Demotion of Pluto as a planet

[cino hilliard]

----Original Message Follows----
From: franktaw at netscape.net
To: seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr
Subject: Re: Demotion of Pluto as a planet
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:20:21 -0400

Cino wrote:
 
>Take a look at encarta definition of planet. 
>Â 
>Planet, any major celestial body that orbits a star and does not emit
visible light of its own but instead shines by reflected light. 
 
 From this definition, I would argue that there are only four planets in the 
solar system: Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  "Major?  Those little balls of dirt?"

>What about volcanos, A-bombs, radiowaves, astroid impacts etc. Even if
we can't see the light, 
>it is still emitted.

Well, if you interpret "visible light" to mean "light in the visible 
spectrum", this is correct.  On the
other hand, if you interpret it as "light you can see", you are 
contradicting yourself.

Of course. At one time 3 billion of so years ago our Planet, or should I say 
rock, was a fireball
resulting from the gravitational coelesance of matter collecting upon itself 
during the formation
of the solar system. My guess this was true for Mercury Venus and Mars also. 
So in this sceanario
reflected light played a small role. However, I think these bodies were 
planets back then because
they wandered about the sun in an orbit. This brings to mind an idea.

Wandering sequence. A sequence some of whose members repeat in a predictable 
fashion.
Eg, say 3 is a member of a list of primes and after the first prime 2, we 
have 3. Then after that
there are 3 primes 5,7,11 and then another 3, then 13,17,19,3. so 3 is the 
wandering number occurring every third prime. If you start with 5 the every 
5th prime etc. Not that interesting but maybe someone else can make it so 
with variation.

Have fun,
Cino