Lat/Long and timekeeping system for Mars

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 12:41:12 PM UTC-7, Mike Collins wrote:

Kurt Vonnegut had a Martian calendar in 1959.

You should see the Martian calendar I came up with!

Since the lunar month and the tropical year are incommensurate, there are lunar
calendars - the Chinese and the Jewish - that have years with either 12 or 13
months.

I proposed a Martian calendar which alternated between 22 months and 23 months,
with usually four out of every seven years having 23 months.

http://www.quadibloc.com/science/cal0503.htm

In this way, a Martian year would be divided into months having the same length
as 1/12 of an Earth tropical year.

Handy for paycheques, paying one's rent, and reconing people's ages in Martian
twelvemonths rather than Martian years - thus lending itself to better
integration between the Martian economy and Martian law with their counterparts
on Earth.

John Savard

The Earth has currently a proportion of 365 1/4 rotations for one orbital circuit extrapolated from an observation of 1461 days/rotations for 4 years/orbital circuits using an orbital marker that also represents the beginning and end of a calendar cycle using days/rotations as a gauge.

Had the Earth a proportion of 365 3/4 rotations per circuit then the suitable system would be 3 years of 366 days/rotations and one year of 365 rotations to serve the same purpose. The orbital marker of a seasonal appearance of a star would therefore follow an different observation than the ancient one which makes our present system -

".. on account of the procession of the rising of Sirius by one day in the course of 4 years,.. therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day shall be from this day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the new year" Canopus Decree 238 BC

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 2:19:50 PM UTC-7, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

For people who are supposed to elevate logic and mathematical reasoning to a
ridiculous level, the inability to affirm the 1461 days/rotations within the
confines of 4 orbital circuits or the insistence in 366 1/4 rotations per
orbital circuits obscures the masterpiece that is planetary timekeeping. This is
as far as it goes when somebody does not have the integrity to affirm what is
correct.

It's true that the Sun that divides night from day is big and obvious.

And the rotation of the Earth determines the length of the day.

But you *know* the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is an ellipse and not a
circle. You *know* there's such a thing as the Equation of Time.

So why can't you accept that for some purposes, "average" is not even remotely
as good or useful as "constant", and it is therefore necessary for those who
deal with such matters to start from stellar circumpolar motion, which is almost
completely uniform, as a sound basis for their work?

John Savard

Paul Schlyter:
It's an interesting fact that modern professional astronomers rarely
know the constellations. They don't need to since they just dial in
the coordinates of the object they want to observe with their big
GOTO telescopes. Or they may not even observe themselves,
professional observers observe for them. That's rational for
optimizing the use of available observing time of course, but it
certainly make you lose contact with the skies.

Right. But contact with the skies is a luxury that amateurs can enjoy.
The professional has work to do. Except that in my club we have a
number of professionals who are also amateur astronomers (STSCI, APL,
Goddard are all nearby). For the most part they don't get anywhere near
a telescope in the professional lives, but they do commune with the
skies at our star parties.

It's like if a
professional geographer didn't know where Switzerland or China or USA
were situated without looking them up on a map, and if he wanted to
go there, he just dialed in the geographical coordinates on the GPS
of his self-driving car or self-flying plane and then let it take him
there.

According to a friend of mine who is a military pilot, what the
traveling geographer really does in the modern era is board a
commercial flight where a trained pilot dials in the geographical
coordinates on the GPS of his (largely) self-flying airliner and let it
take him where he wants to go. Barring a Lion Air-type incident, that
is.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 4:48:16 PM UTC-7, Davoud wrote:
Paul Schlyter:

It's like if a
professional geographer didn't know where Switzerland or China or USA
were situated without looking them up on a map, and if he wanted to
go there, he just dialed in the geographical coordinates on the GPS
of his self-driving car or self-flying plane and then let it take him
there.

According to a friend of mine who is a military pilot, what the
traveling geographer really does in the modern era is board a
commercial flight where a trained pilot dials in the geographical
coordinates on the GPS of his (largely) self-flying airliner and let it
take him where he wants to go. Barring a Lion Air-type incident, that
is.

It's true that a travelling geographer will indeed just get flown to, oh, say,
Lima. But if his real destination is Machu Picchu, he will still have to travel
by means that don't involve punching coordinates into a GPS to go the rest of
the way. The same applies if his destination is Auyantepui... he can take a
commercial flight to Caracas, but that's about it.

John Savard

At the same time the Greenwich meridian rotates to noon, its opposite longitude turns through a new 24 hour cycle as a new day begins and an old day ends in a convenient location away from most habitation. The great cycle where AM transitions to PM for meridians within a 15 degree range centered in London is complimented by the singular 180 E and 180 W meridian where one 24 hour day turns into the next so that one rotation also follows the next rotation. The flexibility of timekeeping and the Lat/Long system is another jewel in the continuous and seamless days/rotations itself until it meets the orbital component of the year/leap year.

