The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Myth Jellies]

Actually this is a who, what, and where am I.

An oxymoronic place measures the way to the confirmed egglayer overlooking the beginnings for one who would discover a planet.

Where is the oxymoronic place

What is the confirmed egglayer

Who discovered the planet

[MCC]

Ruminatory phase begins


MCC

[Havard]

Only 3 of the 9 planets in our solar system have official "discoverers" and "times of discovery". The reason is simple - all of the other planets are easily seen by the unaided human eye. This means that humankind has been looking at these objects (whether they understood what they were or not) since first gazing at the night sky!

Three planets required good telescopes for their discovery:

Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. Herschel was probably the most famous astronomer of the 18th century. In addition to discovering the planet Uranus, he also observed and cataloged over 800 double stars and 2,500 nebulae. He was the first astronomer to correctly describe the spiral structure of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Neptune was discovered by John Couch Adams in 1846. Adams was an English astronomer and mathematician who, at the age of 24, was the first person to predict the position of a planetary mass beyond Uranus. Adams did not publish his prediction and it is a miracle that he is given credit by the scientific community for his work (let this be a lesson!). German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle (along with Heinrich Louis d'Arrest) confirmed the existance of Neptune based on independent, published, calculations done by French mathematician Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier. Sometimes you will see Couch and Le Verrier cited together as the "discoverers of Neptune".

Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. A 9th planet had been looked for for some time. It was believed that such a planet had to exist in order to explain some odd things happening in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Tombaugh did a careful sky survey at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. As a result, he discovered Pluto. The interesting thing to know is that all of the orbital problems with Uranus and Neptune vanish when the correct mass of Neptune is used in the equations; the correct mass was determined by the Voyager 2 spacecraft when it flew by that planet in 1989. So Tombaugh got lucky - he found a planet where a flawed prediction said one would be!

You can read Tombaugh's own account of the search for, and discovery of, Pluto at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ice_fire//9thplant.htm

Now with Pluto out of the loop, I guess we can narrow it down to Herschel or Adams...

Havard

[Myth Jellies]

Now with Pluto out of the loop, I guess we can narrow it down to Herschel or Adams...

A nice informative start, but neither Herschel nor Adams is part of the answer to the riddle.

[Bigtone53]

Havard wrote:
Now with Pluto out of the loop, I guess we can narrow it down to Herschel or Adams...


A nice informative start, but neither Herschel nor Adams is part of the answer to the riddle

Perhaps we should be looking at whoever discovered the metal mercury, although I suspect this is not known. Alternatively, Planet Hollywood?

[MCC]

Is this from a Totally Paradoxical world of fictional


MCC

[Myth Jellies]

Is this from a Totally Paradoxical world of fictional

The answers are all real/non-fictional. (TP is not ringing any bells either.)

There is no relationship to either the element mercury or the Planet Hollywood franchise.

[emm]

Planet Chicken?

[underquark]

Planet Chicken?

Not ChickenItza, surely?

[Myth Jellies]

Planet Chicken?

Nope

[MCC]

I was thinking of Terry Pratchet's "Discworld" - A disc supported by four elephants standing on a turtle.

Oxymoron:
Disc - flat.
World - sphere.

Egg layer - turtle.


MCC

[Myth Jellies]

I was thinking of Terry Pratchet's "Discworld" - A disc supported by four elephants standing on a turtle.

Oxymoron:
Disc - flat.
World - sphere.

Egg layer - turtle.

Not bad, but not the real world answers I was looking for.

As an aside, though, has anyone in the Discworld universe ever determined the sex of the Turtle? Noting the fact that turtles typically eschew the missionary position, it could get a bit crowded back there if it is a she and a randy male turtle comes along.

[MCC]

Great A'Tuin, the star turtle
Great A'Tuin is the Giant Star Turtle who travels through space, carrying the four giant elephants (named Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen) who in turn carry the Discworld. A member of the species Chelys galactica, A'Tuin is the only turtle ever to feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Its shell is frosted with frozen methane, pitted with meteor craters, and scoured by asteroidal dust. The substance it swims through is called aether, and may be identical to the ancient Greek mythical fifth element of the same name, or to the 19th century concept of luminiferous aether.

Great A'Tuin's gender is unknown, but is the subject of much speculation by some of the Disc's finest scientific minds. The sex of the World Turtle is pivotal in proving or disproving a number of conflicting theories about the destination of Great A'Tuin's journey through the cosmos. If (as one popular theory states) Great A'Tuin is moving to his (or her) mating grounds, (this is known as the "big bang" theory) then at the point of mating might the civilisations of the Disc be crushed or simply slide off? Attempts by telepaths to learn more about Great A'Tuin's intents have not met with much success, mainly because they did not realise that its brain functions are on such a slow timescale. All they've been able to discern is that the Great A'Tuin is looking forward to something. The other theory is that he/she came from nowhere and is going to keep walking through space to nowhere for ever (this is known as the "steady gait" theory, and is popular among academics)

Following the events in The Light Fantastic, Great A'Tuin attended the hatching of eight baby turtles, each with four baby elephants and a tiny Discworld of their own. They have since gone off on their own journeys. Whether this was the event the Great A'Tuin was looking forward to or merely one step towards its ultimate goal is unknown.

The Great A'Tuin frequently rolls on its belly to avoid asteroid and comet collisions. This doesn't affect the Disc's population, other than to induce severe seasickness on anyone who happens to be looking at the night sky at that time. A'Tuin has been known to do more complex rolls and corkscrews, but these are rarer.

A tiny sun and moon orbit the Great A'tuin, both about 1 mile in diameter when described at the start of the series, but the description of their diameter is increased to at least 80 miles later in the chronicles. The moon is slightly closer to the Disc than the sun, and is covered, on one half, with silvery glowing plants, which feed the lunar dragons. The other half is burnt black by the sun. The moon rotates, and completes a full revolution in about a month; the full moon occurs when the luminescent side is completely visible from the Disc, the new moon when the dark side is shown. Also, the sun's orbit is so complex that one of the elephants has to cock its leg to allow the sun to continue on its orbit.

A'Tuin is also orbited by a number of small "planets" made from the droppings of the elephants by giant dung beetles.

MCC

[Myth Jellies]

Hmm, A'tuin eschewin' corkscrewin'... Emm could have a field day.

[emm]

It's never been my intention
To draw a lot of attention
To matters of sex -
Simple or complex
They're best in the private dimension

Saying that, can I make a suggestion
For the purpose of gender detection -
You can usually tell males
By the length of their tails -
It’s a question of natural selection



PS: Bona fide zoological inf - male turtles are distinguished from females by their longer tails.