Re: Orbit of the earth & intelligent design

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:11:48 GMT, "Androcles"
<Engineer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Dave W." <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u9i7p39otiameqqkbgg3oriv6pufqk3bs2@xxxxxxxxxx
| On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:16:58 GMT, "Androcles"
| <Engineer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
|
| >
| >"Benj" <christensenbenj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
| >news:132b6197-b00e-4b74-91ba-1d46d7f06ffd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| >| I've run into an "intelligent design" argument in a couple of places
| >| recently, one statement of which I will paste here:
| >|
| >| "The Earth is balanced in a position, relative to the Sun, by gravity
| >| (which pulls the Earth toward the Sun) and centrifugal force (which
| >| pushes the Earth away from the Sun). As it travels in its orbit around
| >| the Sun (a distance of 600 million miles!), it veers from a straight
| >| line only one-ninth of an inch every eighteen miles. If it veered by
| >| one-tenth of an inch, the orbit would become so large that life on the
| >| Earth would be impossible due to drastically-reduced temperatures; if
| >| it veered by one-eighth of an inch, life on the Earth would be
| >| impossible due to drastically-increased temperatures. Yet the Earth
| >| veers from a straight line only one-ninth of an inch, which is just
| >| right--by accident?" (http://www.discoverymagazine.com/articles/d1997/
| >| d9711e.htm)
| >|
| >| Obviously, the logic alone is faulty, as the author (Bert Thompson,
| >| Ph.D., who wrote similar things in various other places) does not seem
| >| to understand that one-tenth of an inch is smaller than one-ninth of
| >| an inch. And what is a "straight line" in this context anyway? But
| >| more importantly, can anyone comment or direct me to resources about
| >| the actual numbers cited?
| >
| >When a theologian starts playing with numbers to present his
| >arguments you can be sure his degree isn't mathematical. Even
| >theoretical physicists are failed mathematicians. However,
| >by approximating Earth's orbit to a circle and dividing it up
| >into straight line segments so as to be a polygon, one can calculate
| >the distance at the centre of a chord to the locus. What that
| >has to do with "design" only Bert Thompson, Ph.D., (theology)
| >would hallucinate.
| >
| >Let's have a go for the fun of it.
| >
| >Mean radius: 93,000,000 miles
| >
| >Circumference: 2pi * radius = 584336233.56770154235405166928999 miles
| >
| >Divide by 18 miles: a 32,463,124-sided polygon.
| >
| >Angle between vertices:
| > 2pi/32,463,124 = 1.9354838709677419354838709677419e-7 radians
| >
| >Mid-point between vertices is half that:
| > 9.6774193548387096774193548387097e-8 radians.
| >
| >Cosine: 0.99999999999999531737773152966026
| >
| >Multiply by 93,000,000 miles = 92999999.999999564516129032258404 miles
| >
| >Difference between chord and locus:
| > 4.3548387096774159561612560164185e-7 miles
| >
| > = 2.5258064516129012545735284895228e-4 feet
| > = 0.0030309677419354815054882341874273 inches
| >
| >His 1/9 inch is a gross exaggeration, over 18 miles the Earth
| >deviates from a straight line by 3 thousandths of an inch, not
| >111 thousandths as claimed.
| >
| >The resource you need is on your calculator.
| >If you wish to be more accurate:
| > http://www.astro-tom.com/getting_started/earth-sun_distance.htm
|
|
| Simpler to use Pythagoras, I would have thought.

I did. Cosine is adjacent/hypotenuse of a right triangle.

|
| If the Earth continues in a straight line for 18 miles,

In hypothetical sentences introduced by 'if' and referring to
past time, where conditions are to be deemed 'unfulfilled',
the verb will regularly be found in the pluperfect subjunctive,
in both protasis and apodosis.
-- Donet, "Principles of Elementary Latin Syntax"

It doesn't, it follows the locus of an ellipse which I approximated
to a circle. Actually it doesn't do that either, only the barycentre
of the Earth-Moon system does.
Cranks are always coming up with 'if' and ignoring facts.

| then its
| distance from the Sun will be the hypotenuse of a triangle whose other
| sides are 93,000,000 miles and 18 miles. So the distance is the square
| root of 93,000,000^2 and 18^2 ie. the square root of
| 8,649,000,000,000,324 which is 93,000,000.00000174193. So the increase
| in distance is 00000174193 miles and multiplying by 63,360 to convert
| to inches, we have 0.1103, which is pretty close to 1/9th.

It's away from the straight line for nine miles, back toward the straight
line for the next nine miles at runs parallel at the mid point. Try again.



Thanks for labelling me a crank, but I'll try again anyway. What I
meant was that if we draw a tangent to the Earth's orbit and look at a
point 18 miles from the point of contact with the orbit, we will find
that a radius of the Earth's orbit, extended by 1/9th inch will reach
the tangent..This is what I think the OP meant and the fact that my
answer agrees with his is reasonable evidence for that assumption. You
are assuming an 18 mile tangent with the Earth's orbit touching the
tangent at mid-point, which I'll agree is a possible interpretation,
but I don't think it's the correct one.

Your answer would therefore have been 1/4 of mine if it wasn't for the
fact that you have used a figure of 580 feet in a mile instead of
5280.

Try again.
.

Relevant Pages

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