Mabfan's Musings

Sean P. Fodera, the New York Regional Coordinator of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as Planet, visited his son's classroom to discuss Pluto and blogs about it in My Presentation on Pluto's Planetary Status:

I briefly explained the history of how planets get discovered, and how improving technology has made it easier to find objects in space. They were amazed that anyone could have spotted Pluto from Earth with 1930s telescope technology, or that comparing fuzzy photos could work for detecting the far-off planet....

I discussed the controversy over Pluto's demotion, explaining how the new definition of planet is not accurate, and how less than 5% of the IAU actually voted on the matter. The students had trouble understanding the voting part of it, since they all seem to assume that if something is voted on, it must be fair. So, I presented an example. "Let's say that when your teacher and I went to this school, it was decided that every year the 6th grade class would get to go to the circus. Now, years later, someone decides to take a vote about whether to keep going on the circus trip. Instead of all 50 of you voting, only three of you vote. One votes 'yes', and two vote 'no'. 'No' wins, but it's not exactly a fair vote, is it? That's what happened to Pluto." Eyes lit up, and lot of heads started shaking.

Go read!

Last night, Nomi and I met Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, for the second time. As I noted earlier, Tyson was speaking at the Newton Free Library to promote his new book The Pluto Files, which is all about his role in the controversy that led to the demotion of Pluto. Since Nomi and I are, respectively, the vice-president and president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, also known as SP3, we felt compelled to attend.

Back, back! Neil deGrasse Tyson defends himself from the defenders of Pluto. Photo copyright ©2009 by SP3.

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I shook hands with Dr. Tyson after we were done, and I could tell that he'd been signing a lot of books. It kind of reminded me of my own publication party back in November.

We said good-bye to Melissa, and Andrew drove Nomi and me home. All in all, a nice start to my birthday weekend.

As for Dr. Tyson and Pluto... well, the IAU has another General Assembly this summer, in Rio de Jainero, Brazil. I suspect Dr. Alan Stern will be there to push for a restoration of Pluto's status. We'll see what happens.

But We All Share a Love for Astronomy! Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Burstein, and Nomi S. Burstein may disagree on Pluto, but we all agree that Dr. Tyson is a gentleman. Photo copyright ©2009 by SP3.

Copyright ©2009 by Michael A. Burstein.

The Illinois State Legislature is taking on the cause of Pluto, according to an article in the Daily Herald:

Like some sort of rulers of the universe, state lawmakers are considering restoring little Pluto's planetary status, casting aside the scientific community's 2006 decision downgrading the distant ice ball.

An Illinois Senate committee on Thursday unanimously supported planet Pluto and declaring March 13 "Pluto Day." The idea now moves to the full Senate for a vote.

See Pluto Politics Hits Springfield for the full story.

(Thanks to fellow traveler ffoeg for the tip.)

I've been meaning to let people know about two upcoming events in the Boston area that might be of interest. By an odd coincidence, both of them are happening right around my birthday.

The first event is an appearance by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson, the demoter of Pluto, at the Newton Free Library. Tyson will be speaking on Thursday, February 27th at 7:30 pm and then signing copies of his new book The Pluto Files. Nomi and I plan to be there to hear him speak, get the book signed, and maybe (if he's willing) get a picture taken with him.

More information on the event can be found at this link.

(Our thanks to 530nm330hz for bringing this to our attention.)

The second event is a special shabbaton taking place at our shul. Rabbi Yitzchok Breitowitz, who is the rabbi at the Woodside Synagogue in Silver Spring, Maryland, and a tenured professor at the Maryland School of Law, is coming for the weekend of February 27-March 1. He'll be giving a variety of talks on the intersection of Jewish law and secular law, and the topics include ethical behavior in the marketplace and stem cell research.

More information on the event can be found at this link.

(Thanks to marsgov for pointing this out. The original XKCD cartoon can be found at http://xkcd.com/473/.)

Exactly one year ago today, the International Astronomical Union, at their General Assembly in Prague, voted to demote Pluto from planet to dwarf planet.

