Today is the 400th Anniversary of Galileo Discovering Ganymede

"Rich" wrote in message
...
Pat Flannery wrote in
:

lorad wrote:
The amazing thing is that he used a telescope that had less
magnification (20x) and smaller aperture than a cheap chinese $10 set
of chinese binoculars.

Most binoculars have either 7X or 10X magnification; but the four
moons of Jupiter are visible through both magnifications.
Heck, I saw them once with my naked eye on a very clear, cold, and
still night by positioning myself so that Jupiter itself was occulted
by a thin twig on a tree around fifty feet from me.

You need pretty acute vision to see it though.

I believe there never has been a verified naked eye
sighting of the moons of Jupiter. It's more of an
urban legend. Although it's technically possible
to see Ganymede naked eye. The rest are either
too close or too dim to possibly see naked eye.

What is more likely is that Pat looked at Jupiter first
through a lens and got to know the positions of the
moons, then naked eye his mind filled in the blanks.
In trying to see a close double star, I've found if I
knew it was a double in advance I could see it.
If I didn't know I couldn't. The mind is funny about
these things.

A true test would be to occult Jupiter just like Pat
said, a power line might be best, and identify the
position of the moon without having any knowledge
of the position beforehand. If someone could do that
in a verifiable way, they could make the record books.
But ya know, it's pretty hard to prove one doesn't know
where the moons should be any given night.

So...you'd have to use ...I suppose children for the
proof, or people that are chosen at random to try to
identify the position of a moon naked eye.
Not so easy to do, in fact I think the 'proof' would
be almost impossible.

Which makes this a very interesting claim for Pat to make.

Since that claim would define almost the exact limit of
the resolution of human vision. But at the same time
that claim cannot be either proven or disproven in
any reasonable way.

A claim that stands rather elegantly poised on the
very knife edge between possible and provable.
Really, now that I think about it, that raises his claim
or ability at storytelling to the level of ...art.

There is no objective criteria with which to decide, it's
entirely left to the observer to decide to believe it
or not, entirely subjective.

Such as with the Mona Lisa leaving all the facial
expressions rather neutral and poorly defined.
Allowing each observer to have a unique
experience and reaction.

Really, I would be hard pressed to find a better
example of believe-it-or-not storytelling.


Jonathan

s

"Jonathan" wrote in message
...



A claim that stands rather elegantly poised on the
very knife edge between possible and provable.
Really, now that I think about it, that raises his claim
or ability at storytelling to the level of ...art.

Such as with the Mona Lisa leaving all the facial
expressions rather neutral and poorly defined.
Allowing each observer to have a unique
experience and reaction.



I just have to say some more about this claim. My hobby
of Complexity Science can be considered a method for
quantifying 'uncertainty'. The exact opposite of objective
science. The highest level of system uncertainty or complexity
would be where the primary system variables stand poised
between the opposites in possibility. As with the example
of the Mona Lisa. Or with say a large interstellar cloud
of gas and dust, a random disturbance could begin
cyclic motion within that cloud of uncertainty, and it
would coalesce.

It is this elegant uncertainty or random system structure
.....perturbed...which is the ultimate source of all visible
order. Just as the delicate balance between genetics
and mutation, through the cloud of selection, which is
the source of life. The physical and living realms evolve
following the same inverse square/power law dynamics.

As the larger the mass, the larger it's basin of attraction.
So any random path through a gravity field is more likely
to fall into the larger basin of attraction, than a smaller.
A slightly different inverse square law, the power law
also governs the patterns of life. As in the higher the
fitness peak, the larger it's basin of attraction. A random
path is more likely to chose the higher fitness peak
than a lower.

Since, of course, we have countless examples of these
kinds of systems to examine first hand with living
systems. Without the enormous handicaps of time
and distance with the physical universe. Then it is
life which best displays these universal, and fundamental
evolutionary patterns.

Life shows us how the physical world works, not
the other way around. Uncertainty is the source
of all order.

The minute one asks for precision, repeatability or
'proofs', is the minute the true simplicity of the
universe vanishes.






All the primary aspects of Pat's claim has those attributes.
Possible, but just barely. Barely provable or disprovable.
On then knife edge between the opposites for each
variable.

Most classical views see random interactions as an obstacle
to order, but just the opposite is true. Uncertainty is
the source spontaneous order, it's the source of self organizing
systems, where things take on a life of it's own.




