Astronomy 101

"ANDREW ROBERT BREEN" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Ron Larham wrote:

/more Minnery/

I'm just curious, but how many times have _you_ seen
mercury?

It's hard to escape the impression that he's been inhaling it for years.

Nice to see you here Andy rather than on SMN.

When I were a lad if you did science you inhaled mercury, thats why we are
all mad scientists.

RonL

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote in message
...
In message ,
eyelessgame writes

Yes yes, that's very interesting and you have proven you can cut and
paste from someone's science text, but how many times have _you_ seen
Mercury?

eyelessgame

Irrelevant, surely. Is there any truth in the story that Copernicus
never saw Mercury? He at least contributed to astronomy!
But the problem is that we are still giving this infantile troll enough
attention to ensure it will be back (and I know I'm as guilty as the
rest :-)
--

The point is: Someone who tells us at length how easy it is to deduce X for
observation of Y should at least have seen Y.

RonL

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote in message
...
In message ,
eyelessgame writes

Yes yes, that's very interesting and you have proven you can cut and
paste from someone's science text, but how many times have _you_ seen
Mercury?

eyelessgame

Irrelevant, surely. Is there any truth in the story that Copernicus
never saw Mercury? He at least contributed to astronomy!
But the problem is that we are still giving this infantile troll enough
attention to ensure it will be back (and I know I'm as guilty as the
rest :-)
--

The point is: Someone who tells us at length how easy it is to deduce X for
observation of Y should at least have seen Y.

RonL

"Martin Frey" wrote in message
...
"Ron Larham" wrote:

Irrelevant, surely. Is there any truth in the story that Copernicus
never saw Mercury? He at least contributed to astronomy!
But the problem is that we are still giving this infantile troll enough
attention to ensure it will be back (and I know I'm as guilty as the
rest :-)
--

The point is: Someone who tells us at length how easy it is to deduce X
for
observation of Y should at least have seen Y.

RonL

Why?

Copernicus is credited with 30 odd observations and Kepler was no
great shakes due to poor eyesight. What he looked at was a long long
list of observations done by someone else - Tycho.

They were not telling someone else that
it was easy to deduce X from Y they were
doing their own analysis. This is not at
all the same thing.


If I advance a theory with practical implications the practical tests
will be done by others whether I do them or not. How many of the guys
who built the Moon stuff had been to the Moon? Does it matter whether
they'd even seen the Moon? The practical tests were done by Armstrong
and co - and oh yes, they did test it.

Presidential briefing sometime in the late
50's early 60's:

VonBraun: Mr President we can send a man
or men to the moon and return them using
rocket technology.
President: What evidence do you have to
support this claim Dr VonBraun?
VonBraun: Well Mr President, we calculate
that to return a party from the moon we
will need to deliver XXtons to the surface.
This translates into a launch payload of
YYtons. Rockets we have in service could
launch this payload in N launches or we
could build a new launcher using rocket
technology A (which is undergoing bench
tests at present), which will yield specific
impulse I, which means we could lift the
payload in a single launch. There are a
number of risks which will have to be
investigated, but I believe it is doable.
Its not rocket science you know.
President: OK, lets spend some more money
to confirm your claims Dr VonBraun.


Cheers

Martin

--------------
Martin Frey
N 51 02 E 0 47
--------------

"Martin Frey" wrote in message
...
"Ron Larham" wrote:

Irrelevant, surely. Is there any truth in the story that Copernicus
never saw Mercury? He at least contributed to astronomy!
But the problem is that we are still giving this infantile troll enough
attention to ensure it will be back (and I know I'm as guilty as the
rest :-)
--

The point is: Someone who tells us at length how easy it is to deduce X
for
observation of Y should at least have seen Y.

RonL

Why?

Copernicus is credited with 30 odd observations and Kepler was no
great shakes due to poor eyesight. What he looked at was a long long
list of observations done by someone else - Tycho.

They were not telling someone else that
it was easy to deduce X from Y they were
doing their own analysis. This is not at
all the same thing.


If I advance a theory with practical implications the practical tests
will be done by others whether I do them or not. How many of the guys
who built the Moon stuff had been to the Moon? Does it matter whether
they'd even seen the Moon? The practical tests were done by Armstrong
and co - and oh yes, they did test it.

Presidential briefing sometime in the late
50's early 60's:

VonBraun: Mr President we can send a man
or men to the moon and return them using
rocket technology.
President: What evidence do you have to
support this claim Dr VonBraun?
VonBraun: Well Mr President, we calculate
that to return a party from the moon we
will need to deliver XXtons to the surface.
This translates into a launch payload of
YYtons. Rockets we have in service could
launch this payload in N launches or we
could build a new launcher using rocket
technology A (which is undergoing bench
tests at present), which will yield specific
impulse I, which means we could lift the
payload in a single launch. There are a
number of risks which will have to be
investigated, but I believe it is doable.
Its not rocket science you know.
President: OK, lets spend some more money
to confirm your claims Dr VonBraun.


Cheers

Martin

--------------
Martin Frey
N 51 02 E 0 47
--------------