Second Book Post

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, a book by Mike Brown, is about his life around the time of his discovery of other dwarf planets larger than Pluto. His most significant discovery, Xena (or Eris today), appeared to be slightly larger than Pluto, sparking the debate on whether or not a 10th planet exists. In the book, Brown details how he went to the international astronomy conference as they debated the definition of a planet, the definition of the ecliptic, and other things. They ended up coming to the conclusion that Pluto, along with Xena were to be classified as dwarf planets. The 8 other planets were to be classified as classical planets. Furthermore, Brown highlighted his life events  that shaped him and his emotional side. He found and married his wife and talked about how his daughter was growing up through his entire discovery of Xena and the aftermath. He writes about how she grew to love astronomy as well and would look up at the stars with him.

One of the things that struck me was how his work and life affected his daughter's love for stars and astronomy. I think his relationship with his daughter is very authentic and shaping in her interests and world-view, even with how young she was. Another thing that struck was how he observed that there was no record of a humanity's reaction to the discovery of planets. He highlighted how the bigger discovery was the heliocentric system and that it changed humanity's worldview more significantly. This is major because Earth becomes a planet in the heliocentric system, so the discovery of the heliocentric system was, in a way, the discovery of Earth as a planet. Finally, how Brown argued at the end of the book that the definition of a planet did not matter that much was striking to me because his view is that the language and definition of a planet is not that important and can be left for lawyers etc. This was striking because the book's plot focus was unimportant to him in the end.

Overall, my impression of the book is that its sentimental side with his wife, daughter, and relationship to the stars and astronomy as whole, passing it on to the next generation with his daughter, was the highlight. It was very human and the story was resonating to me.

Comments

  1. Blog Blog BlogFebruary 4, 2019 at 11:45 AM

    I can't explain how much I loved this review. Although you mentioned the important scientific part of the book, I really liked how you highlighted the sentimental part of it as well. You were able to empathize with Mike Brown as a scientist, father, and husband, and most people would just focus on the scientific facts and not the relationships that affected all the people around him.

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  2. Chicken Fried BryceFebruary 4, 2019 at 11:45 AM

    I find it funny that he wrote this entire book about the dwarf planet classification versus a classical planet and then in the end decides that it really doesn't matter at all. I think he might have been trying to say that he went through a pointless struggle, and that what actually matters are the discoveries themselves.

    His relationship with his daughter reminds me of me and my grandfather, in that I grew up looking through telescopes at night with him as well and he cultivated a love for astronomy within me.

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  3. Kane AcostaFebruary 4, 2019 at 11:52 AM

    I also read this book and I truly agree that the main theming was more geared towards his life hardships and relatiobship with his daughter over his actual field of astronomy. Even though in the end he lost Eris, it truly came down to him and his daughter having an emotional bond not a lot of others can expierence when looking up at the stars.

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