What is Reddit's opinion of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Neil deGrasse Tyson was not the main guy behind demoting Pluto. Mike Brown, the guy at CalTech whose math implies the existence of the so-far hypothetical ninth planet, was. He even wrote a book about it: How I Killed Pluto, and Why It Had It Coming

Book recommendation time! If you or anyone else perusing this thread is curious, there's a terrific book by the astronomer Mike Brown, whose work was significantly responsible for the reclassification, called How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. It's an engaging, approachable read if you're at all curious about the whole thing. Great insight into the life of a working scientist (including things like trying to data mine his newborn daughter's behavior) and the workings of the scientific community.

If you're really interested in it, this book is a good one. It's written by Mike Brown, whose team discovered Eris, another dwarf planet that turned out to be bigger than Pluto.

Basically, people who insist that Pluto is still a planet are taking a big old dump on his life's work.

For more on the "screwing over" of Pluto, you might want to check out Mike Brown's book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. He's an astronomer who was investigating the Kuiper Belt objects whose discovery blurred the line between "Planet" and "Not-Planet" so heavily that the IAU had to call Pluto's planethood into question. It's sort of half-memoir half-pop-science, and it does quite a good job of explaining the circumstances which led to Pluto's demotion while also telling an (in my opinion) entertaining story about astronomy.

It's a good read:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Killed-Pluto-Why-Coming/dp/0385531109

I always wonder how Michael E. Brown feels about Tyson getting all the credit (and blame) for Pluto's reclassification.

Planet = wanderer.

Technically, if you're an ancient greek, Grubby is mostly linguistically correct, the Moon is not a Fixed Star. Grubby = Ptolemaic astronomer confirmed!

If you're not being technical, it's a crazy-ass Mary Poppins metaphor for picking an unneeded teamfight, what the heck do you want?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And if you're concerned about proper English language: >The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary. --James Nicoll

The only REAL reason to really object is if you're concerned that Grubby is secretly lobbying for Pluto to be re-instated as a Planet. A decent book with a great title lays out the argument against the closet crypto-plutonians, though: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

We do not say his name out loud.

Just kidding. We really like Mike. He is excellent and does great work and research. You can learn all about his great work here and buy his book about Pluto here

You give Tyson too much credit.

It was the International Astronomer's Union that set the current definition of a planet. Astronomer Mike Brown had a lot to do with it.

No. See http://www.amazon.com/How-Killed-Pluto-Why-Coming/dp/0385531109 for full detail

Read "How I Killed Pluto and why it had it Coming" by Mike Brown. Great book. http://www.amazon.com/How-Killed-Pluto-Why-Coming/dp/0385531109

Speaking of Pluto and its nomenclature, this is a fantastic book about the "demotion" of Pluto.

What exactly is a planet is not as clear-cut as you might think. The book "Why I killed Pluto and why it had it coming" http://www.amazon.com/How-Killed-Pluto-Why-Coming/dp/0385531109 goes into a lot of detail about it.