Re: The great Western adaption

jsavard@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
oriel36 wrote:

When an observer looks out and sees a star return 23 hours 56 minutes
04 seconds

later, thus 3 minutes and 56 seconds earlier the next day

than the night before that system requires that
there must be an additional day every 4th year to maintain that
premise.

Actually, that accounts for *one* extra siderial day *every* year, over
and above the number of synodic days in that year.


You get your answer when you figure out that to keep a star returning
in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds or 3 minutes 56 seconds earlier you
require an additional day every 4th year .Not a very good way to
appreciate the annual orbital motion of the Earth John,in fact Newton's
only accomplishment seems to be talking a system of 365.25 days while
using a calendrical system of 3 years of 365 days and 1 year of 366
days.




Somehow a genuine participant in sci.astro.amateur would
acknowledge that this would be impossible to square with the annual
orbital motion of the Earth and axial rotation with a system of 3
years of 365 days and 1 year of 366 days.

We have leap year days for siderial days, not synodic days, because we
take our meals by the Sun, not the stars.


Ah,the original 24 hour day was always meant to be appreciated by
people with wisdom rather than careless men who insist in introducing
the stellar background into the calculation of the daily cycle and
subsequently axial rotation.

The Equation of Time correction resets clock noon to natural noon and
treats the 24 hour day as an average by allowing clock noon to drift
either side of natural noon.The equalisation also allows the equable
24 hour days to elapse into each other without undue concern for the
drift from natural noon and this factor more than any was picked up the
the heliocentric timekeepers in fixing the pace of clocks to axial
rotation at 4 minutes for each degree of rotation making 24 hours
through 360 degrees precisely

There is only the total length of the natural day to consider,the noon
reference and how to equalise the variations to an equable 24 day,after
achieving equable hours .minutes and seconds you can attach as many
daily cycles as you like by whatever external references there
exists.The complimentary extension of the principles which produce the
equable 24 hour day was creation of the calendar system by attaching
these equable 24 hour days to the nearest stellar cycle,the 1461 day
celestial sphere cycle or the calendar cycle.



The 24 hour system correlating with axial rotation with clocks at
precisely 4 minutes for each degree of rotation admits no other value
or no attempt to force it into a celestial sphere geometry.

It certainly won't harmonize with celestial sphere geometry, as opposed
to the 23 hour, 56 minute, and 4 second system.

It is
astyronishing that people would choose to believe an alternative value
even allowing that they can still retain the convenience of the Ra/Dec
system while acknowledging that it does not reflect and cannot be used
to justify the axial and orbital motions of the Earth.

Given the Equation of Time, it is hard to relate a pure 24 hour system
to celestial sphere geometry in a simplistic fashion.


Yet this is what you do -

http://www.pfm.howard.edu/astronomy/Chaisson/AT401/IMAGES/AACHCIR0.JPG

The 17th century guys introduced a variable axial tilt as a component
in the Equation of Time known as the 'analemma' and declared that the
arc of the Sun across the sky conditioned the difference between
natural noon and clock noon.Considering that the Equation of Time
reflects the difference between the global Total length of a natural
day against the equable 24 hour clock day,watching the powdered wigs of
the 17th century destroy one of the greatest timekeeping achievements
,both pre-Copernican and heliocentric,takes some stomach.The idea that
it takes longer for the Sun to reach noon from its appearance at the
horizon thereby creating the impression of differences in the length of
a 'day' would surely not be mistaken for the total length of a day
!,yet ......

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980116c.html









The celestial sphere system of Flamsteed/Newton is catastrophically
wrong,counter-productive for appreciating astronomical methods and
insights and represents the greatest obstacle to future progress in the
areas of astronomy,climatology,geology and anywhere an accurate
version of the Earth's motions are required.Is that explicit enough ?.

It's certainly very categorical. But it doesn't say what's wrong with
it. If I have objects moving around in a room, I will begin by studying
their motion in relation to the walls of that room. Because it makes
sense to start from something that is standing still to simplify
matters and unravel what is going on.


