Illinois Declares Pluto a Planet 512
Posted
by
timothy
from the after-ruling-out-pebble-and-mailing-tube dept.
from the after-ruling-out-pebble-and-mailing-tube dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "The legislators in Illinois, always on the lookout for more places to find voters, have passed a resolution declaring Pluto is a planet. I'm not sure what else can be said here, except that — besides overstepping their jurisdiction just a wee bit — they make a couple of scientific howlers in the resolution itself."
Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Everybody knows Pluto is a dog.
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Everybody knows Pluto is a dog.
And in Illinois, he is on the right side of the door?
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
I suspect that in Illinois, no one can hear you scream!
Hey - that'd be awesome on a T-shirt!
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Consider the work they do and how much they manage to get paid for it. My definition of idiot doesn't quite capture that. "Idiot savant" comes closer.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This just proves that fact that politicians are freaking idiots.
You needed further proof?
I take exception to the fucking summary though. "Always on the lookout for more votes" sounds funny but fails to take note of the fact that in Illinois only the dead vote. Is Pluto covered with graveyards that we don't know about or something?
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Way to expose your ignorance.
Pluto is the fucking king of the underworld!
If you want to vote the dead, he's the guy to see.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine poor Scientist (RIP) when he finds out there was indeed a underworld, Pluto is really its king and he owns Pluto.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This just proves that fact that politicians are freaking idiots.
You needed further proof?
I take exception to the fucking summary though. "Always on the lookout for more votes" sounds funny but fails to take note of the fact that in Illinois only the dead vote. Is Pluto covered with graveyards that we don't know about or something?
Actually, Pluto is renowned for its penguin colonies [wikipedia.org].
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
In further news, the State of Illinois passes a law regulating the value of pi to exactly 3.000.
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
In further news, the State of Illinois passes a law regulating the value of pi to exactly 3.000.
You realize that happened, right? Only it isn't 3.0, it's 3.2 [purdue.edu]
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)
Corrupt idiots, especially in Illinois. The last Illinois Governor we elected was just impeached and removed from office, the one before that is in prison for selling commercial drivers licenses to people who not only couldn't drive, but couldn't read either. People died horribly, including a family that burned to death.
Since I was old enough to vote in 1970, every time an incumbant was beat by the other party's candidate, he went to prison.
Our junior Senator is being looked into for perjury.
Our state has many, many budget problems as well as other pressing issues, but they're wasting time on crap like deciding whether Pluto is a planet!
I don't know who my Congressman is now, as he was just appointed Transportation Secretary. He did get my respect, as once I emailed him with a question about Illinois law, and he answered quickly and helpfully.
Did I mention that they were arrogent and hubristic? AFAIK the only two honest politicians in the state are Durbin and Obama.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention that the legislature still hasn't passed a special elections law, even though Blagojevich was arrested almost three fucking months ago.
Hell, they could pass a law declaring Roland Burris's appointment/senate seat purchase temporary and calling for a special election to replace his corrupt senate seat purchasing ass.
Or they could spend their time trying to fix the state budget.
But they have to waste their time on stupid shit like this.
Fuck.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
So, there's a dog in orbit out past Neptune? Is that what they mean by the Dog Star, what with Pluto being so famous?
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Not only Pluto, but also the government of Illinois it seems!
If Illinois Says it's a Planet, It's a Planet (Score:5, Funny)
Don't argue. There's already three astronomers at the bottom of Lake Michigan who "begged to differ."
It's the Chicago way.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If Illinois Says it's a Planet, It's a Planet (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's plutocrats that donate.
oblig spaceballs (Score:3, Funny)
We were lost, none of us knew where we were. Then Harry starts 'feeling around on all the trees' and he says... "I got it we on Pluto", I say, 'Harry how can ya tell", and he says, "from the bark, you dummies... Ha-ha! From the bark!"
This just in (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot declares Illinois retarded
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot declares Illinois retarded
Too bad that Craigslist [slashdot.org] has beaten /. to it.
Re:This just in (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This just in (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that isn't as scary as you think. The biblical reference [purplemath.com] your making can logically be concluded to 3.14 and not 3 exactly.
This just in (Score:3, Funny)
Illinois redefines "retarded" to mean "most smartiest place in the world."