(An excellent post about the public's reaction since can be found at The Enduring Power of Pluto.)

Yesterday, Science published a paper by Michael E. Brown and Emily Schaller, reporting that Eris is actually more massive than Pluto, which would imply that if Pluto were to be considered a planet, Eris would have to be one as well. Anne Minard wrote an article on this discovery for the National Geographic News, and as it so happens she called me to get my opinion as the president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet (SP3).

Minard's article can be found at Pluto Smaller Than Nearby Dwarf Planet Eris, Study Finds. I'm actually found on page 2, and the article pretty much sums up where I stand:

Michael A. Burstein is president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, which goes by the acronym SP3. The group of astronomy buffs formed in the spring of 2006, when rumors first started circulating that Pluto was in trouble.

Burstein preferred the IAU's initial idea for a planet definition, which was never voted upon at their solar-system-shattering meeting last August.

By that definition—that a planet should directly orbit a star and be massive enough to be round—Pluto would still be a planet, as would dwarf planets Eris and Ceres, a large, round asteroid orbiting near Jupiter.

It's fine if we end up with 50 or even 100 planets as new objects are discovered, Burstein said. We could keep the math easy by calling the old guard, including Pluto, "classical planets," he added.

For now, Burstein's group is laying low to see what the pros do—under the guidance of New Horizons' Alan Stern. Stern is leading the charge of professional astronomers to dismiss the IAU's ruling.

"People just aren't using the IAU definition because it's so substantially flawed," he said. "Even their own members, and I'm one, aren't using the IAU definition."

The debate over a better definition was a hot topic at the April meeting of the European Geophysical Union. And it's already part of the agenda for the February 2008 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A year ago today, NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto. Therefore, this is a good time to remind folks about The Great Pluto Debate coming up on February 4.

I know that sometimes this journal might seem like all Pluto, all the time, even though we have the savepluto LiveJournal for Pluto news. But I want to mention the Debate here, because the event will be of interest to anyone fascinated by astronomy and our solar system. It's not just for Pluto supporters, but for anyone interested in the question of how we should classify Pluto.

The flyer for the event is posted at http://savepluto.livejournal.com/10943.html. I have to say that I am very impressed by what the Clay Center Observatory managed to do. Panelists for the debate include Owen Gingerich, the chair of the IAU Planet Definition Committee, and Brian Marsden, the Director of the Minor Planets Center. Both of these gentleman have agreed to come over from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to participate, which boggles my mind as much as it delights me.

I'm asking for your help in publicizing it, especially if you're local to Boston. If you're a teacher or a parent, please bring this event to the attention of your school. The Debate is appropriate for ages 8 and up, and schools may find it valuable to send their students.

And if you're interested in attending, please go to http://www.claycenter.org/astro and make sure to register for the event. Seating is limited, so register as early as you can.

As I mentioned recently, I was just interviewed for a podcast.

Paul Levinson, who does the Light On Light Through podcast among others, decided to devote Episode 17, released on Saturday 1/13/07, to the status of Pluto. Paul asked me if I would be willing to come on in my capacity as the president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet to discuss what the International Astronomical Union did to Pluto and what might happen next.

Even if you've read some of what I've written before on the subject, you might want to download the podcast, since Paul does a good job of asking the questions that are on everyone's mind. You can click on the link above, or you can go directly to Light On Light Through: What on Earth Are They Doing to Poor Pluto?. Both SF Signal and Locus picked up the news for their "SF Tidbits" and "Blinks" sections respectively, so I guess it has some significance.

Also, on the podcast, I make the first public announcement regarding the lineup we have for "The Great Pluto Debate!" taking place at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts on the afternoon of February 4. I'll be posting more about this soon, but if you download the podcast, you'll get the news sooner.

As usual for Martin Luther King Day weekend, gnomi and I attended the Arisia science fiction convention. This year, the convention moved to a smaller hotel, the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge. (Those of you who are local might know it as the ziggurat.) In general, we had a good time, but it does make it hard to catch up on LiveJournal.