The information loss through Newton's stupid attempt to resolve
retrogrades by framehopping to the Sun is what started this
undisciplined invasion of mathematicians into astronomy and especially
heliocentric astronomy.Careless men who have no feel for the structural
side nor the timekeeping side of astronomy and that is a shame if not a
holocaust.Nobody is going to suggest going back to a situation where
terrestrial,solar system or great structural dynamics does not exist
but working off 17th century celestial sphere geometry with 21st
century data takes some doing.The guys in the 17th century took their
chances with data but who was to know that their ad hoc conclusions
were based on an isolated solar system -

"Cor. 2. And since these stars are liable to no sensible parallax from
the annual motion of the earth, they can have no force, because of
their immense distance, to produce any sensible effect in our system.
Not to mention that the fixed stars, every where promiscuously
dispersed in the heavens, by their contrary actions destroy their
mutual actions, by Prop. LXX, Book I." Newton

No offense John but 80 years after it was discovered that the solar
system participates in a motion in one direction around the galactic
axis,don't you think somebody might even begin to consider how much
this motion combines with planetary heliocentric to influence orbital
geometries or some other piece of information.I guess you really want
to keep you terrstrial ballistics solution for planetary motion with
Isaac in his heaven and the willy,nilly fixed stars
everywhere.Unfortunately Newton give those fixed stars a structure
though Flamsteed's celestial sphere.


The celestial sphere really is something that stands still.

It is true that because it is so far away, we don't immediately notice
that the Earth moves around the Sun instead of the Sun moving around
the Earth. But that doesn't mean our understanding of celestial motions
makes the two cases indistinguishable.


The great Copernican insight provided the basis for the Keplerian
insight and the later Roemerian insight on how an astronomical
adjustment must be made due to finite radiation reaching Earth where
positions vary beyond 186 000 miles.

Flamsteed created celestial sphere geometry,Newton built on it and
Bradley finished off burying the antecedent astronomical insights from
Copernicus to Roemer by invoking celestial sphere geometry in terms of
light speed.

I have the unfortuante task of untangling the celestial mutations from
the original working principles based on what the motion of planets
and satellites looks like from an orbitally moving Earth and how they
are accounted for in terms of Keplerian orbital geometries and the
Roemerian observational adjustment.

Newton tried to trash the working principles of Copernicus ,bundled the
Keplerian and Roemerian insights into an unsightly mess and so exists
this horrible linguistic labyrinth with neither sense nor meaning -

PHENOMENON V.
"Then the primary planets, by radii drawn to the earth, describe areas
no wise proportional to the times; but that the areas which they
describe by radii drawn to the sun are proportional to the times of
description.

For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct, and to proceed with a motion nearly uniform, that
is to say, a little swifter in the perihelion and a little slower in
the aphelion distances, so as to maintain an equality in the
description of the areas. This a noted proposition among astronomers,
and particularly demonstrable in Jupiter, from the eclipses of his
satellites; by the help of which eclipses, as we have said, the
heliocentric longitudes of that planet, and its distances from the sun,
are determined." Newton

I quite understand that the above passage would be irrelevent to you
other than it serves the purpose of muddying descriptions which range
from the incredible vandalism of Copernicus's resolution of retrogrades
to the Keplerian and Roemerian insights but it is also not without
purpose.When you try to grasp absolute/relative space.time and motion
as Newton would have it you begin to see the outlines of a celestial
shere core emerge and like it or not it surfaces in this dire situation
where you believe that the Earth's motions can be justified through the
calendar system of 3 years of 365 days and 1 year of 366 days.



There is such a thing as stellar parallax; we just have to look harder.

That the celestial sphere, in the simplistic approximation, leaves some
degrees of freedom, and thus doesn't fully define a reference frame -
it just defines angular direction, and not motion or even acceleration
- can be dealt with.