Politicians wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Politicians wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, the more time they spend doing silly crap like this, the less time the spend screwing something important up. It's too bad it wastes tax dollars to do it, though...
Would you rather that they go after hookers on craigslist?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I just made a complaint call. (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in Illinois, and just took some time from work to make two calls expressing my displeasure at the silliness.
I got a hold of a live person at Represeative "Bob" Ritas office and left a message for State Senator Emil Jones. Anyone else in Illinois should do the same with their representatives.
As an "Illinoisan," I apologize for the circus that is our state government. I am officially fed up.
Have you been there? (Score:2)
Although they can measure in different ways I wouldn't act like such a jackass unless you've actually been to the planet.
Also who cares what it's called. I see it as refreshing that they're at least not trying to deny its existence like the ID crowd do with evolution.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been there it sucks. I was hoping to get some decent snowboarding in but there wasn't any powder and the ice was just shredded into pieces more like rocks than ice if you ask me. In the end we just gave up and went to Titan where the conditions are always reliable.
Now you might see it at refreshing that politicians think they can legislate on scientific issues but this is really just a less idiotic case of people legislating PI to be 3. Those folks didn't deny the existence of PI but they did think
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This is nothing like say PI is 3. One state declaring it a planet has no effect on the rest of the world or even the people in the state.
Before you get so strung up on "politicians think they can legislate on scientific issues" I'd just like to remind you it was a bunch on elitist assholes in the first place that declared it wasn't in fact a planet anymore.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but some might say you get what you've been given, if you don't get yours I won't get mine as well. Doesn't make it so. My sink isn't full of fishes for a start.
I declare Illinois (Score:5, Funny)
and I declare Illinois a corn field.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget about soybeans!
Illinois is a world all it's own... (Score:2)
Check the track record of leaders. Less than squeaky-clean past governors and other politicians with criminal records (mostly corruption-related)... what's that place called... Crook County?
I was personally shaken down in Champaign just this past week. (I'll spell it out some other time, when pending legal action I am taking is concluded.)
I went out of my way not to drink any of the water in Illinois, so as not to become personally corrupted by whatever may be in it.
Woody Allen (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
From the Illinois legislature press conference: (Score:2)
Press: "When will we send a man to our new planet Pluto?
Illinois legislature: "As soon as Rod Blagojevich has his bags packed."
In other news... (Score:5, Informative)
In other news, a giant robotic Neil deGrasse Tyson was seen bursting through the walls of the Illinois Capitol Building, saying, "Pluto is a Plutoid. You have 30 seconds to comply."
Attention, people of Illinois (Score:4, Funny)
we have duly noted your recent reconsideration of Pluto and its classification. We appreciate this sign of good-will and will take it into account in our upcoming invasion of Earth.
Although I can make no promises at this point, I am able to inform you that sparing your lives is currently viewed favourably amongst our population.
Yours sincerely,
Gral Rex,
Minister of Earth Affairs, Government of Pluto
p.s. to the rest of mankind: You are all still toast.
Just Wondering (Score:3, Funny)
Being a planet is a valuable thing. So, how much did it cost Pluto?
Politicians need to stay out of Science! (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a good reason for this ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Pluto isn't a planet, it will cost a bunch of money to replace all the fifty year old science texts.
If Pluto is a planet, they can keep using the fifty year old science texts.
What, you think I'm kidding! You obviously aren't a teacher.
Re:There is a good reason for this ... (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't publishers try to sell "new editions" to the districts every six months, or is that only a college problem?
Re:There is a good reason for this ... (Score:5, Funny)
There's an easy solution to that, just use 100 year old science texts, Pluto won't be in them at all.
Four Inner Planets, Four Outer Planets (Score:2)
My grandfather taught me when I was 8 that there are four inner (solid) planets, and four outer (gaseous) planets, separated by the asteroid belt. Anything else is not a planet, and Pluto certainly should not be.
But oh, if Illinois says it's true then it must be!
Stop the Press! (Score:2)
I can see the revised textbooks now:
"Pluto is the second largest dwarf planet* in the Solar System's Kuiper Belt.
* Except in the State of Illinois."
Well when... (Score:2)
They missed something. (Score:5, Insightful)
The law is written thusly: "that as Pluto passes overhead through Illinois night skies, that it be reestablished with full planetary status"
Because Illinois is a northerly state... does Pluto ever actually pass "overhead"? Ever? Pluto's orbital inclination to the sun is about 11 degrees at maximum. The latitude of Illinois is much higher than that, at about 36 degrees. So Pluto may never pass through their air space, even if the borders of Illinois are extended upwards to infinity.
