes into the politics of Pluto's reclassification. And don't worry! All the critical science is well-presented and easy to understand. (Note that the word "plutoed," found in this review's title, is an actual newly-coined word meaning demoted or devalued.)
From here, Boyle gives us a brief intermission in a chapter entitled "The Lighter Side of Pluto." Boyle presents David Letterman's joke in this chapter, a joke that he said after a historic conference in
Prague:
"Today Pluto packed up and moved out. It said it is now going to spend more time with the family. Even sadder, it hung out around Saturn all day trying to get a job as a moon."
He then resumes his more serious discussion with such chapters entitled "The Great Planet Debate" (that is, what exactly is a planet?) and "Alien Plutos."
The book's final chapter title is the same as the book's title: "The Case for Pluto." After presenting his case, he tells us in the last sentence of this chapter:
"So don't count Pluto out yet. The case is far from closed."
Boyle tells us what this book is on a deeper level:
"It's a case study that shows how politics and personalities can affect the scientific process, and how the scientific process can in turn affect popular culture."
As an added bonus, you'll also learn what Santa has in common with the Easter bunny!
Peppered throughout this book are interesting black and white photographs. My favourite is the frontispiece that shows "Pluto defenders" carrying signs saying "Protest for Pluto" and "Size Doesn't Matter." Also included in the middle of the book are over ten beautiful color photos.
Finally, Boyle tells us everything about Pluto. However, he forgot one thing. The chemical element "plutonium" (atomic number 94) was named in honour of Pluto.
In conclusion, this is an extremely well-written book that honours the one-time planet Pluto. {Today, you can think of Pluto as not being the "ninth of nine" of our solar system planets (that is, eight is enough) but "it's the first of many."} I'd like to leave you with these comparison statistics of Earth and Pluto:
1. Pluto is about 500 times less massive than the Earth.
2. Pluto is about 5.5 times smaller in diameter than the Earth.
3. Pluto is 2.75 times less dense (on average) than the Earth.
4. Pluto is 40 times more distant (on average) from the sun than the Earth.
5. Pluto's day is about 6.5 Earth days.
6. Pluto's year is about 250 Earth years.
7. Pluto has 4 moons while the Earth has one.
(first published 2010; acknowledgements; 15 chapters; main narrative 205 pages; 3 appendices; notes; bibliography; credits; index)
<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Planetary Paradigm Shift, April 2, 2010
This review is from: The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference (Hardcover)
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This is a fresh, accessible and important book. We know the outline of the story - some scientists vote the planet with a Disney dog name off the list of planets - but not the details, the background, and why it all is important. Neil deGrasse Tyson is quoted as saying, "The question should not be how many planets there are, there's no science in that question." And that's true, but there is plenty of science in understanding the solar system and bringing a more rational taxonomy to celestial objects.
The debate hinges on two ways to carve the bits of rock and gas flying around the Sun. Roundness is caused by internal gravity that forces together matter into a round world. Dynamical dominance on the other hand looks at its gravitational effect on other bodies. It's more complicated than the Star Trek test for planethood. "The Starship Enterprise shows up at a given body, they turn on the cameras on the bridge and they see it. Captain Kirk and Spock could look at it and they could say, `That's a star, that's a planet, that's a comet.' They could tell the difference."
In its own right this is a good story, well told. Some science, some history, some politics. As Boyle writes, "If there's still someone out there who thinks science and politics never mix, the story behind the Battle of Prague should change your mind."
For philosophers of science, this battle between dynamicists and geophysicists is an interesting example of Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift of Scientific Revolution (See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) occurring before our eyes. Boyle uses the paradigm phrase once, but does not explain its deeper meaning. A small flaw in an otherwise worthwhile quality book.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
IAU has decided that Mars and Earth are no longer Planets, December 28, 2009
This review is from: The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference (Hardcover)
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When I first read about Pluto's demotion from planet status I assumed that this was for good reasons and based on scientific consensus. I did not think much about it. However, hearing my kids talk about a visit to their school from a well known scientist, Alan Stern, (who opposed the IAU decision) made me realize that it was a lot more to it. After reading this book I know that the IAU resolutions taken in Prague in the summer of 2006 are nothing but an embarrassing disaster.
