Should we give Earth a scientific designation?

[Souper]

I don't know why, but apparently giving Earth a "real" designation seems to give me a better sense of objectivity.

But we DID decide to to this, what kind of system would we use to name it?

I'm hoping this:

Body type: TP: terrestrial planet. GG: gas giant. BD: brown dwarf. PP: proto-planet. DP: dwarf planet. AS: asteroid.

Life (L): 1 means yes, 0 means no.

Civilization ©: 0 - 5. Please see Kardashev scale to see what value to put in this. If there is no civilization present, simply type "X" into it.

First line: numbers 0-?: nearby galaxies. (0 is milky way, ? is farthest galaxy ever discovered.

Second line: distance from star to galactic center. (Measured in lightyears.)(Should describe star's closest approach.) Sun = 26093.0109

Third line = Planet number. 1 is closest planet, ? is farthest. Earth = 3.

(Optional: Moon: put a -a, b, c ,e, exc. beside the last bit of the designation.

So: TP-L1-C0-0-26093-3.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Souper

[cpast]

But...why? That's no more objective than "Earth", and is less useful for just about every scientific purpose -- I cannot think of a single case where you'd want arbitrary bits of information crammed into a designation. There are conventions for nomenclature of exoplanets, which if extended to the Earth would give either "Sun b" or "Sun d" (the former if you consider Earth to be the first planet discovered, the latter if you consider the first 6 planets to have been discovered simultaneously, as they've been known since antiquity). Note that the scientific designation for the Sun is just "the Sun"; scientists don't seem to have an issue singling it out as not needing to be referenced via catalog number.

[Wanderfound]

But...why? That's no more objective than "Earth", and is less useful for just about every scientific purpose -- I cannot think of a single case where you'd want arbitrary bits of information crammed into a designation. There are conventions for nomenclature of exoplanets, which if extended to the Earth would give either "Sun b" or "Sun d" (the former if you consider Earth to be the first planet discovered, the latter if you consider the first 6 planets to have been discovered simultaneously, as they've been known since antiquity). Note that the scientific designation for the Sun is just "the Sun"; scientists don't seem to have an issue singling it out as not needing to be referenced via catalog number.

"Sol" is more usual when you want to distinguish Earth-Sun from other stars.

But, yeah: scientific nomenclature is a tool, not an objective reality. If the name doesn't aid in communication or understanding, there's no reason for it.

[cpast]

"Sol" is more usual when you want to distinguish Earth-Sun from other stars.

Is that in discussions, or in papers? I ran a search in abstracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and "Sol" came up with just "author has Sol in their name" and "abstract cites a journal whose name includes the word Solar, abbreviated as Sol.", while "Sun" came up with a lot of results. But that search may be highly unrepresentative, for all I know.

[Motokid600]

Sorry if I'm on a completely different page here, but are you basically suggesting we rename Earth?

[Wanderfound]

Is that in discussions, or in papers? I ran a search in abstracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and "Sol" came up with just "author has Sol in their name" and "abstract cites a journal whose name includes the word Solar, abbreviated as Sol.", while "Sun" came up with a lot of results. But that search may be highly unrepresentative, for all I know.

(quick search)

Hmmn, seems like you're right. "Sol" is just Latin for "Sun"; hence "solar". It looks like the astro folks have shifted away from Latin faster than the biosciences crew.

Where you will still see it used in the literature is as a term for a Martian day. See http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?as_q=mars+sol&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=-sol&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5

[Seret]

Astronomers are famous for using pretty dry designations for astronomical bodies, but they're actually going to give a lot of the exoplanets colloquial names too:

http://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_exoplanets/

[Streetwind]

@super: systematic designations are assigned to celestial objects by the IAU, just like colloquial names. The IAU has existing systems for that. If you are interested whether or not Earth has a systematic designation or how it would look like if it received one, I recommend you contact the IAU directly. That's what they're there for

@ the whole Sun naming discussion: "Sun" is a recognized proper name for our star by the IAU, making it suitable for use in scientific literature. It is not the only recognized proper name - all celestial objects that were discovered and named before the formation and formalization of the IAU around 1900 have many different names in many different languages. All of them are recognized proper names. "Sol" is just as correct as "Sun", but it is the name in Latin, not English. A scientist writing a paper in English would use the English proper name, not the Latin one. Similarly, if a scientist wrote a paper in Latin, you would not find the English, or German, or French, or Japanese (and so on) names in there. You stay consistent with your language of writing.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Streetwind

[Wanderfound]

You stay consistent with your language of writing.

Ha; tell that to the biologists and historians.