But since Pluto can never truly be "overhead", does that mean the law never actually goes into effect?
Comments? Suggestions?
Re:They missed something. (Score:5, Informative)
Because Illinois is a northerly state... does Pluto ever actually pass "overhead"? Ever?
Yes.
Pluto's orbital inclination to the sun is about 11 degrees at maximum. The latitude of Illinois is much higher than that, at about 36 degrees. So Pluto may never pass through their air space, even if the borders of Illinois are extended upwards to infinity.
You are thinking about the inclination relative to the sun's equator - however, Pluto's orbital inclination to the Earth's plane is more than that: A bit over 17 degrees.
Earth's own axis is tilted 23.5 degrees, and as there's no obvious integer resonance between their orbital periods, Pluto will at some time be visible overhead at as
high as +/- ~40.5 degrees (17+23.5) - which is surprisingly close to Chicago's latitude of ~41 degrees. So either they got lucky, or someone actually thought about that.
However, Pluto right now is at 17.5 degrees south, so it will never be in zenith north of 6 degrees north (23.5-17.5) or - very roughly - Panama. And due to Pluto's loooooong orbital period of
about 250 Earth years, this will not change significantly for a very long time.
On an unrelated note: WhyTF is slashdot eating my degree signs - and not allowing the ampersand HTML entity?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You are thinking about the inclination relative to the sun's equator - however, Pluto's orbital inclination to the Earth's plane is more than that: A bit over 17 degrees.
Earth's own axis is tilted 23.5 degrees, and as there's no obvious integer resonance between their orbital periods, Pluto will at some time be visible overhead at as
high as +/- ~40.5 degrees (17+23.5) - which is surprisingly close to Chicago's latitude of ~41 degrees. So either they got lucky, or someone actually thought about that.
No, not quite. You're assuming that the ascending node of Pluto lines up perfectly with the current axis of the Earth, so that when Pluto is 17 degrees above the ecliptic, it's also at its most northerly. But that isn't actually the case.
Pluto's highest declination (angle above the plane of the Earth's equator) is actually only about 24 degrees. So, in fact Pluto does *not* ever pass directly overhead in Illinois.
Unless you want to wait for the Earth's axis to precess to the right alignment. That cycle take
Never gonna happen (Score:3, Insightful)
This resolution will never kick in, will it? The text says:
But Pluto will never be directly overhead in Illinois. The state is too far from the equator to ever get pointed straight at the ecliptic. Or does the tilt of Earth's axis and the inclination of Pluto's orbit really put it overhead of Illinois once in a while? Any astronomy nerds care to calculate when that will happen?
Re:Never gonna happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, Pluto's orbit is about 16Â farther from the plane than Earth's. Illinois' latitude is about 37Â, and Earth's axial tilt is about 23.5Â. So, we can have a minimum of 13.5Â of Illinois' "overhead" to the earth's plane, and a maximum of 60.5Â. So the orbit of Pluto is indeed overhead Illinois many times in the american summer. The odds that Pluto itself is in the spot are astronomically (literally) low.
PS: Fuck slashdot and it's lack of unicode support. And while we're at it, inline TeX would be nice to.
Tomorrow's Headline... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So Roland Burris is the Pluto of senators?
The Pluto Proposition (Score:4, Funny)
Astrological society: "Demoted... you're being demoted."
Pluto: "I don't understand... why?"
Astrological society: "Honestly, your just not up to code, you know? Most planets have certain criteria they must follow, criteria that you just don't meet. You understand right?"
Pluto: "I sure as hell do not!"
Astrological society: "Well, it's like this... realistically... well, your an ice cube, basically and well... we mistook for a real planet. But we do apologize for the confusion."
Pluto: "OMG. This is so embarrassing."
Illinois: "It's okay Pluto we understand. Hey... how would like to be governor? Seriously, we have a spot open all the time? Tell you what, if you agree to govern us then we'll let you be a planet."
Pluto: "Uhm... you do realize that in all reality, I am a giant ice cube right?"