No one disputes that the solar system is centered on the Sun - not the
Earth. Or, more correctly, the Solar System barycenter.


Ah,the information loss again.If genuine astronomers existed,at least
ones who could match Copernicus,Galileo and Kepler,they would
acknowledge how the observed motions of the planets were accounted
for by an orbitally moving Earth how this was disputed by Newton who
did not affirm this basic tenet of heliocentricity.It seems like
"planetary motions seen from the Sun " is correct but I hardly need to
remind you that the leftover principle of the axial rotational cycle
requires strict adherence to the original principle of isolating
orbital motion to account for observed heliocentric motions.





The information loss in celestial spherte geometry is catastrophic for
it brushes aside the Copernican insight as the 'Earth orbits the Sun'
while the actual methods and insights are far more graceful and contain
far more insights.This thread is based on one such insight which
borrrows from a pre- existing hum an devised principles which create
the equable 24 hour day and applies it to a new discovery that axial
rotation is an independent motion.

Newton's awful 'achievement ' was making a system based on 3 years of
365 days and 1 year of 366 days sound like a system based on 365.25
days -

A system based on 365.2422 days *is* the right system - except, of
course, that it neglects the fact that the equinoxes precess.


Newton talked a system of 365.24 days while working with a system based
on a 1461 day cycle broken into 3 years of 365 days and 1 year of 366
days.As nobody appears to have the stomach to split the creation of the
24 hour clock system through the Equation of Time correction from the
complimentary convenience of the 1461 day cycle of the calendar
system,it is unlikely that they would appreciate the wisdom of our
timekeeping ancestors.

I do like the fact that at 9 AM each year ( whether there are 365
days or 366 days in a year) a beam of light will enter the roofbox at
Newgrange on Dec 21st denoting the ancient accuracy in determining the
annual cycle through the precise position of opening -

http://www.iol.ie/~geniet/eng/roofbox.htm

You can recognise the annual cycle for creating the equable 24 hour
day and then create a calendrical convenience which does not need to be
justified,astronomically or bottom line.Taking nothing away from the
achievement of the builders of Newgrange over 5000 years ago,using the
return of the Sun as a gauge for the maximum asymmetry between
daylight/darkness (21st Dec) would not be that difficult,what would be
impossible would be creating a roofbox using the calendar system with
an alternative amount of days every 4th year.In short our ancient
ancestors could do what you cannot by filtering everything through
celestial sphere geometry.




... our clocks kept so good a correspondence with the Heavens that I
doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be
isochronical..."

And, indeed, the Earth's rotation is isochronical within the limits of
accuracy of any mechanical clock.


I have dealt with this matter for far too long and even if the results
are less than satisfactory,I am obliged to continue until somebody with
a better way to explain things comes along to provide a clearer
explanation of the two step process which uses the Equation of Time
system to create the 24 hour day and how each day elapses into the next
and how the heliocentric astronomers overlayed this human devised
principle on terrestrial geography as longitude divisions and the
correlation with the pace of a clock.

Flamsteed tried to take a shortcut but created the holcaust of
sub-geocentric celestial sphere astrology.


Variations in the rate of the Earth's rotation could only be detected
by far more accurate atomic clocks, to which Flamsteed did not have
access.


The fundamental principles which Flamsteed used are flawed,they have no
basis,intellectually,intuitively,astronomically,geographically and
bottom line.It was an attempt to force the 1461 day calendar cycle
into planetary geometry by homogenising axial and orbital motions.



Newton's idea is sub-geocentric insofar as the perception of
retrogrades against the stellar background was common to both Ptolemaic
and Copernican astronomers however the resolution was either from a
stationary Earth (Ptolemy) or an orbitally moving Earth (Copernicus).

Nobody ever talked oif jumping to the Sun to explain apparent
retrograde motion but Newton certainly did -

" For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct," NEWTON

And that is evidence for Copernicus being right.


