Re: An astronomer's view of mechanics

oriel36 wrote:
The variations in luminosity as the Earth approaches and overtakes a
planet can be seen in the text and by observation * ,as a follower of
the false approach by Newton using a hypothetical observer on the Sun
you cannot find these lovely arguments.

If one accepts the "simple annual motion of the Earth", then one
accepts that it is the Sun that is the body in the Solar System that
has no motion except the general motion of the Solar System as a
whole.

Does that not make that viewpoint, then, the proper viewpoint from
which to consider the motions of the Solar System, because that is the
viewpoint from which the complexities of the geocentric approach are
banished, and everything is made plain?

It is unclear to me not merely what you object to, but how you come to
object to it. You seem to find the motions of the Solar System dull
and lifeless when the mathematical clutter of subtracting out and then
adding back in the motions of the Earth no longer has to be repeated
incessantly. I suppose for someone who appreciates the Solar System by
intuition, and is not doing the work with figures, that is a tenable
position. To working positional astronomers - it would be a bad joke.

Unfortunately Newton is one such case where astronomical insights were
bent using an idiosyncratic method to suit conclusions such as
terrestrial ballistics applied to structural astronomy. Again, Newton's
approach to retrogrades and his conclusion have no astronomical basis
and is destructive to the nth degree.

And yet the perturbation theories that let us predict with high
accuracy even the complex motions of the Moon rest directly on the
Moon moving according to terrestrial ballistics, modified by the
gravities of the other bodies in the Solar System, through Newton's
law of Universal Gravitation with its inverse square law.

That which is productive of correct predictions about nature is the
likeliest to be based on a sound understanding of nature as it is,
even if the understanding has its limits.

This is an injustice like no other,an astrological framework overlayed
on heliocentric reasoning and even with actual contemporary imaging
that clearly demonstrates the reasoning understood by
Copernicus,Kepler ,Galileo,there is not the slightest sign of budging
from an ill-considered and worthless view of Newton -

The imaging in no way contradicts Newton, so it applies no force to
budge us away from him.

Astronomy is not all about magnification equipment it is more about
rediscovering the noble intellects that once graced the astronomical
stage and from that point of departure making new discoveries and
modifications with modern imaging and techniques.

I do not disagree with this, but it seems as though you have
discovered something in your study of those intellects that is not
there, which is why no one else sees it - just as too much
magnification led Percival Lowell to see canals on Mars.

John Savard

.

Relevant Pages

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