Illinois: "That is neither her nor there... look, when the time is right... it'll happen. You seem like a smart fellow, and together I think we can get a lot accomplished. Just remember though, when things go bad, you have to go back to being an ice cube. We don't need you parading your mistakes around for the whole galaxy to see like that last guy."
This is a resolution, not a law... (Score:3, Interesting)
The actual resolution is:
So, all this really says is that 1) the Illinois State Senate would like to see Pluto reestablished, in name, as a planet, and 2) that March 13, 2009 is declared "Pluto Day". There's nothing here about requiring the science books to be changed in Illinois, nothing about legislating the value of Pi, nothing important. Did anyone bother to go through the other resolutions that the 96th general assembly pass? Are they meddling in peoples' ages by passing a resolution that citizens over the age of 49 should be, in their opinion, considered wise and be treated with respect?
Here's why this is important. If this silly overreaction to unimportant issues continues, when it is finally important, your voices are ignored because you all sound like a bunch of whining losers who don't understand the difference between a law and a resolution so your opinion is unimportant.
Re:This is a resolution, not a law... (Score:5, Insightful)
With Blago, Burris, Todd Stroger's extreme Cook county sales taxes (Chicago for the rest of you), Sheriff Tom Dart suing craigslist...
I'm embarrassed to live here. Passing a "Pluto is a planet" resolution is over the top for this legislature compared with all the other fun stuff going on. It furthers Illinois as a laughing stock, tarnishing the reputation of the state, it's people and businesses.
That is reason enough to get my goat, straw that bropke the camels back per se and make some phone calls and try and remind my representatives to get the bleep on track.
Too right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. I vote that Illinois also changes the definition of a mile and shortens it so that their residents can get more miles to the gallon! I also vote that they cut the definition of an hour down to 30mins to shorten my working day.
Consensus and standards be damned, they're just definitions!
Re: (Score:2)
Question:
is zero part of the natural numbers?
Some say it is, some say it isn't. Personally I do not care if you define it when you use it. It doesn't make ANY difference if Pluto is a planet or not since it does not change ANYTHING.
There are 8 planets in the universe right now, does that make you happy?
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Well, I see the exception of disallowing some operations with 0 or infinity in them as the biggest failure of mathematics. In mathematics, you try to remove exceptions, and simplify complex sets of rules into a simple formula.
My theory is, that they miss the temporal component, and that in fact 0 and infinity are complex numbers of (0,t) and (inf,t), where t is a sequencing variable. That way you could easily divide by zero and get out infinity, but not lose any of the information, that makes their use so p
Re: (Score:2)
"Some say it is, some say it isn't. Personally I do not care if you define it when you use it. It doesn't make ANY difference if Pluto is a planet or not since it does not change ANYTHING."
Yeah changes nothing, apart from say, how we define what is and isn't categorised as a planet? I mean like, let's re-define the symbol "=" to be the addition operator, I mean that changes nothing right? "=" is the equality operator, does that make you happy?
When we're auditing the skies, do you not think it might be impor
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yeah changes nothing, apart from say, how we define what is and isn't categorised as a planet? I mean like, let's re-define the symbol "=" to be the addition operator, I mean that changes nothing right? "=" is the equality operator, does that make you happy?"
The operator = has a clear funtion and can be used all over.
You can't do (3 + planet)
sqrt(planet)
planet + (planet)' = moon
People are treating the IAU's words like they're God's own.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cool your jets, turbo. It's just a stupid state legislature nobody cares about wasting their tax payers' dollars on stupid shit nobody will take seriously anyway. Outside of the "roflnoobs" we all had when we read this, it's surely not worth getting this fired up over.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
There are 8 planets in the universe right now, does that make you happy?
In the UNIVERSE? Might as well say the Earth is flat.
Re:Too right! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too right! (Score:4, Informative)
As you can see, the word 'planet' is only defined for the Solar system. There are no planets outside of it - those are exoplanets! And we do not currently possess enough data to make conclusions if their generation process and other characteristics has anything to do with our planets'
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah. I vote that Illinois also changes the definition of a mile and shortens it so that their residents can get more miles to the gallon!
Oh, I know, they could call it a kilometer. It could be that a mile is 1.6 kilometers.
Re:Too right! (Score:5, Funny)
If they shorten the mile enough, they can also change the name to meter.
Re:Too right! (Score:4, Funny)
My penis IS a mile long, you insensit-
......Sorry, got a bit excited and blacked out there for a while ......