In bioscience papers, rodents don't have whiskers, they have "vibrissae". In history of science papers, it's routine for authors to throw in quotations from half a dozen archaic languages without bothering to provide translations; they just assume that their readers should all be fluent in Latin/Ancient Greek/Medieval French etc.

And then there's the statisticians. "Heteroskedasticity". Aargh.

[Kruleworld]

Hmmn, seems like you're right. "Sol" is just Latin for "Sun"; hence "solar".

yes, and using Star Trek's format, Earth is Sol 3.

Earth (or Sol III or Terra) was the inhabited third planet of the Sol system.

[Sky_walker]

The proper, scientific naming of a planets is to use lower-case letters. Numbers are in general a sci-fi thing.

So in case of the earth - it'd be Sol c going by a distance from sun or - if we follow the current scientific standard of naming planets in the order of discovery - it'd be Sol a

However noone is going to use anything alike as scientific designation of earth is earth.

If you can't stand calling earth earth - use that instead:

ps. this topic is full of nonsense babbling.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Sky_walker

[cantab]

One thing that was learnt a while ago when discovering the moons of the gas giants is that numbering satellites in order of distance from their primary is a bad idea, because new discoveries mess up the numbers. That's why today we designate exoplanets in order of discovery.

So for our solar system, I would say the Earth is Sun g, since it was only recognised as a planet after the naked-eye planets. The naming of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn would be somewhat arbitrary, it might be better to just go in order rather than try and research historical observations.

What the OP is talking about is more akin to a classification scheme. They're popular in sci-fi and such a classification would be useful for databases, but computing will probably develop enough to be able to handle freeform descriptions obviating the need for a code.

PS: No planet is ever called "Starname a", the first discovered is b. Possibly a is implicitly the star itself.

Edited September 2, 2014 by cantab

[Sky_walker]

So for our solar system, I would say the Earth is Sun g, since it was only recognised as a planet after the naked-eye planets.

Hmm... good point. I went for "since when we know about it" instead of "when it was recognized as a planet".

[lajoswinkler]

Ha; tell that to the biologists and historians.

In bioscience papers, rodents don't have whiskers, they have "vibrissae". In history of science papers, it's routine for authors to throw in quotations from half a dozen archaic languages without bothering to provide translations; they just assume that their readers should all be fluent in Latin/Ancient Greek/Medieval French etc.

And then there's the statisticians. "Heteroskedasticity". Aargh.

That's because choosing Latin is better than choosing English. It's neutral and people all around the world will understand it as it's in the core of scientific language.

That why in anatomy you've got "protuberantia occipitalis externa" instead of "that bump on the back of your head", and in chemistry, elements have latin symbols. Na for sodium comes from "natrium".

A doctor/anatomist in Zambia or Burma will know what protuberantia occipitalis externa is. 100% guarantee.

Scientific papers aren't something just about anyone will go and read. If you read it, chances are high you're accustomed to scientific and technical language.

"Whisker" doesn't mean a thing outside English. "Vibrissa" does.

Edited September 2, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[Seret]

in chemistry, elements have latin symbols. Na for sodium comes from "natrium".

It's generally only the really old ones that have kept their old Latin names. They picked up those names because the science was actually conducted in Latin back then, but even then they were happy using the Greek names too. Most elements have symbols derived directly from their names, which come from all over. Titanium is a bit of a strange one too (Greek name, Swedish symbol).

[cpast]

That's because choosing Latin is better than choosing English. It's neutral and people all around the world will understand it as it's in the core of scientific language.

That why in anatomy you've got "protuberantia occipitalis externa" instead of "that bump on the back of your head", and in chemistry, elements have latin symbols. Na for sodium comes from "natrium".

A doctor/anatomist in Zambia or Burma will know what protuberantia occipitalis externa is. 100% guarantee.

Scientific papers aren't something just about anyone will go and read. If you read it, chances are high you're accustomed to scientific and technical language.

"Whisker" doesn't mean a thing outside English. "Vibrissa" does.

No, really, just no. Scientists don't understand Latin; they understand specific terms, but there's nothing about "vibrassa" making it any easier to understand than "whisker". When you consider that virtually all science nowadays is conducted in English, scientists understand English anyways. Latin isn't culturally neutral (since it originates from western Europe), it isn't used outside of specific terms, and there's nothing that makes assorted Latin terms easier to learn than assorted English terms (for people who aren't reading your paper, since if someone is trying to read a paper and doesn't understand the language the paper is written in, they won't be able to understand it regardless). Latin used to be the language of science. It no longer is, and further uses of Latin are more tradition and consistency (e.g. biological nomenclature in real or dog Latin fits in with preexisting nomenclature, English nomenclature would not) than anything else.