Folks, I suggest that you don't take down your Pluto's from your planet charts just yet.
This book "The Case for Pluto" is a small hard bound book which presents a fairly detailed history of the planets, the search for the Planet X, the discovery of Pluto, how it was named, how it came to be regarded as a planet and why it probably would not have been called a planet if it was discovered today. The book tells us about the Pluto Underground and NASA's expedition to Pluto (the New Horizons) as well as battle of Prague in 2006 and its repercussions. It is also gives an overview of the composition of and the history of the Asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt.
However, the thrust of the book is focused on the definition of "Planet" and how this definition matters to the search for Exo-Planets as well as to whether Pluto is a planet or not. Therefore I am going to give an overview of the IAU resolutions this book is about.
Definition of a planet >>>>
The upper limit of a planet (the difference between a star and a planet) is easy to understand. When an object is massive enough to sustain fusion it is called a star (or a brown dwarf star in the lower end) and if not it is a planet. The lower limit is more difficult and this is what is under dispute. In Prague in the summer of 2006 a decision was made in the form of resolutions as to what is and is not a planet and Pluto was demoted from being a planet to being a dwarf planet. It was also understood that a dwarf planet is not a real planet.
In general the planet scientists and the planet geologists wanted a simple definition that would be useful for the work that they were doing. The definition they suggested in a pre study mirrored the definition for the upper limit as is given below in the two points below.
1. A planet had to orbit the sun.
2. It had to be able to crush itself into a roundish shape - that is it had to be in hydrostatic equilibrium.
Even though it is sometimes difficult to determine what is round you can define an exact mass (4% of Pluto's mass) that correspond to the magic limit of hydrostatic equilibrium. This is an important distinction because with hydrostatic equilibrium comes the ability to have an atmosphere, sustain life and exhibit geological activity.
If this was the final definition of a planet Pluto would still be a planet.
However, this definition was not acceptable to many other types of Astronomers who felt that a Planet was something very special that had to dominate its part of space so an additional requirement was added. I should say that there were apparently also other political reasons and offended parties that caused many Astronomers to reject the first definition.
3. A planet had to have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit of other objects.
A planet which fulfills the first two requirements but not the third was to be called a dwarf planet, and dwarf planets were not to be considered real planets according to the same resolution. It should be noted that the third criteria mostly demoted Pluto to the status of being a non-planet, but not with absolute certainty. For example, you could still claim that Pluto had cleared its orbit of other objects and you could claim that Neptune had not. To make it clear that Pluto was not a planet yet another resolution was added that specifically stated that Pluto was not a planet.
Since many "planets" of various sizes (including Giant Planets) found in other solar systems does not seem to have cleared their orbit of other objects the third requirement/resolution is causing quite a bit of a problem for scientists working with Exo-Planets. For example, if Mars or even Earth was located where Pluto is they would probably not be called planets using the final IAU definition (thereof my provocative title). There even seems to be giant planets that are dwarf planets and not planets. What would call a giant planet which is a dwarf planet? That is quite a bit of an oxymoron. In addition, one day we might find large planets with life which aren't planets according to the IAU definition. In summary the IAU definition seems to have been outdated already.
Concluding thoughts
This book considers both sides of the issue and highlights how complicated the question about Pluto really is. It suggests that a planet is defined (as originally intended by the pre study group) as an object large enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, and that we then classify planets into classes just like we do for stars. Pluto would be a dwarf planet but still a planet. In my opinion this is the only reasonable approach, hands down. Modern planetary science and the search for exo-planets demand it. I should add that I also thought that the three appendixes, the end notes, and the index were very helpful.
In short, this was a surprisingly engaging and interesting book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest interest in Astronomy.
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