-ive clod!
Re: (Score:2)
Consensus and standards be damned, they're just definitions!
Yeah, cause there's so much consensus on whether Pluto is a planet right now. If anything, you should be bitching about the astronomers who decided to redefine it in the first place. There was plenty of consensus before they stepped in.
Re:Too right! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. I vote that Illinois also changes the definition of a mile and shortens it so that their residents can get more miles to the gallon! I also vote that they cut the definition of an hour down to 30mins to shorten my working day.
LOL. Next time it'll be a someone saying a gigabtye is 1,000,000,000 bytes!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
a gigabtye might be, I don't know what that is.
Re:Too right! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Another anti-scientific moron who doesn't undestand that because a definition is arbitrary that doesn't mean it CAN BE UTTERLY RANDOM, as it would have to be for Pluto to be called a planet but Eris not to be called one.
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
There are now 8 planets in the UNIVERSE because they defined a planet as a body orbiting the sun. The definition sucks so I have no problem if states are defining a planet as something else than a small club of grey men(IAU).
You can say that it's "just a definition", but I don't see where it's the place of a legislature to make scientific definitions to scientists. Legislatures supposedly have better things to do. If they don't, they should recess until that changes.
The IAU definition of a planet is more extensive than that. Also, while I haven't read the IAU text, I doubt their definition means that there are only eight planets in the universe. The only thing I don't like about their definition is that their use of "dwarf" in "dwarf planet" basically means "not a planet", and I think that's inconsistent and improper use of the word.
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
"The IAU definition of a planet is more extensive than that."
A celestial body that is (a) 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.
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"If an elected group of people decide that pi equals 3, who are a bunch of snobbish mathematicians to deny that?"
See how fucking retarded that sounds?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Aaaah, now it becomes obvious why you're promoting ignorance so heavily. My guess is you base too much of your identity in being "smarter" than others.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a huge difference. There is a rationale for the value of Pi. Claiming it as a different value is plain wrong.
The meaning of a word like planet is arbitrary. It means what the consensus says it means. There is no right or wrong answer.
The non-problem that the IAU was trying to solve is that though some things are clearly planets (e.g. Jupiter, the Earth) some things are clearly not (Most asteroids, moons etc.) there are some bodies that are in a grey area. So what? Most nouns are not perfectly unamb
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
who are a bunch of snobbish scients to deny that?
They are, uh, the appropriate scientific institution. They're also, you know, informed?
Say what you like about the IAU defintion, but its a scientific definition made by scientists.
When the powers that be start defining things they aren't properly informed on, in a manner different to the rest of the world, things get pointlessly confused.
If an elected group of people were to decide that within their durestriction, the speed of light in vacuum is 2 * 10^8 m/s, this changes nothing about the state of the
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Well it depends on how you define SUN
Our Sun is a star called Sol We call it the Sun because it is what we are in orbit around. If we were in orbit around an other star we would call that Star the Sun.
The more formal defination of a Planet is the following.
1. It Orbits around a Sun.
2. Its shape is Spherical
3. It is large enough to have or can attract and clear up other objects in its orbit.
#3 is the problem with Pluto with its orbit crossing Neptune once the time gets right and Neptune gets to close it will just Suck up Pluto and not the other way around. So even it Pluto was the size of the earth if it was where Pluto is now it wouldn't be considered a planet.
Re: (Score:2)
"Our Sun is a star called Sol We call it the Sun because it is what we are in orbit around. If we were in orbit around an other star we would call that Star the Sun."
And if my anut had a moustache, she would be my uncle.
The Sun is a clearly defined object with a name(Sun or Sol for people who like to switch to Latin for no apparent reason) otherwise the definition would refer to A sun not THE Sun.
I don't get how much people are trying to wiggle themselves out of the hole created by the IAU while still defen
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
#3 is the problem with Pluto with its orbit crossing Neptune once the time gets right and Neptune gets to close it will just Suck up Pluto and not the other way around.
I would imagine that most of the planets will one day end up either being enveloped by the sun or by Jupiter. I agree that it is ridiculous that Illinois would "declare" Pluto a planet, but the IAU was the first to be ridiculous by arbitrarily drawing a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. It's a more rigid definition based on increased understanding of the phenomena.
