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What sometimes happens



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 30th 18, 10:29 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Default What sometimes happens

Over the years I developed a real respect for astronomical practitioners at the level of composition which involves completing a narrative with incomplete information or less than perfect assertions.

Perhaps the most complicated example of this is Huygens expression of the Equation of Time -

"Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passes the 12 signs,
or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptic in 365 days, 5 hours 49
min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon,
are of different lengths; as is known to all that are versed in
Astronomy. Now between the longest and the shortest of those days, a
day may be taken of such a length, as 365 such days, 5. hours &c. (the
same numbers as before) make up, or are equal to that revolution: And
this is call'd the Equal or Mean day (24 hour day), according to which the watches are to be set; and therefore the Hour or Minute showed by the Watches,
though they be perfectly just and equal, must needs differ almost
continually from those that are shew'd by the Sun, or are reckon'd
according to its Motion. But this Difference is regular, and is
otherwise called the Equation of Time.." Huygens


Huygens like most of his contemporaries and going back to the era of Copernicus worked with the Ptolemaic framework where the Sun travels through the constellations whereas the foundations of timekeeping are based on the first annual appearance of the stars as a morning appearance thereby providing an orbital marker for the Earth's orbital position using the number of days as an additional gauge (via a proportion).

Sir Isaac drew his geocentric/heliocentric modeling equivalency via Huygens but a mathematician, at least from my own personal experience, was and remains unlikely to pick up on delicate and exquisite fine points. So here we are in the 21st century with this awful pretense that mathematicians have a clear idea of the components of astronomy and the chaos introduced by using timekeeping in a careless/reckless manner.

This is only one instance among many that need to be addressed but haven't seen anyone with the aptitude necessary to know there are problems much less deal with them in order for a creative/productive atmosphere to flourish for the first time in centuries.

  #2  
Old November 1st 18, 10:18 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Posts: 1,551
Default What sometimes happens

Regardless of academic dominance, it should be exceptionally painful to realise that the entire gravity scheme is based on RA/Dec which does not represent the rotation of the Earth as it is a combination of circumpolar motion allied to the calendar cycle.

"That the fixed stars being at rest, the periodic times of the five primary planets, and (whether of the sun about the earth, or) of the earth about the sun, are in the sesquiplicate proportion of their mean distances from the sun.... for the periodic times are the same, and the dimensions of the orbits are the same, whether the sun revolves about the earth, or the earth about the sun." Newton

The problem wasn't Newton's as the decision to bypass the Sun and the 24 hour day/night cycle belonged to those engaged in timekeeping astronomy and what became a celestial sphere subculture that remains dominant today.

By far the greatest error in human endeavor regarding astronomy and terrestrial science as the basic correlation which anchors the Earth's rotation to noon when a location is midway to the circle of illumination is lost to a clockwork scheme which denies the correlation by generating more rotations than noon cycles.

I prefer to concentrate on those issues which free up once the academic society owns the mistake and deals with it like adults but obviously what is left in the newsgroup are the best boys in the class or people who can be influenced by bullies, neither of which have no part in adult discussion.


 




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