Jonathan

s

On Jan 14, 2:02*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:



I still recall the firs time I saw the moons of Jupiter. I used a pare of
binoculars.

VERY cool.

Jupiter, the Moon, and Saturn are about the three most fun objects to
look at with a small telescope.
What amazed me was how fast the moons rotate around Jupiter, so that
their positions noticeably change in just a few hours.
At one time it was proposed that telescopic observations of them could
be used to determine a ship's longitude without carrying a chronometer
by carefully determining their positions relative to the planet and each
other and comparing that to drawings in a book that would show at what
exact time a certain alignment would occur.
Unfortunately, the pitching of the ship in the waves made the idea
impractical in a pre-gyro-stabilized era.

Pat

Using the moons of Jupiter as a clock; now there's a cool idea!
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Geni.../dp/0140258795

giveitawhirl2008 wrote:
At one time it was proposed that telescopic observations of them could
be used to determine a ship's longitude without carrying a chronometer
by carefully determining their positions relative to the planet and each
other and comparing that to drawings in a book that would show at what
exact time a certain alignment would occur.
Unfortunately, the pitching of the ship in the waves made the idea
impractical in a pre-gyro-stabilized era.

Pat

Using the moons of Jupiter as a clock; now there's a cool idea!
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Geni.../dp/0140258795


The TV production of that book is really well done also:
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Jona...ref=pd_sim_b_4
One non-starter idea for figuring out what time it is: two dogs from the
same litter of pups are raised together and treated with "The Oil Of
Sympathy"; one stays at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the other is
sent on a ship. When noon arrives, the dog at the observatory is
tortured a bit, and the one on the ship begins to howl...no matter where
in the world the ship is.
This is an early version of quantum entanglement, or as Einstein would
probably call it, "Snoopy action at a distance".

Pat

giveitawhirl2008 wrote:

So, maybe God will choose to let us go on another several decades to a
century or more. By then, we might be establishing permanent outposts
on other worlds. If THAT doesn't make us feel like "Man is the measure
of all things".....!

Right now, my brother must be howling up in Grand Forks, as this is
certainly torture of some sort. ;-)

Pat

On Jan 14, 2:02*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:



I still recall the firs time I saw the moons of Jupiter. I used a pare of
binoculars.

VERY cool.

Jupiter, the Moon, and Saturn are about the three most fun objects to
look at with a small telescope.
What amazed me was how fast the moons rotate around Jupiter, so that
their positions noticeably change in just a few hours.
At one time it was proposed that telescopic observations of them could
be used to determine a ship's longitude without carrying a chronometer
by carefully determining their positions relative to the planet and each
other and comparing that to drawings in a book that would show at what
exact time a certain alignment would occur.
Unfortunately, the pitching of the ship in the waves made the idea
impractical in a pre-gyro-stabilized era.


The most interesting use of the Jovian moons was Roemer trying to
guess the speed
of light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8...speed_of_light

Eric Chomko wrote:
The most interesting use of the Jovian moons was Roemer trying to
guess the speed
of light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8...speed_of_light

Or the timing of eclipses as a method of determining longitude. Jay
Lieske, before his retirement from JPL, found a veritable treasure trove
of 17th and 18th century eclipse observations, which helped constrain
the mean motion of the satellites before Galileo (the spacecraft) did it
far better.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986A%26A...154...61L
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986A%26AS...63..143L

-- Bill Owen

On Jan 16, 3:01*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
giveitawhirl2008 wrote:
At one time it was proposed that telescopic observations of them could
be used to determine a ship's longitude without carrying a chronometer
by carefully determining their positions relative to the planet and each
other and comparing that to drawings in a book that would show at what
exact time a certain alignment would occur.
Unfortunately, the pitching of the ship in the waves made the idea
impractical in a pre-gyro-stabilized era.

Pat

Using themoonsofJupiteras a clock; now there's a cool idea!
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Geni...fic-Problem/dp...

The TV production of that book is really well done also:http://www.amazon..com/Longitude-Jon...2K1/ref=pd_sim...
One non-starter idea for figuring out what time it is: two dogs from the
same litter of pups are raised together and treated with "The Oil Of
Sympathy"; one stays at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the other is
sent on a ship. When noon arrives, the dog at the observatory is
tortured a bit, and the one on the ship begins to howl...no matter where
in the world the ship is.
This is an early version of quantum entanglement, or as Einstein would
probably call it, "Snoopy action at a distance".

