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Title details for How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown - Available

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

by Mike Brown
Ryan Gesell
Audiobook
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The solar system most of us grew up with included nine planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the discovery of a lifetime: a tenth planet, Eris, slightly bigger than Pluto. But instead of its resulting in one more planet being added to our solar system, Brown’s find ignited a firestorm of controversy that riled the usually sedate world of astronomy and launched him into the public eye. The debate culminated in the demotion of Pluto from real planet to the newly coined category of “dwarf” planet. Suddenly Brown was receiving hate mail from schoolchildren and being bombarded by TV reporters—all because of the discovery he had spent years searching for and a lifetime dreaming about.

Filled with both humor and drama, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is Mike Brown’s engaging first-person account of the most tumultuous year in modern astronomy—which he inadvertently caused. As it guides readers through important scientific concepts and inspires us to think more deeply about our place in the cosmos, it is also an entertaining and enlightening personal story: While Brown sought to expand our understanding of the vast nature of space, his own life was changed in the most immediate, human ways by love, birth, and death. A heartfelt and personal perspective on the demotion of everyone’s favorite farflung planet, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is the book for anyone, young or old, who has ever dreamed of exploring the universe—and who among us hasn’t?

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 7, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780307932709
      • File size: 224811 KB
      • Duration: 07:48:21

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In August 2006, after the three generations of humans had grown up with nine planets, the solar system shrank to include just eight. Mike Brown is to blame: He's the Cal Tech astronomer whose discoveries prompted the planetary demotion. Ryan Gesell's youthful, nasal voice is a good fit for Brown's friendly, funny, and personal account of the events. You can hear Brown's pride as he revels in the joy of his baby daughter and admire the dignity with which he handled himself when a team of Spanish astronomers tried to pass off his data as their own. There's no scientific jargon or formulas here--just the entertaining reflections of a humble scientist who made one of the great discoveries of our time. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 6, 2010
      Caltech professor Brown takes readers on a leisurely stroll across campus in this memoir of an astronomer's personal life and the years-long quest to locate new planetary bodies that has so occupied his attention. Tracing his life through the academic ladder, marriage, and parenthood, Brown clearly explains difficult scientific topics with humor and warmth. By focusing nominally on his discovery of Eris, the dwarf planet that resulted in Pluto's unexpected demotion, Brown ultimately pens a love letter to his young daughter, linking her development to the planetary timeline; "Stars, planets, galaxies, quasars are all incredible and fascinating things, with behaviors and properties that we will be uncovering for years and years, but none of them is as thoroughly astounding as the development of thought, the development of language..." The scientifically-minded will be particularly amused by Brown's desire for accurate statistics regarding due dates and birth dates. Deftly pulling readers along on his journey of discovery and destruction, Brown sets the record straight and strongly defends his science with a conversational, rational, and calm voice that may change the public's opinion of scientists as poor communicators.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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