A linguistic catastrophe... 'dwarf planet' is not a planet!

"Pluto is a dwarf planet, but we are now faced with the absurdity that a
dwarf planet is not a planet," Gingerich retorted. "Is a human dwarf not
a human?"

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/langu...es/003504.html

Paul Neave wrote:
"Pluto is a dwarf planet, but we are now faced with the absurdity that a
dwarf planet is not a planet," Gingerich retorted. "Is a human dwarf not
a human?"

Is this new?

After all, we've been living with the absurdity that a minor planet is
not a planet for decades now...

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html

John Savard

wrote:

Paul Neave wrote:
"Pluto is a dwarf planet, but we are now faced with the absurdity that a
dwarf planet is not a planet," Gingerich retorted. "Is a human dwarf not
a human?"

Is this new?

After all, we've been living with the absurdity that a minor planet is
not a planet for decades now...


And thus the IAU need for a dictum which reads: A dog is a marshmellow but
we will call it a Dwarf-dog!


http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html

John Savard

Paul Neave wrote:

"Pluto is a dwarf planet, but we are now faced with the absurdity that a
dwarf planet is not a planet," Gingerich retorted. "Is a human dwarf not
a human?"

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/langu...es/003504.html

A dwarf star is still a star, unless it's a brown dwarf, then it's a
super giant gas planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf

Interestingly, in the Meghar scale of planetary mass, the cutoff at the
high end is 5000 earth masses, which is roughly 15 Jupiter masses,
which is in the ballpark of 12 Jupiter masses. The next level up is
dwarf stars, and one level down from the true dwarf planets - Ceres -
is certainly irregular asteroid and plutoid fragments. Pluto is not a
dwarf planet.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org/?p=166

The Meghar scale could be adjusted slightly to reflect natural
logarithms, but then it would lose its simplicity and elegance. It has
already stood the test of time as far as I'm concerned. Anything longer
than a few weeks with no complaints and regular use in the modern era
of internet science, is long enough for me.

I think everyone must agree here that dwarf planets and brown dwarfs
are still planets, irrespective of the ill defined criterion of 'lane
clearing'. Whoever thought up this lane clearing bit needs to have
their head examined. They have done a great disservice to science. It
simply will not stand the test of time, certainly with respect to
extrasolar systems, already just days out of the gate, it is failing
spectacularly.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org