The Pluto Files: The Rise And Fall Of America's Favorite Planet (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
Had this for ages and just remembered to get to it with New Horizons being in the news lately. Glad I did! It's a pretty light read, being more a snap shot of Pluto in pop culture than anything else, and pokes fun at all sides of the "debate," but Tyson lays out the history and science as well. I'm not sure how much more science one could have gotten into this book, as there's only so many times you can talk about the definitions of things, and there was already a bit of repetition. Perhaps New Horizon will turn up something else. I look forward to hearing about what it finds in the Kuiper belt. It was a good overview of the history of Pluto's classification, but I guess I was expecting something a little more glib, and what I got was more scientific and frequently repetitive. The author spends so much time discussing his involvement in the Hayden Planetarium's decision to withhold planet status from Pluto that this book becomes a partial memoir of a maddening few years of his life as he fields criticism from the New York Times and American schoolchildren everywhere. His frustration with the NYT and other press is more than palpable, and at times I wanted to tell him he needed to let it go. However, I found his reprinting of colorfully worded letters (not all from kids) to be endearing.After having read this I take the author's side that people (mostly Americans) are attached to Pluto's planethood because 1) they like the mnemonics about their 'very educated mother just showing' them stuff, 2) they feel it diminishes Mickey Mouse's dog, who is already the dumb pet of a mouse, and 3) they like the folk hero style story of its discovery.I also now understand how things get classified, and understand that a single object cannot be in a class by itself, that more than one is required to make a classification. This is discussed at length. The author also expounds various other classifications the planets can have according to their other properties such as atmosphere, density, rotation, etc.I'm certainly convinced that we would better spend out resources examining the moons of the outer planets than going out to Pluto.
What do You think about The Pluto Files: The Rise And Fall Of America's Favorite Planet (2014)?
I love dr degrasse but I didn't love this book. A rare non finished book for me....
—michaelandmary11
This was a quick audio book (just 4+ hours) but a fun and fascinating one.
—AliTehReader
interesting history of Pluto. I understand better why if was changed.
—xyesix
