'Saving appearance'

[In contrast with the Ptolemaic models] . . . although they have extracted from them the apparent motions, with numerical agreement, nevertheless . . .. . They are just like someone including in a picture hands, feet, head, and other limbs from different places, well painted indeed, but not modeled from the same body, and not in the least matching each other, so that a monster would be produced from them rather than a man. Thus in the process of their demonstrations, which they call their system, they are found either to have missed out something essential, or to have brought in something inappropriate and wholly irrelevant, which would not have happened to them if they had followed proper principles. For if the hypotheses which they assumed had not been fallacies, everything which follows from them could be independently verified." De revolutionibus, 1543

The contemporary reader coming across this passage is hardly aware of the conflicting elements involved nor the difficulties this astronomer faced in attempting to explain observations within the older system which 'saved appearance' with the Earth at the center of the motions of the Sun and other planets.

"When the ordinary man hears that the Church told Galileo that he might teach Copernicanism as a hypothesis which saved all the celestial phenomena satisfactorily, but "not as being the truth," he laughs. But this was really how Ptolemaic astronomy had been taught! In its actual place in history it was not a casuistical quibble; it was the refusal (unjustified it may be) to allow the introduction of a new and momentous doctrine. It was not simply a new theory of the nature of the celestial movements that was feared, but a new theory of the nature of theory; namely, that, if a hypothesis saves all the appearances. It is identical with truth." Barfield 1957


Even with all the resources available today it is still a challenging endeavor to distinguish a system within the 365 1/4 rotations per orbital circuit framework using observations made using the 365/366 rotations framework of the calendar cycle. It is also the key to unraveling huge problems that were left unresolved by many of the known astronomers.

Nothing to be scared of, just a set of references used for one thing that can't be used for another hence the uneasy relationship that has plagued the emergence of heliocentricity from the outset.

On Tuesday, 13 January 2015 21:47:02 UTC+1,14611461146114114611461146114611461146114611 41146114611461146114611461146114114611461146114611 46114611461141146114611461146114611461146114114611 46114611461146114611461141146114611461146114611461 14611411461146114611461146114611461141146114611461 14611461146114611411461146114611461146114611461141 14611461146114611461146114611411461146114611461146 11461146114114611461146114611461146114611411461146 11461146114611461146114114611461146114611461146114 61141146114611461146114611461146114114611461146114 61146114611461141146114611461146114611461146114114 61146114611461146114611461141146114611461146114611 46114611411461146114611461146114611461141146114611 46114611461146114611411461146114611461146114611461 14114611461146114611461146114611411461146114611461 : wrote:
outset.

Stripey toothpaste.

Readers here know full well that if you look due north at midnight on Dec 31st the sky doesn't look exactly the same at it does on June 30th. It only requires the most simple of experiments to prove this but Gerald would have readers believe that he hasn't made this observation himself. If, and it is a big if, he believes what he wrote then he either cannot accept the evidence of his own eyes in which case he needs immediate and significant help or he is, as many have suggested, some combination of a troll and a sufferer from autism. Either way we cannot help him

If you look through the archives of this and other groups you will see that Gerald has been campaigning for years to get his ideas accepted. I don't know what he **actually believes** as opposed to what he **claims to believe** but I do know that from time to time he lets his guard down and posts his version of "facts" rather than the usual convoluted garbage. Each time he does this the idiocy of communicating with him become clearer.

On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 1:47:02 PM UTC-7, oriel36 wrote:
It was not simply a new theory of the nature of the celestial movements that
was feared, but a new theory of the nature of theory; namely, that, if a
hypothesis saves all the appearances. It is identical with truth.

Well, _that_ is one definition of empiricism, and indeed, there were sound
reasons for the Catholic church to reject that notion.

But as your quote from Copernicus points out, the heliocentric theory did more
than just 'save the appearances'; it made internal sense, while the Ptolemaic
cosmos, which also saved the appearances, was contrived in order to save them.

Newton didn't just 'save the appearances' - his theories of motion continued in
the tradition of Copernicus, making the ultimate simplicity of the solar system
even more obvious, and making it more clear why only the heliocentric cosmology
was satisfactory.

Instead, this is an argument against the validity of the "Turing Test".

John Savard

Discoveries,insights and innovations sometimes parallel falling in love insofar as for some discoveries you may find yourself sliding almost imperceptibly into a satisfying insight while at other times they come like thunderclaps by clearing the air.

