An Irish Astronomer

emo72 wrote: »

whats going on?

Unlike the frantic efforts before,the recent actions of the community have made it simple and fairly easy to understand what went wrong and how they now try to undo the error.

The old 'sidereal vs solar explanation' uses a specific type of flawed reasoning that began in England in 1677 and this remained up until a few years ago where all the textbooks stated it -

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/JennyChen.shtml

The 'new' version which only emerged in recent years tries to recover the original principles of rotation once in 24 hours by introducing an idealized rotation back in 1820.

The old sidereal version had rotations fall out of steps with 24 hour cycles which was always going to be unconscionable so instead of requesting how the 24 hour system works with rotation and the Lat/Long system they conjured up a new story instead.All institutions whether it is banks,Churches,politics or any institution has its scandals and catastrophy - the loss of basic planetary facts happens to be the major one that you see unfold here as a community desperately tries to bury the old facts you see in the website referenced.

In short,my job is done apart from telling the story of how the timekeeping systems we use everyday were put together by really cool people who were exceptionally sharp in how they reasoned things out.

emo72 wrote: »

hello, maybe a bit of background would make it easier to follow. for example when you refer to the "community" in the above posting, well, I'm not sure which community you refer to. and maybe a bit of your background too? because i wasnt sure if you were posting your own thoughts or copying something from the internet. otherwise thanks, i'd never given much thought to a sidereal day. didnt realize it was about 4 minutes shorter.

You are fine and don't worry about it,the thread is almost a postscript - while participants in this forum fought tooth and nail for the nonsensical 23 hours 56 minutes 04 second value for rotation,their community recently had already morphed to an entirely different story of idealized rotation once in 24 hours back in 1820.

I wouldn't waste another second explaining how I forced that community to look at how the 24 hour AM/PM system works in tandem with the Lat/Long system nor how days/years transfer directly into a dynamical equivalent of rotations/orbital circuits.Instead of going back through the historical and technical details where timekeeping meshes with planetary dynamics and what references to use,they simply conjured up a new story which I have already posted twice in this thread ,a story with no astronomical or historical pedigree and a purpose designed only to make it appear that the 24 hour value was always accepted for rotation once through 360 degrees instead of the worthless sidereal value.

A person of intellectual integrity , and given enough time, could figure out the unfolding tragedy where facts,even basic facts such as the how long it takes the Earth to turn once,are 'flexible' and change to suit whatever presently concerns the empirical community,in this case their insistence that the Earth is a bad timekeeper and should no longer be the basis of timekeeping while using the most ridiculous reasoning imaginable by simply changing the story and completely obliterating what they previously believed.Such behavior has been noted elsewhere -

"Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as "the
truth" exists. […] The implied objective of this line of thought is a
nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls
not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such
an event, "It never happened"—well, it never happened. If he says that
two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This prospect
frightens me much more than bombs […]" Orwell

Again,this thread is a postscript but it does leave an option open - after being fools for the 'sidereal time' junk do people wish to be fools all over again for an equally bad conception of idealized rotation once in 24 hours back in 1820 ?.In this case the quote from Orwell is appropriate as it reflects a dystopian society and the vicious strain of empiricism that breeds it.Very few people over the centuries have tried to counter this nasty form of empiricism but the good ones who have tried to change things for the better have known about it all along,these individuals generally take their time with conclusions and do not reach for every half baked explanation when gaps in understanding appear.One of the better commentaries on the way a community can morph a story when it suits (global warming morphing into climate change is a current example of this morphing) is from Von Humboldt an even though the problem originated in timekeeping and astronomy,his comments support something that some readers here are becoming aware of and certainly the climate issue has brought it front and center -

"This empiricism, the melancholy heritage transmitted to us from
former times, invariably contends for the truth of its axioms with the
arrogance of a narrowminded spirit.Physical philosophy, on the other
hand, when based upon science, doubts because it seeks to
investigate,distinguishes between that which is certain and that which
is merely probable, and strives incessantly to perfect theory by
extending the circle of observation."This assemblage of imperfect
dogmas bequeathed by one age to another— this physical philosophy,
which is composed of popular prejudices,—is not only injurious because
it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of
ill observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from
attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover
the mean or medium point, around which oscillate,in apparent
independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this
system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid
phenomena and in organic forms, for something beyond the marvel of a
regular succession, and an internal and progressive development. Ever
inclined to believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses
to recognise in the present any analogy with the past, and guided by
its own varying hypotheses, seeks at hazard, either in the interior of
the globe or in the regions of space, for the cause of these pretended
perturbations. It is the special object
of the present work to combat those errors which derive their source
from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions."
Homboldt ,Cosmos

What is needed is a fresh start,people of intelligence and integrity who are not afraid to face the errors and distortions we inherited from previous generations and with all the modern tools at our disposal,restore a stable narrative for astronomy and terrestrial sciences just as all good scientists like Humboldt wished.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

So emo, what's going on is that Orion here knows the answers to my two questions upthread, but is psychologically incapable of typing the answers out.

