Russell's teapot

Now that Russell's teapot has been found, I guess that closes up yet one more gap where we can no longer say "philosophersdidit". :-)

Genius.
Has anybody used the Russell's teapot gambit on a believer who tries the "you can't prove God doesn't exist" ploy? I have, they seem to assume that because of tradition and popularity that God is more justified than something made up. Just because Russell made up the teapot doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Prove me wrong. ;)

I should've said: something obviously made up (the Teapot, not God). Oh bugger it, God is obviously made up too....

That image is obviously a fake. The teapot wasn't found with Hubble. NASA used Chandra. More in the news tomorrow.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_M08089_Chandra_Advisory.html

That image is obviously a fake. The teapot wasn't found with Hubble. NASA used Chandra.

Lassi, Lassi! And I thought you were scientifically literate! Russell's teapot is of finest bone china and as such is not detectable with a X-ray telescope like Chandra ;)

It hasn't happened yet, but it's under way. Take a look at:
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2008/05/wegwood-document.html

Russell at least had the decency to give a general location for his teapot, narrowing the search.

Thanks for that link, Omer. Interesting to find out that Russell was a friend of Yen Ruen Chao, who wrote one of my favourite linguistics textbooks (the name of which I've forgotten).

Hubble Space telescope images "Russell's Teapot" asteroid

BALTIMORE/PASADENA - Scientists of STScI working with the Hubble Space telescope published an image of what will be the most enigmatic discovery in recent years. Triggered by the NEO project discovery an object that was rapidly approaching earth with an initial scheduled impact date of 21 december 2012, The Hubble team managed to capture a detailed image which revealed that the object has the shape of a teapot.

Improved orbit calculations corrected that the dreaded impact will not occur, but instead will miss the earth at a distanse of only 6000 km. The irregular object with a diameter of 30 meters, which is nicknamed "Russel's Teapot", has an elliptical orbit between Mars and Earth. The surface reveals remarkably little impact craters and resembles more the sedimentary surface of Mars. Richard Gowk of Space Telescope Science Institute explains: "Plenty of martian surface debris has already landed on earth, in particular Antarctica is a treasure trove of martian rocks, being the result of a big asteroid impact on the martian surface, where martian material was hurdled into space."

The discovery prompted a reaction from the 2012 pole shift cult. They warned that: "Russell's teapot was predicted by Bernard Russell and is the ultimate proof that God exists. The sumerians knew it's existense under the name of Niburu and the Mayans predicted it's impact. So the new 'improved' orbit measurements must be wrong, and is a conspiracy by the UN to prevent worldwide food riots. Our organization is therefore with extra vigour continuing our preparations for rapture day which will take place on 21 december 2012. The day will give rise to major tsumamis and a pole shift which will drive the earth into the next ice age, as calculated by Alfred Einstien."

As the name Russell is already given to asteroid number 1762 in honour of the astronomer Henry Norris Russell, the object will be officially known as 210455 Teapot.