this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
474 points (98.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27231 readers
2569 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You can't help it, hardly anyone including science educators ever really look deep into things.

I will give you this: What the meaning of 'planet' has been has changed over time and shrank and grown until in our modern understanding of astronomy it is hard to rectify our image of the solar system. We used to think our local space was empty except for a handful of traveling lights that moved against the relatively still galactic background and we gave spiritual and mythical importance to those lights because we thought such objects uncommon.

But the truth of it is there's quite a lot of objects that qualify for the original definition of 'planet', as in literally every astronomical body out to the heliopause which includes an obscene amount of mass from the Oort cloud. And even I will consider that ridiculous and worthy of revision.

For the longest time it was just the easiest to see objects, then Lowell predicted the existence of Pluto it made the discovery unusual as it wasn't from direct observation, and personally I think this is the root of astronomers' reason to exclude it. In their minds there is a primacy assigned to the bodies discovered with the naked eye and primitive telescopes as they represent some symbol of the true nature and majesty of the human effort to understand the heavens, and not because excluding Pluto in any way benefits the classification system.

I get that, but it is not a valid reason to downgrade a disproportionately favorite planet for many people. The added requirement is meaningless as it can very well apply to Earth, downgrading our status as well, but of course everyone just makes a silly face and handwaves despite being reminded twice a year in spectacular fashion that Earth has yet to clear its orbital path.