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Dr. Phil Metzger
@DrPhiltill
, 4 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
Confessing my geekiness and a secret motive to be an Applied Planetary Scientist (making tech for mining & manufacturing with space resources). It comes from Tolkien. I’m reading this, and the last version of the tale is SO BEAUTIFUL! I long for a world like he envisioned... /1
2/...a world without suburbs, parking lots, and strip malls, but with strange & dangerous creatures. Our world is over-developed and very explored, so much of the wild-ness is gone. It would be unethical to go back. Our world needs big industry to support billions of people...
3/...So some years ago I decided the only direction to go is forward. I won’t see it in my lifetime, but we actually can create the tech to terraform wild new worlds at other stars and fill them with strange and mysterious creatures. Robots can go before us and get it done. Then,
4/...some people in the future will arrive at those beautiful & dangerous worlds to explore and then write new tales. My geekiness is believing this is possible, that we are creating the beginnings of it now . Starships and elf kingdoms: they go together.😅
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Dr. Phil Metzger
@DrPhiltill
I didn’t accept Ron’s argument here because defining categories isn’t naming, it is taxonomy, which *is* science. Then, to justify the connection between naming and taxonomy he accidentally insulted all the non-Greek or Roman cultures of the world. /1
2/ He said the IAU needed to determine if the body that was eventually named “Eris” was a planet or not because planets are, by tradition, given the names of “major gods” (whereas if it is a non-planet then it would not be given the name of a “major god”), so they had to decide!
3/ But doesn’t this imply that Hawaiian culture (Haumea) and Rapa Nui culture (Makemake) and all the other cultures that have had dwarf planets and other bodies named after their gods are of lesser importance than the Greeks and Romans.😾😾😾
Read 5 tweets
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Dr. Phil Metzger
@DrPhiltill
Last week, I was reading the works of Johannes Kepler from the 1600s and stumbled on his definition of a planet. It was actually this! He said the defining character of planets is gravitational rounding (not what or how they orbit).
2/ Correction: that was Huygens in 1698, not Kepler. I was just now having a hard time finding it online. No wonder: I was searching the wrong name. Ugh.
3/ Huygens also included in his description of planets that they are the places where there exist vegetation, animals, and civilizations possessing culture, art, and technology. He said these would be similar what we see on Earth, but different!
Read 3 tweets
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Dr. Phil Metzger
@DrPhiltill
Since I was in grad school there’s been a LOT of progress figuring out how the Moon formed. Some important objections had been raised against the giant impact hypothesis, but now they have been largely answered.
2/ The “Synestia” theory developed by @SarahTStewart & co-workers has successfully answered the main objection against the Giant Impact Hypothesis. ucdavis.edu/news/how-moon-…
3/ When collisions are inelastic (absorbing energy), the two colliders tend to stick together instead of bouncing apart. If they are giant planets, gravity then takes over so they merge into one planet. So how did we get a separate Moon??? (image credit Wikimedia)
Read 46 tweets

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Michelle Black
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This is a story in more than one part, but then I think that would suit J.R.R. down to his boots.

(1)I was in Ireland, I was 20 years old, and I was on a missions trip. First time overseas, first time missionary, first time to Ireland
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You are watching a movie.
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It’s coffee time.
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3) If there is a silent civil war going on right now, the war has gone hot.

So my goal this morning is to pause and describe how we got here.

Observations, experiences, hypotheses + recent research.

To arrive at an educated guess as to what's next.
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Here's a thread about the books I read this year!

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Dr Dimitra Fimi
@Dr_Dimitra_Fimi
#Tolkien: Medieval Roots and Modern Branches, I: first up, Andrzej Wicher on “Some Boethian Themes as Tools of Characterization in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings” #s749 #IMC2018 @IMC_Leeds
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