Friday, August 18, 2006

Nine and no more

If you ever wanted to see how an incestuous series of blogs can rapidly promulgate a nonsensical meme (and I’m sure that’s an ambition nurtured by most of the populace), here’s a good example.

On the Daily Duck I posted an article decrying the International Astronomers Union’s craven decision to save Pluto’s status as a planet by allowing in all sorts of riff-raff, including some chav of a lump of rock named after a TV show about a Warrior Princess. (And if you think the G8 is pompous enough, they’ve got nothing on the IAU for self-proclaimed importance: these guys meet up to decide the fate of whole galaxies).

This sparked an arcane debate about the definitions of planets and moons, which was picked up on by Susan’s Husband in the comments thread, and subsequently by AOG at Thought Mesh, both of whom introduced a level of technicality far beyond my comprehension.

Fortunately, David on his new Secret Blog proposed an excellent solution: if we upgrade the Moon to planet status, via Isaac Asimov’s Double Planet theory, we can ditch Pluto and all these other piddling pretenders, and keep the numbers in the solar system to a traditional and elite nine: Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.

Henceforward you can do your bit for the Keep the Planets to Nine Campaign by always referring to the Moon as a planet in conversation, and I will take care of the highbrow element by lobbying for Clare de Lune by Debussy to be inserted into Holst’s Planets Suite for all future performances.

8 comments:

Brit said...

The emotional investment is interesting.

The planets always intrigued me as a boy - the exotic names seem to give each a sort of personality. Perhaps that explains the intensity of this debate amongst big boys.

Oroborous said...

I believe that Susan's Husband is AOG.

Susan's Husband said...

Yes, I thought that was obvious. The reason is that I got this blogspot identity originally was to comment on family related weblogs where that name instantly identifies me. I don't have the energy to maintain two different blogspot identities.

Brit said...

thought it was the other way around, and AOG is Susan's Husband.

Oroborous is worse: he pretends to be called both Noam Chomsky and, even more improbably, some weirdo called 'Michael Herdegen'.

Brit said...

I've long suspected that 'Harry Eagar' is really just one of Peter's aliases.

That or 'creeper'...

David said...

Whaddya mean "if it's a blog"? The only way it could be more of a blog is if I dished on Claire Dane's ugly outfits.

Oroborous said...

Well, I can't argue about "weirdo".
And there probably are more "Noam Chomsky"s on Earth than there are "Michael Herdegen"s - although I do know two of the latter...

Oroborous said...

Well, Peter, it can get wearying, as you might imagine. With my rugged good looks and weaned-on-Freud modern masculine mentality, the feminine demands on my time are nearly overwhelming.

Even a supremely confident and optimistic transhuman-wanna-be uberman like myself occasionally gets performance anxiety when faced with delivering life-changing experiences night after night...
Sometimes a quiet evening lit by the soft glow of the firepla-- computer screen is just the tonic that's needed.