[kd1966]

Hey, is UT the same as GMT?? They seem to kinda interswap those 2 terms.......

[Knight Rider]

Yeah, Universal Time and Greenwich mean time are the same.

[kanaloa]

Something tells me the little animal isn't on that map by mistake either.

[JabbaPapa]

Someone tells me that UT and GMT are not exactly the same either, and you'd better get the difference right somehow

Oh but I forget, there are geeks in the audience.


Now ... is that +1 +0 or -1 whatever you have now

[JabbaPapa]

Something tells me the little animal isn't on that map by mistake either.

What is that thing anyway ???

What's it smiling for ??

EDIT : hehehe

[Knight Rider]

Sorry, i'm reaching the confused stage. Should we me pm'ing now or on the day of the xxxx xxxx?

[fire13]

Sorry, i'm reaching the confused stage. Should we me pm'ing now or on the day of the xxxx xxxx?

Well I've not PM'd yet & will not for a few days.

[kd1966]

Something tells me the little animal isn't on that map by mistake either.

I'll research the famous scientist and see his view...............

[JabbaPapa]

Famous scientists, strange animals, and islands ...

hmmmm, now what can that possibly mean ???

If this were a different world I'd start screaming about Godlearner heresies

All roads lead to Rome, and it seems that there is also more than one itinerary to the place in question...

[McBlzr]

Famous scientists, strange animals, and islands ...

hmmmm, now what can that possibly mean ???

If this were a different world I'd start screaming about Godlearner heresies

All roads lead to Rome, and it seems that there is also more than one itinerary to the place in question...

Furry Animal

Moon
<a href="http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fullmoonbigkb9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/3128/fullmoonbigkb9.th.jpg" border="0"></a>

Scientists


One scientist's perspective

Noted astronomer and historian, Brad Schaefer, of Louisiana State University wrote to Dan Vergano about Pluto's changed status. Here is an excerpt from their e-mail exchange:

"Astronomy and the public have had a long and rich history of changing the number of planets. In ancient times, at least the Mesopotamians thought that the planet Venus seen in the morning sky was different from the planet Venus seen in the evening sky, so they counted 6 wanderers in the heavens. Only later did the number of planets shrink by one when people realized that it was the same planet. To the unaided eye, there are only five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). But many old societies added the other wanderers in the skies (the Sun and Moon), with planets being the 'wanderers' above, so as to distinguish them from the fixed stars. In the western tradition, this made for 7 wanderers and hence the number and naming of the days of the week. With the realization that the Sun was the center of our Solar System, Earth was demoted from being the Center-Of-The-Universe to simply being another planet, making for 8 planets (including the Sun and Moon). In the century or two after Copernicus, it was realized that our Sun is a completely different ball-of-wax (er, ball-of-gas) and can't be counted as a planet; while various planets had moons of which our Moon is an example and so it should not be counted either. So we went back down to 6 planets. Then came the discovery of Uranus in 1781, making 7 planets. The asteroids were discovered in the early 1800s (before Neptune) and for about fifty years the big four (the only ones then known) were counted as planets; so we were up to 11. But in the last half of the 1800's, many asteroids were discovered and it was realized that the big four couldn't be counted as planets, so we were back to 7. Neptune was discovered in 1846, taking us to 8 planets. Pluto was discovered in 1930, taking us to the 9 planets that we all grew up with. In the 1990's, the asteroid story repeats with big ice balls out around Pluto being discovered making many astronomers wonder whether to count Pluto. Recently, one of these ice balls was found (informally named 'Xena') to be bigger than Pluto, hence suggesting to many people that it was a planet also (making for 10 total). From the IAU meeting [last] week, the vote went to not counting Pluto (or Xena), mainly due to them being small and only one of many, so we are back to 8 planets. The history I've just sketched (at least within the western tradition) has the number of planets going as 6-5-7-8-6-7-11-7-8-9-10-8. And that is not counting the hundreds of planets discovered in the last decade around nearby Sun-like stars. So a historical view of it all is that expanding knowledge keeps forcing updates in the accepted number of planets. It so happens that we are now apparently on the cusp of another such change. No worries!

"With all this change, it might seem like astronomy regularly overthrows our view of the Universe. But I think that this wrong, or at least in regards to 'regularly overthrows our view.' In general, science advances *not* by overthrowing previous strong conclusions, but rather by *adding* previously undreamed of possibilities. For example, the Greeks largely solved geometry, but the great discoveries of non-Euclidean geometry in the 1800s invalidated none of the old work, as it merely added on wonderful new types of possibilities with non-flat space (as used by Einstein!). Kepler overthrew no prior knowledge, he only added on three new mathematical laws that the planets obeyed. 'Hubble' did not overthrow any established knowledge on galaxies, but he did add knowledge that proved one side of a long-running debate (that galaxies are isolated 'island universes' like our own Milky Way). The Big Bang idea merely extrapolated backwards in time what a currently expanding Universe had to have done in the past, hence adding a richness and detail that had been previously unimagined. Science results at the forefront of research are batted back-and-forth as part of normal analysis and testing of ideas, but once conclusions are thoroughly tested and make it into the textbooks, the results are known with high confidence and are essentially never refuted thereafter. I have a large collection of astronomy textbooks and popular books from the Civil War on, and in reading through them I don't see anything significant that is *wrong*. The pre-1900 textbooks spend almost their entire text talking about the motions in the heavens and what is visible on the planets (all perfectly correct), with no words about the nature of stars, the existence of galaxies, or any idea of cosmology. What I see is that the old textbooks simply don't know about great discoveries around the corner, and so they are just not as rich and complex as they will be later.

"Does anyone care if Ceres is not a planet? Not really. It is only Pluto that is getting the buzz on the street. I hear this from third graders, neighbors, and people down at the store. Judging from the small talk, the reason is mainly that they grew up being taught that Pluto is a planet and something like that shouldn't change. There is a very strong and universal feeling in the American public about this. The astronomers at the IAU are ignoring all this so as to try to make a definition based on scientific utility.

"Astronomy is a science with a product that does not improve everyday life. Yet, philosophers, thinkers, and all individual people in all cultures in all ages ask the same questions of 'What is our world like?', 'Are there other worlds?', and 'What is the age and fate of the Universe?'. In the past, these questions have been answered with myths and legends and folk ideas. But recently, astronomy and other sciences have been able to measure the properties of new worlds and to determine the real age and fate of the Universe. For questions relating to the physical universe, modern science has been finally answering the age-old questions with reality, and not with myths."