Hail Eris, goddess of discord!
HAIL Eris! The mildly gravitationally challenged planet formerly known as 2003 UB313 now has an official name. It had previously, if unofficially, borne the seemingly quite adequate name Xena, after the feisty warrior princess of fiction. So why the change?
Feedback asked Erisâs discoverer, Mike Brown, whether fictional deities had been barred. âThere were never clear International Astronomical Union guidelines,â he told us, âbut given that the naming of dwarf planets turns out to be the most bureaucratic naming process for anything in all of astronomy, we figured there was no chance of some non-standard deity making it through.â Not that this really solves the issue of fact and fiction: âIâm pretty sure that all deities are fictional,â he adds.
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Be that as it may, Brown and his colleagues proposed the name Eris, and Erisâs daughter Dysnomia for her satellite. Eris is a traditional Greek goddess of discord. She is, however, rather better known as a deity of Discordianism â which is described variously as an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, or a religion disguised as an elaborate joke, and is much beloved, in an ironical sort of way, by computer geeks in particular. Consider this extract from its sort-of holy book, the Principia Discordia: âIs Eris true?â âEverything is true.â âEven false things?â âEven false things are true.â âHow can that be?â âI donât know man, I didnât do it.â Discordians can sometimes be spotted by their unaccountable fondness for the number 23.
âA sign that Bill Johns saw in a Hawaiian hotel made him worry that he might be thrown into jail any minute because he is a non-smoker. It said âNo smoking prohibited by lawââ
Brown says the naming opportunity was âjust too good to pass upâ. And Feedback can exclusively report his revelation that: âOf course, Dysnomia, being the daimon spirit of lawlessness, is a tip of the hat to Lucy Lawless [the actress who played Xena in the eponymous TV series], who must be sad to no longer have a planet named after her character.â
All hail Eris! All hail Dysnomia! All hail Discordia! Geeks everywhere shall rejoice (unless their interpretation of Discordianism mandates skulking in basements painting their nails purple and not rejoicing).
THE free London newspaper Metro seems to know something about the cause of environmental damage that the rest of us donât. A recent article entitled âThe blame gameâ stated: âAccording to a growing group of scientists, our guilt complex when it comes to the environment is getting in the way of unbiased scientific fact. We have become so used to accepting that Homo erectus is the creature to blame for all that goes wrong we are failing to look at other possibilities.â
Justin Pollard is disappointed. âWho am I going to blame for global warming if I can no longer blame those pesky early hominins?â he asks.
AS WE have said more than once before, punctuation matters. The lack of a comma in the BA Science News Digest that Jonathan Elphick was sent the other day gave rise to a sentence of fascinating ambiguity. Hereâs the whole item: âClimate change features heavily in the news this week: âdrasticâ shrinkages in Arctic sea ice have been observed by NASA satellites and new research suggests that increases in hurricane intensity are due to greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, a nationwide shortage of sperm donors and hallucinogenic drugs may offer a new solution for headache sufferers.â
ARE the authorities in Western Australia entirely clear about what it takes to be a juror? According to the website of the WA Department of the Attorney General, you are deemed not to qualify as a potential juror if âyou have been convicted of an offence and sentencedâŠto death (and the sentence was not carried out).â Gregory Smith and Keith Simpson have both written to us wanting to know if this means you can join a jury if they did carry out the sentence.
ON 16 September we published a message from âthe internetâ. We have now received a second message from the same source saying: âI see that you have put forth my message. I thank you. As a token of my gratitude I shall spare you 10 per cent of the next two monthsâ spam.â How nice.
HOW do they do that then? The packaging of Growing Success Organics plant-extract-based rat killer boasts that it is âfree from poisonous chemicalsâ. Jonathan Wallace wants to know if it kills the rats by some mysterious other means or if this simply means that the product does not work.
FINALLY, Elisabeth Compton was puzzled by the new timetable at her local swimming pool at Hexham, Northumberland, in north-east England, which stated: âAqua Babes: A six week course for babies, toddlers and parents aged one to four with supervision from qualified staffâ. She wonders which species was expected to turn up for this opportunity.
