Date: October 15, 2010
Title: Plutonomicon
Podcaster: Dr. Alex “Sandy” Antunes
Organization: Project Calliope LLC – http://projectcalliope.com
Description: Tales of early Pluto, the original controversy, and of things
we can no longer discuss, for fear it will drive us mad.
Bio: Sandy looks at the science and the people in today’s 9-5 pro astronomy world. Born in the heart of a dying star (as we were all), Alex draws from his research, writing, and game design work to bring you the joy of science twice a week at Science20.com/skyday– and to launch the first personal science/music satellite via http://ProjectCalliope.com.
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by the American Association of Variable Star Observers, the world’s leader in variable star data and information, bringing professional and amateur astronomers together to observe and analyze variable stars, and promoting research and education using variable star data. Visit the AAVSO on the web at www.aavso.org.
The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) is a worldwide, non-profit scientific and educational organization of amateur and professional astronomers interested in stars that change in brightness–variable stars.
Founded in October 1911 to coordinate variable star observations made largely by amateur astronomers for Harvard College Observatory, the AAVSO has grown to become the world leader in variable star astronomy, with members in 45 countries and an archive of over 17 million variable star observations.
As we begin our 99th year, the AAVSO is proud to support excellent education and outreach initiatives like the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast.
Transcript:
Welcome to October. I’m Dr. Sandy Antunes, writing weekly at Science20.com and, for today, bringing you an astronomical tale from history.
Pluto is no stranger to controversy. Let us ignore the current planet/no-planet nonsense and look at the heady early years of its discovery. Bear in mind that, once Percival Lowell assigned a 23-year old Clyde Tombaugh to find ‘the mystery Planet X’, Clyde took just 1 year to find it. Imagine that at cocktail parties. “So, what did you do last year?” “Oh, I found one of only 9 named planets in our solar system. You?”
This is why astronomers rock. But getting back to those early Pluto days, I found a monograph by a 1920s professor, who attempted to correlate some early ‘Planet X’ discoveries with Pluto. It being October, I thought a trip to the way-back machine would be useful in understanding just how unusual Pluto is, both now and when it was discovered.
This tale also tells how the scientific method hasn’t changed in the past century. It’s still about evidence, reasoning, and separating one’s private wishes from that which can be proven. It just happens that, sometimes, what can be proven is more speculative than not. This is a cautionary, in part, on what you do when faced with evidence of extraordinary claims.
The author of the monograph is Albert Wilmarth. He begins, “Notwithstanding the deep things I saw and heard, and the admitted vividness of the impression produced on me by these things, I cannot prove even now whether I was right or wrong in my hideous inference. The whole matter began, so far as I am concerned, when there appeared certain odd stories, so that many of my friends embarked on curious discussions and appealed to me to shed what light I could on the subject. I did what I could to belittle the wild, vague tale, and it amused me to find several persons of education who insisted some stratum of obscure, distorted fact might underlie the rumors.
Then came the challenging letters from Henry Akeley which impressed me so profoundly. He had been a notable student of mathematics, astronomy, biology, anthropology and folklore at the University of Vermont. I had never previously heard of him, but from the first I saw he was a man of character, education and intelligence. Despite the incredible nature of what he claimed I could not help at once taking Akeley more seriously than I had taken any of the other challengers of my views.
For one thing, he was really close to the actual phenomena– visible and tangible– that he speculated so grotesquely about; and for another thing, he was amazingly willing to leave his conclusions in a tentative state like a true man of science. He had no personal preferences to advance, and was always guided by what he took to be solid evidence.
He wrote, ‘my object in writing you is not to start an argument but to give you information which I think a man of your tastes will find deeply interesting. This is private. Publicly I am on your side, for certain things show me that it does not do for people to know too much about these matters.
It is true– terribly true– that there are non-human creatures watching us a the time. These things come from another planet, being able to live in interstellar space.’
Professor Wilmarth then resumes his take on this theory of Akeley, with “the array of vital evidence was damnably bast and overwhelming,; and the cool, scientific attitude of Akeley– an attitude removes as far as imaginable from the demented, the fanatic, the hysterical, or even the extravagantly speculative– had a tremendous effect on my thought and judgment. By the time I’d laid the frightful letter aside, I wished, for reasons I shall soon make clear, that the new planet beyond Neptune had not been discovered.
Akeley wrote later, with “the main body of the beings inhabits strangely organized abysses wholly beyond the utmost reach of any human imagination. The space-time globule which we recognize as the totality of all cosmic entity is only an atom in the genuine infinity which is theirs. And as much of this infinity as any human brain can hold is eventually to be opened up to me, as it has been to not more than fifty other men since the human race has existed. Can’t you make a trip up here before your college term opens? It would be marvelously delightful if you could. You can get a timetable in Boston.”
Indeed, the two did meet, and Professor Wilmarth tells of Akeley’s comments: “You realize, of course, the utterly stupendous nature of the matter before us. To us there will be opened up gulfs of time and space and knowledge beyond anything we have within the conception of human science and philosophy. Do you know that Einstein is wrong, and that certain objects and forces _can_ move with a velocity greater than that of light? You can’t imagine the degree to which those beings have carried science. I expect to visit these beings, the first trip will be to the nearest world fully populated by then beings. It is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system– unknown to earthly astronomers as yet. At the proper time, you know, the beings there will direct thought-currents towards us and cause it to be discovered– or perhaps let one of their human allies give the scientists a hint.”
That was, alas, Wilmarth’s last link with Akeley, who shortly after disappeared. Wilmarth concludes with these observations. “A new ninth planet has been glimpsed beyond Neptune, just as those influences had said it would be glimpsed. Astronomers, with hideous appropriateness they little suspect, have named this thing ‘Pluto’. I shiver when I try to figure out the real reason why its monstrous denizens wish it to be known in this way at this especial time. I vainly try to assure myself that these daemoniac creatures are not gradually leading up to some new policy hurtful to the earth and its normal inhabitants. If my sanity is still unshaken, I am lucky. Sometimes I fear what the years will bring, especially since that new planet Pluto has been so curiously discovered.”
It seems even in the early days, Pluto was shrouded in controversy and difference of opinion. Let us hope that what Professor Wilmarth discovered, however, remains unknown, at least for this time.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this excerpts from Professor Wilmarth’s 1920 journal, as related by HP Lovecraft in The Whisperer in Darkness.
Until next month, this is Sandy Antunes at 365 Days of Astronomy. You can read my work weekly at Science20.com as the Daytime Astronomer. Have a happy Halloween!
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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