secret science club: neil tyson
Posted: March 19th, 2009 | Author: nikki | Filed under: Inspiration, NYC, Stuff I Like |
Last night I went to Secret Science Club, a monthly lecture put on by the scientifically inclined and curious community of Brooklyn, with Neil Tyson, People’s “sexiest astrophysicist alive”. He’s probably better known for finding himself at the forefront of the movement to get Pluto reclassified from a planet to something else. While “dwarf planet” is the name that seems to have stuck, Tyson referred to Pluto and other like masses orbiting in our galaxy as “Kuiper objects” [however my commenter informs me that the terms aren't mutually exclusive, which makes sense].
The presentation Tyson gave was fantastic, and the Q&A portion after the lecture lasted about as long as the lecture itself. He discussed not only his battle with part of the astrophysics community over Pluto’s status, but also 2012, the asteroid Apophis that will dip beneath our communication satellites in 2029 (on Friday the 13th too, yikes) that could come back and hit us seven years later, and even the economic crisis. It was so refreshing and inspiring to hear such a brilliant person speak. Just looking up at the sky afterward, I had a change of perspective. Astrophysics would be an amazing field of study, not just because it’s extremely interesting but because it is also extremely humbling. We are so amazingly small, and we’re not that smart either. He pointed out that optical illusions, while amusing, are actually our brains failing. BRAIN FAILURES, he bellowed. He ended on some ideas about evolution, and how, if our DNA is 95% similar to chimp DNA (at least), what a more evolved being with a merely a 2% difference from our DNA would be like. Would their toddlers write sonnets and solve complex problems like the most intelligent humans, while our toddlers use rudimentary tools like the most intelligent chimps? Interesting to think about.
Anyway, I really really enjoyed the lecture and I can’t wait to go to the next one. If you’d like to see him go over some of his talking points from the lecture, his recent Daily Show appearance is linked right hurrrr.
Tyson has slowly been moving away from his determination that Pluto is not a planet towards a position that this is still very much a matter up for debate. He stated this at the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate on March 10 at the American Museum of Natural History, which featured a panel of astronomers representing all sides of this issue.
Pluto is actually both a Kuiper Belt Object and a planet. It is a Kuiper Belt Object by virtue of its location in the Kuiper Belt. However, it is a planet–and different from most other Kuiper Belt Objects–because unlike those objects, it is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning it is large enough for its own gravity to have pulled it into a round shape. This is a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects.
Calling small planets that don’t dominate their orbits “dwarf planets” is fine as long as dwarf planets are acknowledged as a subclass of planets, which was precluded by the IAU in its 2006 decision and therefore needs to be revisited.
Laurel,
From what he said on Wednesday he seems to still uphold the stance that Pluto is not a planet, but I’m no astrophysicist so thanks for the clarification.
Nikki
Found your website and enjoyed it. Cute picture of your makeover.
Did you ever make the Black Bottoms?
Hey GG,
I sent you an email this morning. Hope you got it!
Nikki