Nomi has posted Arisia in a Nutshell, By the Numbers, but if you want a slightly more descriptive summary of what we did, from my perspective, read on.

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And that was our Arisia. We saw some friends as we left, then ate dinner at Taam China with folks who were in for the convention (and again, you all know who you are).

I'm getting a birthday present from NASA!

On February 28th, the day after my birthday, the New Horizons probe will make its closest approach to Jupiter. If you've been reading my blog, you're probably aware that New Horizons is the spacecraft launched almost a year ago, bound for the planet (yes, I say planet) Pluto.

New Horizons started approaching Jupiter for its gravity assist a while back, and what's the point of passing by Jupiter without taking a few pictures? As Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, said, "We're the only train going to Jupiter between '03 and 2016." The Galileo probe finished its mission back in 2003, and the next mission to Jupiter isn't planned to reach the planet until 2016.

Of course, New Horizons will be taking lots of data before my birthday. In fact, NASA is planning its first press conference with new images of Jupiter for January 18th -- the day after Nomi's birthday.

Hmmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with our desire to keep Pluto a planet? Is it possible that Stern and NASA planned this as a secret thank-you? After all, they did first attempt to launch New Horizons on Nomi's birthday last year, and it was only bad weather that delayed the launch to January 19.

Then again, it's probably all just a huge coincidence.

(See the article "Pluto probe begins close-up study of Jupiter" by Kelly Young from the New Scientist Space website for more information.)

I'm surfacing briefly while on vacation just to note that the Brookline TAB has published their first part of The Brookline TAB 10: 2006. This is their list of the top ten Brookline newsmakers for the past year, and, um, Nomi and I are on it:

Just when you thought the solar system was safe, a planet gets laid off.

But lucky for the universe, there are two local — rather, intergalactic — crusaders fighting for the little guy.

Following the International Astronomical Union’s decision to strip Pluto of its planetary status this summer and redefine it as a “dwarf planet,” one Coolidge Corner couple took action...

Other honorees include the Community Preservation Act, Pat Norling, Deb Goldberg and Andrea Silbert, and Zathmary's, etc.

Apparently, Nomi and I rank up there with the two Brookline women who ran for Lieutenant Governor and the gourmet food shop that closed overnight.

We thank the Brookline TAB for recognizing us and our campaign for Pluto, even while we maintain an air of detached bemusement.

To start with, I'd like to let lizziebelle, xochitl42, michelel72, and sharonaf know that I'm not ignoring your requests in response to my post about taking the Grub Street seminar. The problem is that the scene I wrote was in longhand, and it would take me some time to type it up in order to post it to the blog. That's why I offered to post it if "enough people" wanted to read it. Sadly, if only four people are really interested, it probably doesn't make sense for me to type it up right away. I will try to do it for you soon, and perhaps send it to you by email, but please understand that it will take me a while.

On Friday, a group of my co-workers and I took one of our retiring colleagues out to lunch. The colleague, P., has organized a weekly departmental political discussion lunch for many years, and we wanted to thank her for all her efforts in doing so. So even though the department is having a party and a lunch in her honor later this month, those of us who have attended her political lunches wanted to do something extra.

We took her out, talked about how she ended up running these lunches, and thanked her for how well she has kept them bipartisan. P.'s genius has been in creating an environment where we can all disagree with each other respectfully, and maybe learn something from each other as we discuss and debate. We presented her with a few gifts, including two adorable stuffed animals, a Democratic donkey and a Republican elephant, which are pictured here.

Friday night and Saturday were shabbat, of course. Ever since the beginning of 5767, Nomi and I have been davening regularly at Kadimah-Toras Moshe (which I call KTM but everyone else seems to call Kadimah) in Brighton. It's a friendly shul, and one where we do feel welcome. Nomi's been helping set up the kiddush every week, so she's become a de facto member of the kiddush committee. And for the second week in a row, we found ourselves talking about Pluto during kiddush, because people saw us on television. There's more I've considered posting about Jewish topics, but some it is personal, so...watch this space for a minor announcement.

