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The Equation of Time(keeping)



 
 
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  #21  
Old December 2nd 17, 05:47 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
palsing[_2_]
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

I'm pretty sure I'm not the one here with the rotted brain...
  #22  
Old December 2nd 17, 05:57 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 4:47:44 PM UTC, palsing wrote:
I'm pretty sure I'm not the one here with the rotted brain...


Look around you, what person would dare bring up the Equation of Time(keeping) as absolute/relative time knowing it means the end of the theorists as we know them. Newton's Principia is like a Brexit document, making things up as he went along for followers who are inclined to the same sort of behavior but entirely disruptive and unproductive.

I will just shrug and tell you that human advancement in astronomy and terrestrial sciences is finished unless the limitations of 17th century empiricism is dealt with otherwise you have nothing new, creative and productive coming in . So go ahead and tell me how great Newton was but for me that ship has sailed and I only care about the actual development of timekeeping in tandem with the planetary motions/cycles.



  #23  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:38 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 9:57:30 AM UTC-7, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

Look around you, what person would dare bring up the Equation of Time(keeping)
as absolute/relative time knowing it means the end of the theorists as we know
them.


Pendulum clocks, quartz crystal clocks, and stellar circumpolar motion... all
keep the same kind of time.

The 24 hour cycle, which relates to all of those by the Equation of Time, is the
one that is different. And the explanation for the difference is not hard to
find: the Earth's orbit around the Sun is an ellipse instead of a perfect
circle, and it is in the Ecliptic plane, not the plane of the Earth's equator.

So we take the uniform time which is reflected by stellar circumpolar motion as
fundamental - and sundial time as a circumstantial result of the Earth's
particular orbit, the result of a compound motion.

That just makes sense. Of course the 24 hour day is more important in daily life
and biological cycles... but that is *irrelevant* to the issue of the mechanical
cause of the day.

To say that since the sunlight cycle is important, we shouldn't try to look
behind it for anything more fundamental... is today regarded as merely bizarre.
But your temperament opposes the reductionism of today's science. That will not
get scientists to change, because the way they do things has yielded answers and
results that have borne technological fruit.

You may not like what Newton did - reducing the Solar System to a mechanism -
but because he did that, it was possible to discover Neptune, through the
visible small effects of its gravitational pull.

John Savard
  #24  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:42 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 9:57:30 AM UTC-7, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

I will just shrug and tell you that human advancement in astronomy and
terrestrial sciences is finished unless the limitations of 17th century
empiricism is dealt with otherwise you have nothing new, creative and productive
coming in .


We can just shrug and tell you that empiricism is doing just fine in generating
progress in science at an ever-growing rate... and that the alternative you
suggest would deprive us of any ability to make progress, reducing us to mere
spectators of the heavens who could perhaps enjoy awe and wonder, but never grow
in understanding that could be translated into solid knowledge.

John Savard
  #25  
Old December 2nd 17, 07:15 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 1:43:01 AM UTC, palsing wrote:

..

The only error is your own interpretation of what Newton had to say...


There was only one imitator worth commenting on and that was Newton himself, all the others and merely aping what he done in making things up as he went along. At least he did it in a systemic way and that is what makes it at least bearable.

"Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation of time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their more accurate deducing of the celestial motions...The necessity of which equation, for determining the times of a phænomenon, is evinced as well from the experiments of the pendulum clock, as by eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter." Principia

You are kids despite your age, people who pay homage to those 100 years ago conjured up a story based on Newton's absolute/relative definitions without actually knowing what they refer to. I couldn't give a flying f*ck who it inconveniences but a bunch of theoretical phonies acting like echo chambers for people 100 years ago is the least of my concerns.





  #26  
Old December 3rd 17, 09:42 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris.B[_3_]
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

On Saturday, 2 December 2017 18:42:47 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:


We can just shrug and tell you that empiricism is doing just fine in generating
progress in science at an ever-growing rate... and that the alternative you
suggest would deprive us of any ability to make progress, reducing us to mere
spectators of the heavens who could perhaps enjoy awe and wonder, but never grow
in understanding that could be translated into solid knowledge.

