The butler did it...

In case you have missed the news for Southern California, it's been raining here! Raining and raining and raining... The good news is that it is full Moon. The bad news is that we missed a fabulous lunar eclipse. The longer term threat is Winter dew.

Cold is bad enough. Cold with dew – which turns into ice – is just plain uncomfortable. Fortunately, so far the desert has had a measly fraction of the coast. We could get lucky, especially given the predication that a strong La Niña should give us cold, dry weather the rest of Winter.

In any case, nothing like rain to promote reading, and I picked up a real page-turner: Mike Brown's How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. Brown is the record discoverer of icy Solar System bodies in the Kuiper Belt. I don't dare call them "planets" after reading this, and when you read it, you will understand why! It is a fascinating look into the life of a working astronomer – one with an obvious extra dose of both personality and intelligence. Brown bridged the era of photographic plates to digitized sky surveys, and he notes that he spent a lot of his time programming. A LOT of time. When it was done, it was (essentially) a matter of hours for the computer to do its search.

It is a tale of Science. Brown is a scientist, and a proud defender of it. Our prevailing culture has become anti-intellectual and anti-science; I was depressed to read recently that 40% of the American population believes in Creationism. Brown reminds us that Science lives and I think really shares in the wonder of it.

It is a tale of academic intrigue, also. Astronomers naively exploited the power of the Internet to get to remote data. One unscrupulous Spanish team discovered some of Brown's data and tried to steal credit for a discovery.

It is a charming tale of love. Clueless geek almost misses the cues, manages to nab the girl in spite of himself and finds himself a happy and devoted family man.

Brown is really something of a poet, certainly an very engaging writer. It is an easy read, full of vivid images and stories. Yet, you walk away with a much deeper understanding of why Pluto really did have it coming.

Funny how that upsets people, even now; I tried explaining it to my wife and she – like many – just can't get over losing Pluto.