The discovery of Pluto

[Enrique Figueroa E.]

Congrats, Dave, for your astronomic contribution!
I hope we shall all take it as seriously as it is meant and deserves to
be (taken)! There are indeed many readings of your comment: one is this

DON'T SHUT YOURSELF INTO THE PRETENTIOUS AND ARROGANT SHELL OF YOUR OWN
CONCEPTIONS! ""DO BE" OPEN TO YOUR COLLEAGUES' IDEAS!!

And I, once more, vote both hands up for that (and also for the students'
right to be presented "the whole picture")!!!

Max

On Sat, 19 Apr 1997, Dave wrote:

> Was made by astronomers observing the "erratic" flight pattern of Neptune
> and Uranus.  Something that the astronomers hadn't seen until then was
> causing these planets to waver in their orbit slightly.  So they said
> "maybe something is out there," they looked, and found something.  They
> found a planet, wandering right where they predicted that it would be.
> They called it Pluto
>
> So is that kind of science Ad-Hockery, or hand-waving?  They postulated
> something, then they found it.
>
> (somebody show me gravity too, not a representation of it, nor a "display
> of its effects")  We have the calculation of the acceleration of a
> falling object(at sea level), -4.9t^2 also, which is a formalization of what
> happens.  If something falls on the moon, and accelerates to the (ground)
> at a different rate, should we formulate a new theory of gravity?
>
> Does life happen in equations, or are they merely some sort of human
> adaptation and effort to describe the world in which we live?
>
> Many researchers follow different approaches, and these approaches don't
> even look at the same range of data.  We all know what I'm talking about
> here.  To assume that one can't learn from the other is rather arrogant,
> in my opinion. (this goes both ways).
>
> How can we find out/describe what the acquisition of a language is, when we
> don't have a hard-and-fast, cut-and-dried, analysis of what ADULT language is?
>
> Dave
>