Incidentally, in Zambia any doctor should know what "whisker" means, because schools there are taught in English, not a different language. Doctoral programs are normally designed such that anyone taking them has to learn English to complete them, precisely because it's nigh-impossible to do science nowadays without a working knowledge of English. Some science disciplines do use Latin terms, but it's a historical thing, not because Latin is an inherently better language (doctors have a bit of an exception, because Latin lets them refer to things without the patient knowing and panicking).

[Seret]

Use of Latin these days is just jargon. Jargon can be useful by defining a term to mean a very specific thing within the context of a closed group, but it's also in large part about excluding the uninitiated.

[Idobox]

We won't need different names for the Sun and Earth until we have people living on planets around other stars (I can't picture people talking about waking up at Gliese 581 rise).

The use of Greek and Latin names in science is a question inertia. Science in the west was done in Greek and Latin for centuries, and when people started to write in vernacular, they decided not to translate many of the words to avoid confusion.

But in other countries, there are a bunch of terms that are not from Latin. In Japanese and Chinese, lots of anatomical words are not Latin. I just played for 5 minutes with google translate, and I have found only one word that is not translated (it's synapse, but other words like sulcus, aorta, cortex or hippocampus all have Japanese names).

Western languages will keep using Latin and Greek words becuase of inertia and tradition, but don't assume Latin is universal.

[Wanderfound]

That's because choosing Latin is better than choosing English. It's neutral and people all around the world will understand it as it's in the core of scientific language.

That why in anatomy you've got "protuberantia occipitalis externa" instead of "that bump on the back of your head", and in chemistry, elements have latin symbols. Na for sodium comes from "natrium".

A doctor/anatomist in Zambia or Burma will know what protuberantia occipitalis externa is. 100% guarantee.

Scientific papers aren't something just about anyone will go and read. If you read it, chances are high you're accustomed to scientific and technical language.

"Whisker" doesn't mean a thing outside English. "Vibrissa" does.

Retired neuroscientist here, BTW.

Yes, I know a bit of Latin; you pick it up as you go along. As well as some tortured Greek and a fair bit of misinterpreted Arabic.

A lot of the anatomical terminology is just plain ridiculous when you get into it (substantia nigra, globus pallidus, etc), and it doesn't even make sense to someone who is a fluent classicist. It's an unholy mishmash of several classical languages, filtered through a Chinese Whispers history of translation and retranslation by an assortment of archivists who often didn't understand what they were reading, even on the rare occasions when they were properly fluent in the language they were reading it from. Look into the etymology of the brain's protective membranes someday; the outer one literally translates as "the tough mother", all because a medieval European monk translating an Arabic text that he didn't understand couldn't recognise a metaphor when he saw it.

There is a value in precision and consistency with scientific language, to be sure. But a lot of the more archaic parts of it are nothing but mindless traditionalism, academic pretension and needlessly exclusionary jargon. Forcing the necessary language skills into our students wasted a fair bit of time that could have instead been spent on actual science and medicine.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Wanderfound

[pxi]

So: TP-L1-C0-0-26093-3.

Catchy, and it positively just rolls off the tongue.

How does your system deal with cases where the presence of life and/or civilization is unknown? I see only YES/NO options. No option for unknown.

Wait, I see it now. X for unknown. Well played sir!

Edited September 2, 2014 by pxi

[Godot]

Actually a boolean designation for life IMHO is not all too useful.

You would have to classify the type of life (for the highest level present).

Like:

Microbial life

Multicellular

Maybe multicellular further subdivided into size and/or mobile/sessile and type of nutrition (like carnivorous, photosynthetic and so on)

[lajoswinkler]

No, really, just no. Scientists don't understand Latin; they understand specific terms, but there's nothing about "vibrassa" making it any easier to understand than "whisker". When you consider that virtually all science nowadays is conducted in English, scientists understand English anyways. Latin isn't culturally neutral (since it originates from western Europe), it isn't used outside of specific terms, and there's nothing that makes assorted Latin terms easier to learn than assorted English terms (for people who aren't reading your paper, since if someone is trying to read a paper and doesn't understand the language the paper is written in, they won't be able to understand it regardless). Latin used to be the language of science. It no longer is, and further uses of Latin are more tradition and consistency (e.g. biological nomenclature in real or dog Latin fits in with preexisting nomenclature, English nomenclature would not) than anything else.

It's vibrissa, not vibrassa, and yes, there's plenty to understand. It came from old Indo-European, and became vibratus. "Vibr-" is easily recognized as something that tremors, is being agitated in a quick and repeating manner. Vibrator, vibrating.

Every language user in Europe will recognize what that means and, when confronted with a concept of "mouse's vibrissae", will not point to its eye or ass, but to growths on its nose, or at least will point towards the head. It's ingrained into culture.

