Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Time to buy new science books ;)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4138920.html

Funny you should say that.

As a kid, I once lived in a tiny town with a tiny school (it's now a post office).  The library, the auditorium and the cafeteria were all one room.  They taught grades 1-4 and each grade had exactly one room to spend the whole day in (unless there was an assembly, a meal or library time, in which case we went to the libracafetorium!).  

Anyway one day I was looking for a book in this tiny library and as usual sought out all the sci-fi stuff.  I found a book about "Planet X" and grabbed it based on the title.  When I got home I was disappointed to find it wasn't fiction, but an astronomy book about the new, exciting discovery of a ninth planet in our solar system, as yet unnamed (hence, "Planet X").

This was about 1974.  Pluto was named around 1930.  Great library, huh?

The American school system doing what it does best, being awful and embarrassing.

I actually kind of like out of date books, sometimes its interesting to read the reasoning behind science that is not that well known...I really dig geosynclinal theory in geology, pre-radiometric dating ideas on the Earth's age, and especially, early explanations for evolutionary inheritence before gene theory... 8)

yes, sure but it speaks more of the poor school system, old books at public libraries are cool, but not for school libraries who are suppose to keep current and sell off all old books, in those neat ultra cheap book sales. :)

I don't disagree, I went to a tiny public school myself, it did have a separate room for a library, but that was for all the kids from Kindergarten through 12th grade...I did find some pretty interesting ancient books there... 8)

Pluto is a dog :wink:

My school library was fairly large, but still had some old books on the shelves (such as an early 60's book on how television worked, despite being 30 years out of date by my early 90's high school years).

RE: Superman: I guess this is going to screw with any comic stories set in the future that considered Pluto a planet (Unless its planet-status got switched back ;-) ).

The only Superman story I can think of that mentions Pluto was a story where Bizarro brings Lois Lane a giant sunflower that grows there (only for its spores to wreak havoc in Lois' apartment). Can anyone think of any other stories?

I believe Starro the Conqueror was based on Pluto in Superman's first adventure with Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew.  Anyway, it is rays from Pluto that devolve the humans on Earth-1 and lead to Superman and Capt teaming up.

Concerning obsolete textbooks, I still use"Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary" (copyright 1949), based on "Webster's New International Dictionary" (Second Edition).  It still has an entry on "Piltdown Man".   :wink:

I recall that story. More specifically, Starro was launching his attack from the Pluto of the Earth-C universe ("Pluto-C", I suppose), with the rays affecting Earths-1 and -C...

It will be interesting to see how much the public -- and astronomers themselves -- accept Pluto's demotion to "dwarf planet". Maps and globes still show Europe and Asia as separate continents, despite the obvious fact that they are one land mass. Similarly, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are still recognized as separate lakes, although hydrologically and geologically they are one (see Lake Michigan-Huron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Michigan-Huron) at Wikipedia).