Saturday night (or motze shabbas), Nomi and I went to a birthday party for two friends. Party goers had the option of coming in costume, so we brought Nomi's camera and took a lot of pictures of folks in fancy dress. We met some new friends, reconnected with some old friends, and had a great time.

Sunday was another day devoted to cleaning up the accumulated clutter in our apartment. As I mentioned before, farwing has been helping us out a bit with our cleaning up, and she helped us out again yesterday. First we went out to Target to buy some storage units for DVDs, and then we brought them home and Nomi built them. In the meantime, farwing and I cleaned up the area around the television set and the right hand back corner of the living room, near the heater. The place continues to look much, much better. We still have plenty more to do, but I'm very pleased with our progress.

I'm also pleased with our new commitment to stop clutter from happening before it starts. With some simple rules (such as, "Thou shalt bring down the paper recycling the instant it fills this one particular bin") we've managed to curb some of our natural tendencies to "get to it later." I'm very proud of both of us for this one.

Copyright © Michael A. Burstein

As mentioned a couple of days ago, gnomi and I were interviewed by CBS4 News about our fight to save Pluto.  They ran the interview last night.  The video is here, with a partial transcript here.  The reporter, Ken Barlow, gave a plug for the Clay Center Observatory and for our upcoming Save Pluto Day observances on 4 February 2007.

Quick media announcement for those of you following Nomi and me as we fight for Pluto:

CBS 4 News in Boston is doing a story on us and on the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet! According to our sources, the segment will be broadcast as part of the 5 PM local news on Wednesday, November 29 (that's tomorrow). Nomi and I were interviewed for the segment, discussing our love of Pluto and why we think the IAU's definition of a planet is flawed.

If you miss the segment, it will be placed on the Channel 4 website at http://cbs4boston.com after the broadcast. We'll try to provide folks with an exact link.

Those of you who have been following the savepluto LiveJournal already know that yesterday, those of us at the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet have declared that February 4, 2007, will be International Save Pluto Day. And we've posted the International Save Pluto Day Declaration to the website as well.

We're also very glad to note that the Brookline TAB newspaper once again found us newsworthy, running an article titled Brookline couple launches 'International Save Pluto Day.' Because we're not professional astronomers over at SP3. We're regular people trying to generate a grass-roots movement.

And the thing about a grass-roots movement is that it depends upon the general populace to get moving. We've created a framework within which the worldwide net of Pluto supporters can take action. Rather than having a diffuse series of (say) Internet petitions, an International Save Pluto Day would help impress upon the consciousness of the world that Pluto still has a broad base of intense support. As anyone can see in the declaration, we're encouraging people to contact the IAU on or about that day, to make it clear how important Pluto is to all of us. If they receive a bunch of separate petitions or letters spread over the course of a year, it may not make an impression. But if they receive a slew of support in the space of a week, they'll definitely notice.

And we want people to make a celebration of the day. That's why we're grateful to our friends at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts. Although the Center is neutral on the issue, they've agreed to be the first place to run a program in honor of Save Pluto Day. And we're hoping that by the time February 4, 2007 arrives, there will be others, all over the world.

So if you're on our side, please consider doing what you can to get the word out there. Talk it up on your blogs. Contact observatories and planetaria and ask if they plan a program for that day. Let the media know you're interested. Create an entry on Wikipedia. But get out the word.

Because if we can have an international day where everyone goes around talking like a pirate, surely we can have one where everyone thinks about Pluto.

I just wanted to let people know that this Sunday, I'm going to be interviewed live on the EZHelp, You and More Internet Radio Show about Pluto. For more information, see SP3 President To Be Interview on Internet Radio on the savepluto LiveJournal.

To listen to the show on Sunday October 29th at 11 AM EST, just go to http://ezhelp.org/chat.

This weekend begins the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and fortunately for us, we're spending the first two days with Nomi's parents. I say "fortunately" because we have had almost no time this week to prepare for the holiday ourselves. If we had had to build a sukkah, we'd have gone nuts.