John Savard


Those given the oxygen of publicity invariably undermine their own idiocy of thought.
The responses to this blind monk's ravings have given the remaining members here quite a decent education in Solar System astronomy.

By the same token, Stumpy's Twitter account is all that is saving humanity from Stumpy.
Imagine the power he might have wielded had he avoided sharing the unfiltered outpourings of his stumped and sickly, egotistical narcissism.

The prisons are full of such psychopaths. Still blaming the arresting officer.
The one they shot, several times, while trying to escape capture for their own, countless crimes.
  #27  
Old December 3rd 17, 10:59 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

It is coming up to Polar noon at the South pole -

https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm

The North and South poles are locations on Earth where daily rotation has reduced to zero from a maximum at the Equator rather than points on a 'tilting' Earth.

The same rotation that causes Polar noon and midnight in a few weeks also causes the natural variations in the noon cycle insofar as the uneven nature of this surface rotation is in response to the variable orbital speed of the Earth.

  #28  
Old December 7th 17, 05:39 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Mikko
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

In article ,
Quadibloc wrote:

On Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 3:34:04 AM UTC-7, Mikko wrote:

Sand and water clocks are too inaccurate to detect the variation in
duration from one noon to the next.


That may be, but using an atomic clock instead would involve the exact same
principle, so it doesn't affect his point. He just chose to use a...
traditional... example of a mechanical clock, perhaps in reaction to what he
may
feel to be a recent trend towards glorifying technology.

John Savard


That's right. However, for those who want to understand history it is
important to understand that before pendulum clocks there was no
mechanical clock that could measure the variation in the length of solar
day, so astronomers had to be determine the equation of time by other
means -- most people where quite happy with solar time.

Mikkl
  #29  
Old December 8th 17, 07:28 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Default The Equation of Time(keeping)

On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 4:39:40 PM UTC, Mikko wrote:



That's right. However, for those who want to understand history it is
important to understand that before pendulum clocks there was no
mechanical clock that could measure the variation in the length of solar
day, so astronomers had to be determine the equation of time by other
means -- most people where quite happy with solar time.

Mikkl


For those who want to understand history it is important to know that a clock is a device with one job - to maintain a constant or average pace.

You then ask what is the constant pace and how is it derived using the Sun crossing the meridian each day/night cycle while knowing that each cycle is different. This is the process which creates the 24 hour day and therefore its subdivisions into equable hours , minutes and seconds.

Once you have the average 24 hour day you can then convert it into constant rotation and this is the basis of the Lat/Long system where the rate of rotation is 15 degrees per hour, nothing more and nothing less It is one of the supreme human achievements in terms of engineering and a convenience taken for granted.

When the average 24 hour day emerged from these principles and accurate clocks started to emerge, they found it easier to calibrate the clocks using the homocentric perspective using two foreground references and found it was 23 hours 5 minutes 04 seconds using the average 24 hour day. The Lat/Long system requires the physical principles of rotation in terms of sunrise, sunset and noon as any given location exits and enter the circle of illumination (sunrise/ sunset) and the midpoint of noon along with physical consequences such as daily temperature fluctuations.

There is no doubt the attempt to bypass the Sun along with sunrise/sunset/ noon in order to appeal to circumpolar motion turned into a cult and specifically one that suits the theorists an celestial sphere observers. The actual nuances for timekeeping is for those who value their intelligence and the engineering ins and outs that separate timekeeping from the motions of the Earth.
  #30  
Old December 8th 17, 05:30 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Mikko
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In article ,
Gerald Kelleher wrote:

For those who want to understand history it is important to know that a clock
is a device with one job - to maintain a constant or average pace.


You then ask what is the constant pace and how is it derived using the Sun
crossing the meridian each day/night cycle while knowing that each cycle is
different.


No, I don't. Instead I ask whether and how well the clock will do what
it is made to do. In order to understand history, the point is that until
recently clocks were not very accurate (nor common). Astronomers
who wanted to study the equation of the time could only compare the
(apparent) motions of Sun and fixed stars. Even that was not easy as
Sun and stars are not visible at the same time.

Mikko
 




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