Solar Eruption and Electrostatic Gravity

In message , Ian Bland
writes
"DT" wrote in message
...
Bigcrapsnip


Your first error, Ralph, was to begin your entire diatribe with 'I
assume...'. Your second was to refer to 'looking down on the solar
system' without defining your frame of reference. There is no 'down'. At
this point I lost interest.

That's a bit of a low blow IMVHO. There's a general convention (that annoys
the pants off antipodeans (a term which is itself based on a general
assumption about which way is "up") about which way is "up") which is that
North is up. True, there is no "up" in space, but in a vernacular sense most
people would consider looking "down" on the solar system to indicate looking
at the ecliptic plane in plan view from a vantage point above one pole of
the sun, approximately, that pole being the one that points in the
approximate same direction as the North pole of the Earth. That being for
purely conventional reasons, because earth maps, by arbitrary convention,
generally have North at the top.

He's not drawing some detailed conclusion from this choice of reference
frame (as he would be say in a discussion on SR), he's just setting the
scene. If, for instance, one said "looking down on America, one can see the
Grand Canyon" one doesn't need to specify precisely where in space one is. A
reasonable reader can easily understand what the writer means.


Snip my own condescending crap
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Valleys? Holes? Pits? Plains? Please be specific

Ian


I don't feel it was a low blow at all, and I'll tell you why.
I find astronomy a fascinating subject, and as a middle-aged engineer I
am also naturally interested in the associated physics. Because of my
training and background perhaps, I have developed an aversion to
metaphorical constructs that bear no relation to perceived reality. As I
am a learner in this field (astronomy/astrophysics), I am always looking
for information that will help me towards a clearer picture.
Most discussions that I've seen on sci.phy.rel are either beyond me at
the moment or are such poorly constructed metaphors that they quickly
degenerate into woolly philosophical arguments that ultimately lead to
'I think the universe exists, therefore it does'
Ralph started his metaphor on exactly these lines, by defining a false
scenario. Everything that followed must (quite reasonably in my view!)
be dismissed as irreconcilable with reality.
Verbal metaphors for mathematical constructs should be very carefully
constructed so that ambiguity is minimised. When they're not, I get
irritable sometimes.
This little diatribe is in a sense a compliment to the groups as I do
learn a lot here, living the lowly life of a lurker, occasionally
popping his head up to laugh as naked kings go by.
In answer to your final point, I've no intention of being more specific,
however you can test your results by asking 'what's the antithesis of a
plain' etc.
As I only have a rudimentary understanding of relativity, I shan't
cross-post again.

Regards, Denis
--
DT
Replace nospam with the antithesis of hills
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