Actually, we have no place to build a sukkah of our own; as always, we will be relying on the kindness of friends, families, and synagogues to take meals in a sukkah this year. But this post isn't about Sukkot; it's about the last three evenings that kept us occupied and up late.

Tuesday night, after work, I had an instructors summit at Grub Street, Boston's independent creative writing center. Although I'm not actually teaching a class or a workshop this semester, I still attended. Grub Street has been doing a lot of good work recently for the city of Boston, such as the Memoir Project (memoir writing workshops for senior citizens) and YAWP (a monthly teen writing workshop for Boston-area high school students). I wanted to find out more about them, as well as meet with my fellow instructors. But that meant not getting home until very late Tuesday night.

On Wednesday evening, Nomi and I met up after work and went to the Cingular Wireless store in Coolidge Corner, Brookline. We've had the same older-style cell phones for about four or five years, and I had been feeling the bug for a newer model. Cingular obliged, with a letter informing us that the new network would soon no longer support our old phones, but hey, here's a rebate deal for some new ones. So we went to the store and bought these spiffy new Nokia models and an updated contract. We can now take photos and access the Internet with our phones! Here's a picture of Nomi I took with my camera phone:







Now I just have to hope I run into Superman lifting a car, and I'm all set.

The only problem, though, was that the sales associate (a very nice guy) couldn't get the system to accept our upgrade properly. He had to call Cingular customer service, and they kept him on hold as much as they do the rest of us. So once more, we had a late night. In the end, though, we got the service we wanted, and we've been having fun text messaging each other.

Last night, of course, was the Sixteenth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Although we did not manage to get together a delegation from the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, we did attend the ceremony. This was our third time attending an Igs, and I saw fewer familiar faces in the crowd than I have in previous years. The ceremony, as usual, was very funny, even if they attempted to put the kibosh on paper airplane throwing. The 2006 Ig Nobel winners list has been posted at the official site. The winning "research" included investigations into why woodpeckers don't get headaches; the finickiness of dung beetles; the invention of a high-pitch tone to repel teenagers; a calculation of the number of photographs you need to take of a group of people to ensure at least one photograph where no one has their eyes closed; the report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly"; reports on how to terminate hiccups through "digital rectal massage"; an explanation of why spaghetti breaks into more than two pieces when bent; a report on ultrasonic velocity in cheddar cheese; and the discovery that the female malaria mosquito is attracted equally to the smells of Limberger cheese and human feet.

(If you're interested in learning more about the Prizes, this Saturday as usual you can attend the The Ig Informal Lectures at MIT. Nomi and I won't be there, of course, but we hear they're always good.)

Anyway, because it was our third late night in a row, we didn't stick around, but we headed home to do what packing we could for the weekend. (I'm still not done.)

So that's been the week. To top it all off, I had some Library Trustee business I needed to deal with by email, an interview of a horror writer to arrange, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.

Plans for the weekend include sleeping.

Copyright © Michael Burstein; photo copyright © Michael Burstein

As I mentioned a few days ago, Nomi and I were interviewed by the Brookline TAB on Monday evening about the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet.

The article, Brookline couple launch campaign to save Pluto (Brookline TAB, September 28, 2006), does a good job of representing us as who were really are, and why we're so passionate about Pluto:

We all need reminders for life’s special moments - birthdays, anniversaries, space travel.

While furiously tapping at their handheld electronic organizers, Michael and Nomi Burstein race through their schedules to pinpoint their special moment.

"We have it written down in our handhelds," Michael murmured, zipping through his digital database.

"We’re sort of scary that way," Nomi quipped, not looking up from her own compact computer.

Michael calls out the sought-after date first - the year 2015.

Nine years is how long this Brookline couple will wait for a space mission that left Earth in January to reach Pluto.

But with regard to Pluto’s newly demoted planetary status, the two are not so patient....

And there's a picture, too!