Pat

Quantum entanglement! That's what I was thinking as I read your
paragraph! :-)

I saw the show and it was quite interesting. I remember something
about torturing dogs in there. Yeah, the schemes just got crazier and
crazier. Obviously, what was really needed was what the guy came up
with: a clock that worked at sea. But as to unstable platforms for
astronomical observing: it almost seems to me that they should have
been able to come up with such a platform. If they had, they could
have even put a clock (of the regular kind for their day) on it, and/
or an astronomical observer. In fact, it seems to me that if no
mechanical system would have worked, they could have even had a team
of sailors - say half a dozen - whose job it was to keep such a
platform stable by hand, while the observer looked at the moons of
Jupiter, or whatever. But obviously, the mechanical clock that was
little effected by the ship's motion, is what was really needed. And
that's what the guy came up with.

On Jan 20, 7:38*pm, giveitawhirl2008
wrote:
On Jan 16, 3:01*am, Pat Flannery wrote:





giveitawhirl2008 wrote:
At one time it was proposed that telescopic observations of them could
be used to determine a ship's longitude without carrying a chronometer
by carefully determining their positions relative to the planet and each
other and comparing that to drawings in a book that would show at what
exact time a certain alignment would occur.
Unfortunately, the pitching of the ship in the waves made the idea
impractical in a pre-gyro-stabilized era.

Pat

Using themoonsofJupiteras a clock; now there's a cool idea!
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Geni...fic-Problem/dp....

The TV production of that book is really well done also:http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Jona...2K1/ref=pd_sim...
One non-starter idea for figuring out what time it is: two dogs from the
same litter of pups are raised together and treated with "The Oil Of
Sympathy"; one stays at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the other is
sent on a ship. When noon arrives, the dog at the observatory is
tortured a bit, and the one on the ship begins to howl...no matter where
in the world the ship is.
This is an early version of quantum entanglement, or as Einstein would
probably call it, "Snoopy action at a distance".

Pat

Quantum entanglement! That's what I was thinking as I read your
paragraph! :-)

I saw the show and it was quite interesting. I remember something
about torturing dogs in there. Yeah, the schemes just got crazier and
crazier. Obviously, *what was really needed was what the guy came up
with: a clock that worked at sea. But as to unstable platforms for
astronomical observing: it almost seems to me that they should have
been able to come up with such a platform. If they had, they could
have even put a clock (of the regular kind for their day) on it, and/
or an astronomical observer. In fact, it seems to me that if no
mechanical system would have worked, they could have even had a team
of sailors - say half a dozen - whose job it was to keep such a
platform stable by hand, while the *observer looked at the moons of
Jupiter, or whatever. But obviously, the mechanical clock that was
little effected by the ship's motion, is what was really needed. And
that's what the guy came up with.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Addendum: Oh...that platform may have been no good in storms! :-)

giveitawhirl2008 wrote:
I saw the show and it was quite interesting. I remember something
about torturing dogs in there. Yeah, the schemes just got crazier and
crazier. Obviously, what was really needed was what the guy came up
with: a clock that worked at sea. But as to unstable platforms for
astronomical observing: it almost seems to me that they should have
been able to come up with such a platform.

They show what they came up with in the miniseries; it's a weighted
chair and telescope suspended under a frame like a pendulum, but it
didn't stay stable enough to be of any use.
Then of course there would be cloudy nights to deal with.

If they had, they could
have even put a clock (of the regular kind for their day) on it, and/
or an astronomical observer. In fact, it seems to me that if no
mechanical system would have worked, they could have even had a team
of sailors - say half a dozen - whose job it was to keep such a
platform stable by hand, while the observer looked at the moons of
Jupiter, or whatever. But obviously, the mechanical clock that was
little effected by the ship's motion, is what was really needed. And
that's what the guy came up with.

Another screwball plan was to build small artificial islands throughout
the oceans that would fire off large skyrockets on the hour that would
be observed by any ships in the vicinity.
Back to the dogs, it was apparently the Powder Of Sympathy, not a oil,
that was to be used; details he
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_longitude.html
The whole thing sounds like some early take on homeopathic medicine.

Pat