Sad Little Pluto

A meter is what we wish it to be. Just as a planet is what we wish it to be.

A meter is "the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second"

A Planet is "a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit."

Inelegant definition of a meter.Formulae should be elegant.They could have tweaked the length.
That means the meter would be elegantly tied to the speed of light,not to that dog's dinner of a fraction.

Inelegant definition of a meter.Formulae should be elegant.They could have tweaked the length.
That means the meter would be elegantly tied to the speed of light,not to that dog's dinner of a fraction.

"Ye canna change the laws o' physics"

The length of the meter is arbitrary,it's length has nothing to do with physics.

It's far too late now but calculations would be vastly simplified if they had defined it as the distance light travels in exactly 1/300,000,000 th of a second. (As its just a microscopic tad off it now).

Thats all I said. Dead simple.

(Didn't think this simple little observation would cause such fuss)

:roll:

When the wise Socrates wanted to define something, he would ask his peers a question. He would ask them lets say what the concept “Planet” meant to them?

He would listen carefully to all the answers; he would then adduce the various descriptions of the concept. He would show that though different in detail, they have some common characteristics by which they are all recognisable as what they are; and this expressed in words, is the definition.

So how did the IAU come to define "Planet", what questions did they ask and what answers did they get? What plain reasoning did they use ?
Did they ask the right questions and did they ask them to the right people?

I am not sure if Socrates ever applied his logic to the "Planet" concept but if he did I am sure would make interesting reading.

“Each of us carries within us a solar system view, a set of assumptions about what the Planets are – what some call a paradigm- that forms the very questions we allow ourselves to ask and determines our view of future possibilities. ”Parody on Francis Moore Lappe


Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org