The information loss has been catastrophic and it does take an
effort,in a perjorative sense,to find Newton correct.You actually have
to have a cult mentality to overide the Copernican principles,supported
by Galileo and Kepler,that we see planetary orbital motions around the
Sun from an orbitally moving Earth.



It is customary for Newtonian disciples to run to his defence but it is
not worth it,the orbital motions around the Sun are affirmed from an
orbitally moving Earth,the only way to account for retrogrades -

Newton was in no way disputing this.



I'm afraid I fail to see anything wrong at all with "celestial sphere
geometry"; there is the 'information loss' that the celestial sphere
only defines directions, not locations - but we make up for that
because we do have reasons for accepting heliocentricity.

And those reasons *come* from Newton. Who you appear to be
misunderstanding.

John Savard

The creation of AU or mean Sun Earth distances is quite a feat,it
appears to give the correct answer for Keplerian geometries while
allowing it to fit neatly into the the celestial sphere geometry of the
calendrically based Ra/Dec system or rather requires the celestial
sphere to work.

To dispense with the Equation of Time correction which equalises the
variations in the total length of the natural unequal day to a 24 hour
clock day,Flamsteed or later geometeras introduced a variable axial
tilt component and expressed the Equation of Time in terms of
variations in daylight/darkness asymmetry where it exists to this day
in all its hemispherical glory -

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980116c.html

Having got rid of the Equation of Time or rather attached a diluted
conception to it,the celestial sphere geometers were clear to
homogenised axial coordinates to celestial sphere geometry,they
borrowed 3 minutes 56 seconds from axial rotation and shoved into a
..986 degree orbital displacement (based on 4 minutes = 1 degree of
rotation hence .986 degree = 3 minutes 56 seconds).

Now John,it is actually a badge of intellectual achievement to know
what they did back in the 17th century and the incredible series of
maneuvers which have people now believing that their conclusions match
a 1898 science fiction novel by H.G. Wells (Time Machine).

If it looks tangled and complicated it is probably the poor way I
explain things but then again I am required to move between the correct
methods and insights and the insights which look right but are actually
quite wrong and destructive and that takes some doing .You will know
this because I am eager to move on to a more productive working
methods for meshing astronomy with terrestrial climatology and geology
while celestial sphere concepts tend towards final conclusions of
warped space,multiple universes,time travel ect.

What is it that you want to do ?,any amount of avenues exist to pursue
and I have little interest in celestial dynamics beyond what is
occuring beneath your feet in the molten/flexible interior below the
fractured crust.I am probably the last person who cares to consider
things from a stationary Earth,not even the interior is stationary and
moves in accordance with rotational dynamics.Unfortunately even here
contemporaries are stuck with stationary Earth/convection cells which
do not recognise rotational dynamics in crustal motion -

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/graphics/Fig32.gif

Having covered many areas from astronomy to climatology to geology in
these few postings it hardly seems possible that anyone would wish to
remain glued to the observational convenience of the Ra/Dec system but
that is not my call.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: non relativist / non aetherist reply
    ... > | the Earth axially rotates out of its orbital shadow) and you will ... > | the Sun. ... motion.You view the circumpolar motion of the stars in this light ... assumes axial rotation to be constant and equalises all the variables ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: The great Western adaption
    ... the annual orbital motion of the Earth John,in fact Newton's only ... take our meals by the Sun, ... or no attempt to force it into a celestial sphere geometry. ... version of the Earth's motions are required.Is that explicit enough ?. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: The great Western adaption
    ... take our meals by the Sun, ... It certainly won't harmonize with celestial sphere geometry, ... to justify the axial and orbital motions of the Earth. ... their motion in relation to the walls of that room. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: opinion
    ... should all wear bags over our heads to avoid the possibility of ... This empirical forum is based on the introduction of celestial sphere ... 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 ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Congratulations guys !
    ... the central Sun hence the useful 'restore point' when dealing with ... spoke of a "variable tilt" for the Earth, but I think he was only ... referring to an apparent geocentric motion there; ... The natural noon cycle represents a geometrical relation between the ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)