Grandfathering in Pluto because people used to think it was a planet would be no more acceptable than giving every large Kuiper object that we discover (and we've already discovered ones that are bigger than Pluto) planetary status.
Either way the schoolkids are gonna be pissed off, but it's not a popularity contest.
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with having Pluto being a regular planet not that you have nine planets, it's that you end up with a much larger number of planets as a lot of kuiper belt objects are better matches for planet status than Pluto.
Pluto doesn't look like any of the other planets in other ways, such as having a 'moon' so big that its center of mass isn't inside itself. In fact Charon is 11% of Pluto's mass, and while the Moon (Luna) looks huge, its mass is only 1% of the Earth's.
Just as interesting, Charon doesn't orbit Pluto, making it the only 'planet' with a non-orbiting satellite. Aditionally this satelitte has a mean distance that is less than 20 times Pluto's radius. To put that in perspective, that'd make the Moon orbit at 120,000 km - about a third that of its current orbit. And if we wanted to put it even more into perspective, the Moon would also have to grow significantly to something like 3 times its current size (haven't done the math). While that would be interesting from an astronomical point of view, I'm fairly certain we wouldn't enjoy the increased gravitational pull. If you think high tide is bad now, imagine what it'd be like if the ground itself moved up and down with the tides.
We use definitions, like the word planet, to make things easier. If we can use one definition to describe the planets, and then have to go "oh, and it's okay if they don't lie in the same plane as everything else, as long as they're no more than 50 AU away from the Sun, and have a huge eccentric orbit compared to every other planet", then it doesn't really fit the same definition.
In fact, just looking at orbital eccentricity it'd difficult to argue that Pluto (and Mercury) is in the same class as the other 7 planets. Mercury has a slight excuse since it's 100 times closer to the sun.
But, to jump on your main point:
"declaring that what everyone had said was a planet for the last 80 years is now not one"
That's the thing about science. Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it'd stop.
What have we discovered/come to realise in the last 80 years, that we took for granted back then? How about asbestos not being good for you [wikipedia.org]? Smoking not being good for you? That you could in fact go faster than the speed of sound? That DDT isn't the safest way to get rid of bugs?
How about something a bit more down to earth? Like plate tectonics [wikipedia.org]. I mean, if you were to go back in time to the 1930s, when Pluto was discovered, and told people that the earth's surface was made up of large slabs of rock, floating on an inner sea of molten rock, and that these massive plates moved, shifting continents around and that the Earth of today looks nothing like the earth of 100 million years ago, you'd either be comitted to mental 'care', or just outright laughed at.
But, if you prefer sticking to your guns, defending something that we thought was correct 80 years ago, then why not do one better and defend astrology. That's even older.
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Neptune will never "suck up" Pluto. They are in a 3:2 mean motion resonance, so although their orbits cross, they will never collide.
http://www.nineplanets.org/plutodyn.html [nineplanets.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance [wikipedia.org]
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:4, Informative)
The is the same as our moon the official name is Moon, it is commonly referred to in sci-fi as Luna.
So if you were in orbit around a planet that orbits a different star you could refer to it as the local star or local sun or by its official name, such as the 2nd nearest star to us being Proxima Centauri (of the Alpha Centauri solar system).
Re:Yo mama is so fat... (Score:5, Funny)
Yo mama is so fat...Illinois declared her a planet
Yo mama is so ugly, astronomers who look at her think they're looking at Jupiter's moon IO
Yo mama is so old, her boyfriends CARBON-date her
Yo mama is so old and fat, her stomach is actually fusing helium with neon to produce magnesium just before she turns into a neutron star!
Yo mama is so ugly, that when computer scientists look at her, they are immediately reminded of Edsger Dijkstra's letter "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" because they don't want to "Go To" her.
Ok, that last one got me severely beaten up on the playground when I was a kid, but the rest are funny and hardly trollish.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you for turning emotionally scarring events in your life into /. humor. We can hardly wait to see what you will post when the topic is sex. ;)
Re:Yo mama is so fat... (Score:5, Funny)
You used Edsger Dijkstra references as a kid? I don't think it was the "Yo mama" insults that got you beat up on the playground!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Yo mama is so ugly, astronomers who look at her think they're looking at Uranus."
Sorry, I had to.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty much the same joke was on xkcd [xkcd.com] not so long ago.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you are [straightdope.com].
-Mike