Talk:2851: Messier Objects

addededededded transcript Me^{[citation needed]} 17:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

meow someone, i guess^{(talk i guess|le edit list)} 17:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Is M30712050 that specific squirrel, or just the general category of squirrels? 172.69.247.56 17:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The debate about the Ship of Theseus suggests that every ship gets its own number, so why not every squirrel? Although then the numbers would be much larger. Barmar (talk) 18:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

...and the list would be much messier. Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 18:32, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• fwap* 172.69.43.143 00:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

It can't be all squirrels, CM could not have seen *all* squirrels. In fact, he would have been dead long before *that* squirrel was born. SDSpivey (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Presuming that Messier is alive in this panel, then this panel isn't the present, and the squirrel was alive when Messier was alive. 162.158.155.162 21:58, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

could the numbers have been picked to represent something rather than be entirely random? like 41592 coming from pi and 137 being FSC... idk maybe i'm just reading too much into it... 162.158.186.11 18:09, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

i mean...every finite string of numbers "comes from" pi Me^{[citation needed]} 15:42, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Between the Messier catalog and the Marvel multiverse, we've got a well-defined numbering system that indexes all objects in all universes. (Or, I guess at least those universes with Messier catalogs. Damn.) 172.69.58.18 19:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

You should also number all Messier catalogues (and intermediate versions of them), then, to make sure we know which ones we're talking about. 172.69.43.143 00:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Furthermore, each entry in the catalog should have it's own entry in the catalog. 172.69.247.65 02:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Wait a minute... this is just the wikidata QID system againataraxianAscendant (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it's like Wikidata. Not sure if it's worth mentioning. Unfortunately, the numbers don't match those Wikidata for equivalent objects.

Furtermore, Wikimedia Commons ID use an M and a number. For example, https://commons.wikimedia.org/entity/M205.--Pere prlpz (talk) 19:39, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikidata does something similar, but they use /Q\d+/ instead. Me^{[citation needed]} 15:45, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I added a section about Wikidata because the first thing that I wanted to do when I read this comic was look up what the IDs were for all of the objects mentioned. It certainly could be written better. Brycemw (talk) 15:31, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Ha! Edit conflicted. Sample of diff (-my submission and +the one that got there just before me):

   -
   :Q1050837 (Ship of Theseus) (The concept, only...)
   +	
   :Q1050837 (Ship of Theseus) (The thought experiment)

Oopsies! the one on the bottom is mine haha. someone, i guess^{(talk i guess|le edit list)} 18:45, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Great minds think alike! (Fools never differ...) 172.71.178.79 16:19, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The existence of a Messier catalog implies the existence of a Neater catalog. 172.69.134.130 19:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The explanation suggests that we might number every grain of sand. But the comic just has a single number for "Earth". Would the catalog have separate entries for an object and all its constituents? It doesn't seem like it, since Randall didn't label the wings of the butterfly, limbs of the squirrel or human, or branches and leaves of the tree. Of course, how we distinguish distinct objects in the world is an even thornier philosophical problem than the Ship of Theseus. Barmar (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I deleted that portion as non-explanatory wild speculation. 172.71.159.64 21:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The same would apply to the real Messier Objects too - do you label a star cluster, and then label the individual stars within it as well?172.70.90.228 10:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't Earth (or Messier) be object #0? SDSpivey (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

You'll need to bring that up with Messier... 162.158.197.136 15:52, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

How messy are they? 🥁 172.70.100.211 22:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Earth number might be influenced by Dimension C-137 from Rick and Morty, which often is used to refer to the "Earth" location from early easons. -- 172.70.200.145 22:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC) (edit 172.68.146.17 22:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC))

For the numbering of the ships of Theseuses, why not just use the numbers from a particular type of prime number? ----

In the UK, the Ship of Theseus problem is sometimes referred to as Trigger's Broom, after a character from one of our most popular sitcoms ("Only Fools And Horses"). Trigger is a mentally-deficient road sweeper who is proud of the fact that he's still got his original broom that he was given when he started work 20 years ago. He's looked after it in that time: it's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles... 172.70.86.189 06:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

To be fair (and, unfortunately, historically unfair to the Irish), that's just a transplant of the older "Irishman's Broom". And it's just one of many variations like "grandfather's axe", etc. Depends on whether you're going for fairly recent pop-culture (lovely-jubbley!), falling back on old stereotypes (to be sure, to be sure) or whatever else you have in mind. (I'm sure I actually heard "Ship of Theseus" said on the street, just the other day, by a conversing couple. And this wasn't even an Oxbridge street!)

To be fair to Trigger, the council for whom the character worked was also as blind/far-sighted regarding the philosophical (dis)continuity of existence, given the award in which they were citing the broom as one of the outstanding features... Much as the US Government treats the 'modern' USS Constitution as the same as the 'original', maybe? 172.70.90.231 09:02, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Could the M137 for earth be a Rick and Morty reference, since that is their earth/universe-number as well? Eugen (talk) 09:54, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

We gotta go to xkcd, Morty! There's no time to explain, get in, Morty! someone, i guess^{(talk i guess|le edit list)}

Another interpretation isn't so much that the higher-numbered objects are less "significant", but more that Messier numbered them in order, and so higher numbers mean objects that Messier took longer to get around to numbering. It took him until object 206 to think to number himself, and other things such as random specific squirrels have much higher numbers because he didn't get to them until much later in his cataloguing process. 108.162.242.54 16:13, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Concerning trees and squirrels, this assertion can and indeed should be supported with a citation (citing any adequate souce listing the objects in the catalogue). I have therefore changed the "fact" tag to "Actual citation needed" to avoid confusion with the humourous version. Whether the assertion is correct or not is questionable. One could argue that M5, the Rose Cluster, is named after the rose tree; that M20, the Trifid Nebula is actually the Triffid Nebula; and that M93, the Critter Cluster, refers to a variety of critters, including squirrels.