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essen...universal-time

One of the oldest questions is how does a person who has grown hard and cold through experience recover their innocence and inspiration as they did when they were younger, not the childish or those of pretense but those who have journeyed through life, whether rich of not, while coming to understand what really matters. It happens that those who project themselves as bigger than the topic they are discussing also consider themselves bigger than the heritage they inherited so they rarely see where certain groups jump the tracks by overreaching or by being careless.

To re-discover human timekeeping and its close proximity to the dynamics and cycles of the planet is an opportunity to undo some wrongs by approaching a new system for Mars with its own particular Martian hours,minutes and seconds within a larger calendar framework that links rotations to orbital circuits.

On Sat, 8 Dec 2018 16:30:44 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 4:48:16 PM UTC-7, Davoud wrote:
Paul Schlyter:

It's like if a
professional geographer didn't know where Switzerland or China or USA
were situated without looking them up on a map, and if he wanted to
go there, he just dialed in the geographical coordinates on the GPS
of his self-driving car or self-flying plane and then let it take him
there.

According to a friend of mine who is a military pilot, what the
traveling geographer really does in the modern era is board a
commercial flight where a trained pilot dials in the geographical
coordinates on the GPS of his (largely) self-flying airliner and let it
take him where he wants to go. Barring a Lion Air-type incident, that
is.

It's true that a travelling geographer will indeed just get flown to, oh, say,
Lima. But if his real destination is Machu Picchu, he will still have to travel
by means that don't involve punching coordinates into a GPS to go the rest of
the way. The same applies if his destination is Auyantepui... he can take a
commercial flight to Caracas, but that's about it.

Even traveling in undeveloped countries in remote regions, the most
reliable way of planning and executing travel is using a map app and a
GPS.

In adjusting the values for Mars using the clear principles which refer timekeeping to the daily and orbital motions of the Earth and even hypothetical adjustments such as assigning the Earth a different proportion of rotations per orbital circuit to construct a different calendar system, there is no excuse for denying Mars its own timekeeping systems.

It is more that the Earth's timekeeping systems are masterpieces on their own or in combination yet they do have limitations in their close proximity to daily and orbital motions and how these two dynamics relate to each other.

Quadibloc:
It's true that a travelling geographer will indeed just get flown to, oh,
say,
Lima. But if his real destination is Machu Picchu, he will still have to
travel
by means that don't involve punching coordinates into a GPS to go the rest
of
the way. The same applies if his destination is Auyantepui... he can take a
commercial flight to Caracas, but that's about it.

Chris L Peterson:
Even traveling in undeveloped countries in remote regions, the most
reliable way of planning and executing travel is using a map app and a
GPS.

Bingo. Worked for me back in nineteen aught 93 when I was cruising
off-road in the Nubian desert with century-old British maps and a
military-spec (classified at the time) GPS, which was about the size of
a cigar box (if anyone remembers cigar boxes). I found a British
benchmark nearly half a meter from the coordinates shown on the map.
When I told the Brits they said "It was right when we placed it in
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1900, but earthquakes have since displaced it."
Probably true.

I wonder if Quadibloc knows that Machu Picchu is 9km from a rail
station and that, if further help is needed, one can look for the lodge
and the Machu Picchu snack bar!?

As for Macizo del Auyán-tepui, nobody goes there anymore. Too crowded.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Sun, 09 Dec 2018 07:32:41 -0700, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Sat, 8 Dec 2018 16:30:44 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc

wrote:

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 4:48:16 PM UTC-7, Davoud wrote:
Paul Schlyter:

It's like if a
professional geographer didn't know where Switzerland or China
or USA
were situated without looking them up on a map, and if he
wanted to
go there, he just dialed in the geographical coordinates on
the GPS
of his self-driving car or self-flying plane and then let it
take him
there.

According to a friend of mine who is a military pilot, what the
traveling geographer really does in the modern era is board a
commercial flight where a trained pilot dials in the geographical
coordinates on the GPS of his (largely) self-flying airliner and
let it
take him where he wants to go. Barring a Lion Air-type incident,
that
is.

It's true that a travelling geographer will indeed just get flown
to, oh, say,
Lima. But if his real destination is Machu Picchu, he will still
have to travel
by means that don't involve punching coordinates into a GPS to go
the rest of
the way. The same applies if his destination is Auyantepui... he
can take a
commercial flight to Caracas, but that's about it.

Even traveling in undeveloped countries in remote regions, the most
reliable way of planning and executing travel is using a map app
and a
GPS.

True, and that includes hiking. However you must still decide which
route you want to take, you cannot just "point yourself" to the
destination.