Not only Europe, but the whole world, because it's an international thing which has penetrated everywhere.

"Whisker", is something appropriate for naming a cutesy cat from Washington. Except for suffix "-er" which denotes a device-like thing, it is not intuitively recognizable to people whose mother tongue isn't English.

Latin still is the primary language of basic natural science nomenclature, at least in the form of prefixes and suffixes and mostly as direct adaptations from Latin.

Literal Latin exists in binomial nomenclature (Nomen Binominale) and anatomic nomenclature (Terminologia Anatomica), and perhaps somewhere else, too.

Incidentally, in Zambia any doctor should know what "whisker" means, because schools there are taught in English, not a different language. Doctoral programs are normally designed such that anyone taking them has to learn English to complete them, precisely because it's nigh-impossible to do science nowadays without a working knowledge of English. Some science disciplines do use Latin terms, but it's a historical thing, not because Latin is an inherently better language (doctors have a bit of an exception, because Latin lets them refer to things without the patient knowing and panicking).

Still, "whisker" is not international, and "vibrissa" is. Few decades of globalization and commercialism can't change millenia of Latin language permeation.

In some fields, like informatics and genetics, and increasingly in biochemistry (where it replaced German), English is dominant and creates abbreviations, but Latin roots are very visible.

Use of Latin these days is just jargon. Jargon can be useful by defining a term to mean a very specific thing within the context of a closed group, but it's also in large part about excluding the uninitiated.

Yes, of course it's jargon. Nowhere in science is Latin a spoken language. It's a dead language. Only some people can speak it.

Retired neuroscientist here, BTW.

Yes, I know a bit of Latin; you pick it up as you go along. As well as some tortured Greek and a fair bit of misinterpreted Arabic.

A lot of the anatomical terminology is just plain ridiculous when you get into it (substantia nigra, globus pallidus, etc), and it doesn't even make sense to someone who is a fluent classicist. It's an unholy mishmash of several classical languages, filtered through a Chinese Whispers history of translation and retranslation by an assortment of archivists who often didn't understand what they were reading, even on the rare occasions when they were properly fluent in the language they were reading it from. Look into the etymology of the brain's protective membranes someday; the outer one literally translates as "the tough mother", all because a medieval European monk translating an Arabic text that he didn't understand couldn't recognise a metaphor when he saw it.

There is a value in precision and consistency with scientific language, to be sure. But a lot of the more archaic parts of it are nothing but mindless traditionalism, academic pretension and needlessly exclusionary jargon. Forcing the necessary language skills into our students wasted a fair bit of time that could have instead been spent on actual science and medicine.

But "substantia nigra" will be recognized by almost every sane adult on Earth who didn't live under a rock as "something black", and "globus pallidus" as something roundish.

True, it's a historic mishmash, there's Greek, there's Arabic, but it connects the world as it exists in other languages.

Dura mater is a funny thing, I admit.

As a chemist, I've never ever witnessed or had problems with Latin jargon. In fact, it helped everyone because people understood it. Mind that my mother tongue belongs to Slavic languages, which are a different branch from Romanic ones.

Edited September 2, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[Wanderfound]

Incidentally, my favourite bit of classically nonsensical scientific nomenclature is "chromosome".

They named it before they knew what it was; they just noticed that there was a lot of it in every cell, and it soaked up the microscopy staining dyes really well.

So, as a result, this fundamental element of genetic transmission throughout the biological world has a name that roughly translates as "the easily coloured bit".

[Wanderfound]

But "substantia nigra" will be recognized by almost every sane adult on Earth who didn't live under a rock as "something black", and "globus pallidus" as something roundish.

I think that you're overestimating the abilities of a lot of undergrads there. In my experience, most of 'em think that "substantia nigra" is a bit racist and "globus pallidus" has something to do with a Monty Python sketch.

[lajoswinkler]

Incidentally, my favourite bit of classically nonsensical scientific nomenclature is "chromosome".

They named it before they knew what it was; they just noticed that there was a lot of it in every cell, and it soaked up the microscopy staining dyes really well.

So, as a result, this fundamental element of genetic transmission throughout the biological world has a name that roughly translates as "the easily coloured bit".

Yes, little bodies of something which take up certain dyes really well. That's what can be seen through a light microscope and that's what most of people will ever see.

Many things in science, particularly biology, have funny names because people did not know what they were looking at.

I think that you're overestimating the abilities of a lot of undergrads there. In my experience, most of 'em think that "substantia nigra" is a bit racist and "globus pallidus" has something to do with a Monty Python sketch.

Why are they going to such colleges if they're so ignorant? One would assume someone trying to get a degree in biology sciences would not be so daft about those things.