Archivo etiqueta «Astronomía»
By Brian Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia, is the author of “The Elegant Universe” and “The Fabric of the Cosmos” (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/10/06):
SEVENTY-FIVE years ago this month, The New York Times reported that Albert Einstein had completed his unified field theory — a theory that promised to stitch all of nature’s forces into a single, tightly woven mathematical tapestry. But as had happened before and would happen again, closer scrutiny revealed flaws that sent Einstein back to the drawing board. Nevertheless, Einstein’s belief that he’d one day complete the unified theory rarely … Seguir leyendo
Por Rafael Bachiller, astrónomo, director del Observatorio Astronómico Nacional y representante nacional en la Asamblea de la UAI (EL MUNDO, 25/08/06):
Ayer, los astrónomos reunidos en Praga, en la Asamblea General de la Unión Astronómica Internacional (UAI), no hemos sido capaces de zanjar completamente el largo debate que se viene manteniendo durante varios años sobre qué es un planeta. A la asamblea hemos asistido unos 2.500 astrónomos de los más de 9.000 miembros de la UAI, procedentes de unos 75 países. Las discusiones mantenidas durante la asamblea han sido la continuación del procedimiento iniciado por la Unión cuando hace … Seguir leyendo
By Tim Kreider, a cartoonist, is the author of “The Pain: When Will It End?” and “Why Do They Kill Me?” (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/08/06):
MY love for our picked-on ninth planet is deeply, perhaps embarrassingly, personal.
I took my first public stand on Pluto’s taxonomical fate when I addressed the Forum on Outer Planetary Exploration in 2001 (don’t ask why a cartoonist was addressing astronomers — it’s a long story).
I informed the assembled scientists that, first of all, no way was I or anyone else about to un-memorize anything we’d already been forced to learn in … Seguir leyendo
By Dava Sobel, author of “Longitude,” “Galileo’s Daughter,” and “The Planets,” served as the sole non-scientist on the Planet Definition Committee (THE WASHINGTON POST, 16/08/06):
Pluto has become the butt of jokes lately, replacing Uranus as the solar system’s laughingstock — and all because scientists find themselves forced, at last, to come to terms with the meaning of the word “planet.”
Tacit definitions have existed since ancient times, when planetai, meaning wanderers, applied to seven moving lights in the sky: the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. But telescopes have revealed more objects in the solar … Seguir leyendo
By Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 16/08/06):
Pasadena, Calif.
LAST year, two colleagues and I announced that we had found an unknown body slightly larger than Pluto in the far reaches of our solar system. Since then, astronomical confusion has reigned on Earth and, depending on whom you ask, our solar system has 8, 9, 10 or, shockingly, 53 planets.
Next week, the International Astronomical Union, which oversees astronomical rules and conventions, will vote on a strict definition of “planet.” The result of that vote is hard … Seguir leyendo
By Brian Marsden, an astronomer and the director of the Minor Planets Centre at Harvard University (THE GUARDIAN, 14/08/06):
It’s time we admitted that accepting Pluto as the ninth planet was a big mistake. The announcement from the Lowell observatory in 1930 that a distant new planet had been found in accordance with the prediction by the observatory’s founder was a brilliant exercise in public relations. Little heed was paid to critics who soon pointed out that the object was much smaller than Percival Lowell had claimed and that there was no way he could have made a meaningful … Seguir leyendo
Un hielo anunciado. Francisco Anguita es profesor de geología planetaria en la Universidad Complutense (EL PAIS, 24/01/04).