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  #31 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 02:47 PM
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Originally Posted by hhEb09'1 View Post
I don't see that.
I do. What Stern referred to as "dynamical dominance" in his 2002 paper is essentially the same thing as the IAU's "clearing the orbital neighborhood" that he now criticizes as a farce.

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Meaning what?I read the paper that was linked in this thread earlier. It doesn't say that, as I mentioned earlier.You can't just keep asserting hypocrisy, and hope that the charge sticks. I don't think you have any evidence for it.
From that paper:
"Stern and Levinson (2002) remarked that some bodies in the Solar System are dynamically important enough to have cleared out the neighboring planetesimals in a Hubble time..."

And:
"Stern and Levinson found a gap of five orders of magnitude in ^ between the smallest terrestrial planets and the largest asteroids and KBOs"

From my perspective, it almost seems as if the IAU used the findings of Stern and Levinson to come up with their decision.
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  #32 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 02:56 PM
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Originally Posted by baric View Post
I do. What Stern referred to as "dynamical dominance" in his 2002 paper is essentially the same thing as the IAU's "clearing the orbital neighborhood" that he now criticizes as a farce.
It's not, and I explained that in this post above.
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From my perspective, it almost seems as if the IAU used the findings of Stern and Levinson to come up with their decision.
Your perspective is wrong, as should be evident from Stern's reaction. Instead, you jump to conclusions, and accuse him of base behavior, rather than investigating the situation.
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  #33 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 03:31 PM
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Originally Posted by hhEb09'1 View Post
It's not, and I explained that in this post above.
OK, I see the problem. You are missing the obvious. As you correctly point out, the calculation that Stern used is based on the planet's mass and period.

How exactly does an orbiting body accumulate its mass? Think about that.

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Your perspective is wrong, as should be evident from Stern's reaction. Instead, you jump to conclusions, and accuse him of base behavior, rather than investigating the situation.
I disagree. And besides, every individual scientist is capable of base behavior. We are all human and ultimately driven by personal motivations. The beauty of science is that the community at large can self-correct out the biases of individual scientists.

Mike Brown, in a moment of scientific weakness, conceded that science should just give up on a definition and let popular culture decide what is a planet. He was roundly criticized in this forum, by me and others, for taking that position. To his great credit, he has accepted the demotion of 2003 UB313 with class and moved on to more important issues.
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  #34 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 03:42 PM
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How exactly does an orbiting body accumulate its mass? Think about that.
How exactly does that make him a hypocrite?
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I disagree. And besides, every individual scientist is capable of base behavior. We are all human and ultimately driven by personal motivations. The beauty of science is that the community at large can self-correct out the biases of individual scientists.
Let's debate the issues on the merits of the issues, rathering than trying to discredit someone else's opinion by crying hypocrisy.
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  #35 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 04:01 PM
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Originally Posted by hhEb09'1 View Post
How exactly does that make him a hypocrite?
Why do you deflect instead of answering the question?

To accumulate its mass, an orbiting body must clear out its orbital region, as Stern specifically alluded but you now ignore. A body with a "dynamically dominant mass" is simply another way of saying that it has "cleared its neighboring planetesimals". Do you agree or disagree with that?

If you disagree, can you please describe a scenario in which an orbiting body can achieve a dynamically dominant mass without clearing its neighboring planetesimals?

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Let's debate the issues on the merits of the issues, rathering than trying to discredit someone else's opinion by crying hypocrisy.
I am not crying 'hypocrisy'. I have used that in reference to Stern exactly one time, in the original post, in reference to his supporting of orbital dominance in 2002 but calling it a 'farce' in 2006. The way you make it sound, the title of this post is "ALAN STERN IS A HYPOCRITE!!!!!" and that its a charge I repeat in every post.
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  #36 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 04:28 PM
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Originally Posted by baric View Post
Why do you deflect instead of answering the question?
Are you trying to deflect my question?
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A body with a "dynamically dominant mass" is simply another way of saying that it has "cleared its neighboring planetesimals". Do you agree or disagree with that?