I remember that dark rolling deep which preceded the emergence of the additional surface rotation which jettisons the old idea of axial precession as an obstruction and allows people to consider things like the evolution of Arctic sea ice as a consequence of this slow and unevenly turning to the central Sun as the Earth plows through space. One sunny Saturday afternoon I got the barest foothold in the resolution so that a decade later it has become second nature and backed up by imaging such as the following one from the Keck telescope -

http://www.news.wisc.edu/story_image...us_comp-sm.jpg

It is a Christian thing that before something really dramatic happens there is a period of unease, lethargy or something in that mode and then the air clears in an instant as new insights flood in.

"When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world..... So it is with everyone blessed with inspiration " John 16

Readers here know full well that if you look due north at midnight on Dec 31st the sky doesn't look exactly the same at it does on June 30th. It only requires the most simple of experiments to prove this but Gerald would have readers believe that he hasn't made this observation himself. If, and it is a big if, he believes what he wrote then he either cannot accept the evidence of his own eyes in which case he needs immediate and significant help or he is, as many have suggested, some combination of a troll and a sufferer from autism. Either way we cannot help him

If you look through the archives of this and other groups you will see that Gerald has been campaigning for years to get his ideas accepted. I don't know what he **actually believes** as opposed to what he **claims to believe** but I do know that from time to time he lets his guard down and posts his version of "facts" rather than the usual convoluted garbage. Each time he does this the idiocy of communicating with him become clearer.

Saving appearances are such a wonderful astronomical tradition with the most famous being the observed motions of the planets and the fact that the looping motions didn't belong to the planets themselves but a consequence of the Earth overtaking then as they temporarily fell behind in view -

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0112/JuSa2000_tezel.gif

Contemporary imaging is rich in these venerable type of observations and specifically the one brought up in this thread where the saving the appearance requires surface rotation of a planet as a function of its orbital motion thereby negating axial precession as a daily rotational trait -

http://www.daviddarling.info/images/...gs_changes.jpg

People shouldn't feel uncomfortable making necessary modifications and especially when they have the images in front of them. In this case it is a matter of taking into account how far away Uranus is,that the planet itself will have a circle of illumination and how the planet responds to its motion around the Sun. The Earth will look exactly the same apart from general planetary differences hence axial precession as it is currently understood has to give way to the additional surface rotation -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...precession.svg

It is one thing to drag out the 'tilting Earth' at every Solstice but quite something else to explain something as relevant as the evolution of sea ice as the entire planet turns slowly and unevenly as it moves long its orbital circumference.

Readers here know full well that if you look due north at midnight on Dec 31st the sky doesn't look exactly the same at it does on June 30th. It only requires the most simple of experiments to prove this but Gerald would have readers believe that he hasn't made this observation himself. If, and it is a big if, he believes what he wrote then he either cannot accept the evidence of his own eyes in which case he needs immediate and significant help or he is, as many have suggested, some combination of a troll and a sufferer from autism. Either way we cannot help him

If you look through the archives of this and other groups you will see that Gerald has been campaigning for years to get his ideas accepted. I don't know what he **actually believes** as opposed to what he **claims to believe** but I do know that from time to time he lets his guard down and posts his version of "facts" rather than the usual convoluted garbage. Each time he does this the idiocy of communicating with him become clearer.

That is quite a thread they have got going over there however it can be a twisted world and especially when it comes down to saving appearances including the Sun rising and setting each 24 hours with special attention given to February 29th.

I have to laugh at the idea that the 3 minute 56 second deficit to 24 hours each rotation constitutes an accumulative extra rotation per circuit hence a mismatch between cause and effect at the most immediate experience of one rotation -

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/lectu...ons/sld004.htm

I am sure you all wish to be experts in time,space and motion but if that is the case I urge you all to enjoy the original core system and the references which define the Earth's position in space and then the number of times the planet turns.

Maybe you all imagine clocks representing the 24 hour system grow on trees because to determine where the constant stream of 24 hour days come from means the arithmetic of the 365/366 rotations within the parent observation of 1465 rotations within the confines of 4 orbital circuits.

Astronomy is so old as a human endeavor including some the issues that are as relevant today as it was back in ancient times. Moving back in history past Ptolemy and 'saving appearances' out of observations of nearby objects is an even older tradition -

"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?" Job 38

The defining of the Earth's position in space uses the seasonal appearance of a star whereas this was lost in the Ptolemaic astronomical tradition when they started to consider the Sun's apparent motion through the background stars along with all the other planets and the moon. The celestial sphere and circumpolar motion which is so useful for a clockwork solar system and predicting the relationship of objects to each other, eclipses,transits and things like that obscures the seasonal motion of the stars behind the Sun due to the orbital motion of the Earth -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeQwYrfmvoQ

Instead of just identifying constellations as an exercise for people new to astronomy by celestial sphere advocates, the journey should begin by putting the apparent annual motion of the stars behind the central Sun due solely to the orbital motion of the Earth thereby breaking this celestial sphere obstacle once and for all.