On Monday night, Nomi (LJ: gnomi) and I were interviewed by the Brookline TAB for an article about the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet. The TAB wanted to get a photograph of us that would be relevant to the idea of saving Pluto, so we ended up going to The Clay Center, an astronomical observatory that is part of the Dexter-Southfield School in Brookline, Massachusetts. This is a real observatory, up on a hill, with a dome and a 25-inch reflector.

We spent about an hour being photographed and another hour being interviewed. For those of you who are interested, the article will appear in tomorrow's TAB, and I'll provide a link to the on-line version. However, this isn't about the article, but rather about the opportunity Nomi and I took to go back.

We were so impressed with the observatory on Monday night that we decided to return last night for one of their Public Telescope Viewing nights. All throughout the day, the sky was rather clear, so we expected a good night of observing. We were most definitely not disappointed.

We arrived at the Center a little before 6:30 pm, and we were met by Robert F. Phinney, their Science and Technology Director. We had met him the day before. Mr. Phinney showed us some of the meteorites and other artifacts, and then we went upstairs to an observation deck. As the sun set, we looked out over the city of Boston and its environs with a pair of binoculars. Nomi managed to find her office building, and I picked out Copley Square, which wasn't too hard thanks to the Prudential and the Hancock.

Around 7 pm we entered the dome, where John Briggs, a teacher at the school, had been getting the telescope ready for viewing. We were the only ones there, although other guests showed up about an hour after we did. Now years ago, when I trained on the Loomis-Michael Telescope on the top of Harvard's Science Center, I learned a valuable lesson. When doing astronomy, you should always keep a log book of your observations. If you don't write it down, it's as if you didn't see it. So I took out my little Moleskine notebook and kept a log of what we saw. Mr. Briggs used a computer program to move the telescope, and here's the log.

7:10 pm: I saw Altair.

7:22 pm: I saw Beta Cygni, or Albireo, which looked like a yellow star next to a blue star. From what I've read, Beta-1 is an orange-yellow K-class giant and Beta-2 is a main-sequence B-class star.

7:33 pm: I saw Epsilon Lyrae, which through the 7-inch refractor looked like two stars, but through the reflector resolved into four.

7:44 pm: I saw M57, the Ring Nebula. It looked like a smoke ring.

7:57 pm and 8:03 pm: I saw M13, the globular cluster in Hercules.

8:09 pm: I saw Vega.

8:22 pm: I saw the central heart of the Andromeda Galaxy. It looked like a blob.

Now, at this point, Nomi and I had expressed our interest in seeing Pluto, since, truth be told, neither she nor I had ever seen it through a telescope before. Pluto was low in the sky, around twenty to thirty degrees above the horizon, but the gentlemen running the scope found it for us.

8:33 pm, 8:46 pm, and 8:50 pm: I saw Pluto. It was an extremely faint dot, but it was there. To think of all the fuss that one little dot has caused.

8:59 pm: I saw the double cluster in Perseus, NGC 869 and NGC884

9:03 pm: I saw Uranus. It appeared as a bluish-green disc. (First time!)

9:08 pm: I saw Neptune. It appeared as a blue-white disc. (First time!)

9:16 pm: I saw the globular cluster M15 (NGC 7078).

At this point, Nomi and I decided it was getting late, especially since the season premiere of Gilmore Girls was now on our TiVo. So we bid farewell to the Clay Center, but we've promised both them and ourselves that we will be back.

Sadly, I can't share any direct photos of what we saw last night, since there wasn't any sort of camera attached to the telescope. And anyway, the point of observing is to experience the wonder of the universe directly and immediately for yourself. Of course, if you want to see some pictures of what we saw, there are no doubt plenty you can find on the web.

But for those of you who want a picture, I share with you a link to last night's post from the Bad Astronomy Blog, Jupiter from a height. Phil Plait reposts a picture of Jupiter that has been taken by the New Horizons spacecraft, which is speeding towards Pluto. Check it out; it's way cool.

And while you're at it, if you live in the Boston area, consider dropping by the Clay Center on one of their public viewing nights. You'll be glad you did.

Copyright © Michael Burstein