If you disagree, can you please describe a scenario in which an orbiting body can achieve a dynamically dominant mass without clearing its neighboring planetesimals?
As I explained in my answer to you, which I linked to just above, Stern's parameter has nothing to do with whether or not the neighborhood has been cleared. It is a function only of mass and period, not the neighborhood. The Earth's parameter value is a hundred times the value for Mercury or Mars--that does not mean that Earth has cleared out its neighborhood a hundred times more.
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I am not crying 'hypocrisy'. I have used that in reference to Stern exactly one time, in the original post, in reference to his supporting of orbital dominance in 2002 but calling it a 'farce' in 2006. The way you make it sound, the title of this post is "ALAN STERN IS A HYPOCRITE!!!!!" and that its a charge I repeat in every post.
The title of the thread is Alan Stern has definitely flipped, and you've made remarks deprecating his character in more than just the OP--and you've defended the OP throughout. I don't see the distinction.
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Old 28-August-2006, 07:05 PM
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Originally Posted by hhEb09'1 View Post
Are you trying to deflect my question?
As I explained in my answer to you, which I linked to just above, Stern's parameter has nothing to do with whether or not the neighborhood has been cleared.
BUT.... you still miss the obvious (IMO). The mass of an orbiting body is accumulated by clearing the orbital neighborhood. Those expressions are two sides of the same coin. At some point, the neighborhood is cleared enough that the body is said to be "dynamically dominant" (Stern's words).

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It is a function only of mass and period, not the neighborhood. The Earth's parameter value is a hundred times the value for Mercury or Mars--that does not mean that Earth has cleared out its neighborhood a hundred times more.
The point is that the relative differences between Earth and Mercury are insignificant compared to the least-cleared planet and the most-cleared non-planet -- by five orders of magnitude. There is a qualitative jump made at that point, and that is where the IAU has drawn the line for planethood.

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The title of the thread is Alan Stern has definitely flipped, and you've made remarks deprecating his character in more than just the OP--and you've defended the OP throughout. I don't see the distinction.
He has flipped... at least on his opinion of orbital dominance. (that was the first sentence of the OP). I think I made that point about Stern clear enough. You and I are free to disagree on that, and I respect that.

And to say someone is hypocritical on a particular issue is not the grand slur you make it out to be. I think Stern is a great astronomer and I continue to have great respect for his work. I just think that his efforts to slur the IAU and petition them to change their decision is misguided and contradicts earlier positions he's held on this subject.
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  #38 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 07:18 PM
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At some point, the neighborhood is cleared enough that the body is said to be "dynamically dominant" (Stern's words).
Where are you quoting Stern's words from? As near as I can tell, you are misinterpreting them. Perhaps there is another context that I have not seen. Mostly, I'm just using the works cited by you in this thread.
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The point is that the relative differences between Earth and Mercury are insignificant compared to the least-cleared planet and the most-cleared non-planet -- by five orders of magnitude. There is a qualitative jump made at that point, and that is where the IAU has drawn the line for planethood.
The difference between Jupiter and Mars is six orders of magnitude.
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And to say someone is hypocritical on a particular issue is not the grand slur you make it out to be.
That aside, I still think it is unfounded.
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  #39 (permalink)  
Old 28-August-2006, 11:03 PM
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I think Stern may well be reacting to the statement that Pluto is not a planet and that the demotion was made on a rather ambiguous/arbitrary distinction. I think he may well be over-reacting. But I think that calling Pluto a dwarf planet while insisting it is not a planet is a linguistic pretzel.
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  #40 (permalink)  
Old 29-August-2006, 04:22 AM
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I think he may well be over-reacting. But I think that calling Pluto a dwarf planet while insisting it is not a planet is a linguistic pretzel.
As I've said elsewhere, Ceres has been called a minor planet for a long time, and no one has made much of a big deal out of it.
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