He will claim that he won't "waste another second" on these questions, but will instead rant for thousands of words about Newton, Galileo, Einstein, retrograde motion of the planets, conspiracies and so forth.

He's a funny guy.

Ultimately you now have to follow a new story that the Earth turned exactly once in 24 hours back in 1820 whereas the old myth was based on a 1677 conclusion which linked the return of a star directly with daily rotation through 360 degrees in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds -

"... our clocks kept so good a correspondence with stellar circumpolar motion that I doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be
constant... " Flamsteed to Moore ,1677

I can't think of a worse type of slavery than a human being who ,with the greatest hostility,argues for a 23 hour 56 minute 04 second value for rotation (as per the observation above) when his own community has recently adopted another false assertion in order to replace the one first proposed as a proof by Flamsteed -

"While we know the Earth's rotation is slowing that is not the main reason why the extra "Leap Second" was added by our official time keepers this year. The reason for adding a leap second is that the planet does not rotate exactly once every 24 hours (86,400 seconds). The rotation actually takes 86,400.002 seconds so that each day this little difference builds up between the atomic clock and the earth's rotation."

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_rotation_cause_day_and_night

How does it feel to be intellectually impotent ?,because I don't have to shove the new story down your throat all that remains is finding intelligent people with sharp intellects who can work out the details of the linkage between the 24 hour AM/PM system tied to the Lat/Long system and how timekeeping systems run alongside the daily and orbital motions of the Earth and specifically how one 24 hour cycle keeps in step with one rotation.

It is not just my postscript,it is the burial of a hostile group of people who opted to follow arguments recently jettisoned by your own community and that,by any other name,is a scandal like no other.On a scale of one to ten,Piltdown man is 1 and this issue is 10.

emo72 wrote: »

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/JennyChen.shtml

thats a webpage "Edited by Glenn Elert -- Written by his students". are these guys some authority on scientific fact?

just because some person sends me a link to a webpage, well, just because somethings written on the internet doesnt make it an irrefutable fact.

I like your innocence in these matters,it is quite a story how the entire empirical community shifted from a discredited 'solar vs sidereal' fantasy for daily rotation to a new version of idealized 24 hour rotation in 1820,eventually the new story will filter down to students in the coming years from formal doctrines,some of which were written by people who once travelled in the same Usenet circle I did -

http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/136/5/1906/fulltext/aj_136_5_1906.text.html

The fact that they tried to bury a 'sidereal time' error with a lie conjured out of thin air hardly alters my influence insofar as I have been comfortable for many years with the development of the timekeeping systems as we use them today and especially how not to mix up the references as the old and new empiricists do,I can even explain where the error was created and for what purposes but that is a sprawling story full of technical and historical details.

I already know the wind has gone out of those participants here who were so eager to promote a 23 hour 56 minute value that was already dumped by an empirical community hence what you are seeing in this thread is the result of 14 years of relentless pressure -instead of dealing with the matter using integrity and treating the matter as a genuine crisis,they simply took the easy way out and hoped that nobody will notice the difference the lack of transparency.

With 'Piltdown man' they waited for all the old crowd to die before admitting the hoax,it took 40 years for that to happen while the new empirical style is to encompasses a mistake in a bigger mistake or lie.That is why you will see no responses to the new approach whereas last year the hostility here was appalling and very vocal -

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about
23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA
Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or
86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased
by about 2.5 milliseconds." NASA

You should see how the actual timekeeping systems were put together and how men once worked with the great cycles of the Earth to good effect but that would be lost here among participants here who are caught between an error and a lie.

emo72 wrote: »

reading those scientific journals is hard work. anyway, is somebody even arguing with you on this thread? i think you are trying to get a point across on here, but you may be making it hard work for everyone.

my head is melted, i may come back to this after a few coffees.

Don't bother,just take the word from the man who created the first accurate watch capable of determining position on the planet using the stable principles which connect the 24 hour AM/PM system to the Lat/Long system through daily rotation -

"The application of a Timekeeper to this discovery is founded upon the
following principles: the earth's surface is divided into 360 equal
parts (by imaginary lines drawn from North to South) which are called
Degrees of Longitude; and its daily revolution Eastward round its own
axis is performed in 24 hours; consequently in that period, each of
those imaginary lines or degrees, becomes successively opposite to the
Sun (which makes the noon or precise middle of the day at each of
those degrees; ) and it must follow, that from the time any one of
those lines passes the Sun, till the next passes, must be just four
minutes, for 24 hours being divided by 360 will give that quantity; so
that for every degree of Longitude we sail Westward, it will be noon
with us four minutes the later, and for every degree Eastward four
minutes the sooner, and so on in proportion for any greater or less
quantity. Now, the exact time of the day at the place where we are,
can be ascertained by well known and easy observations of the Sun if
visible for a few minutes at any time from his being ten degrees high
until within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon until he is
only 10 degrees high in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when
such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at the same moment
what o'clock it is at the place we sailed from, our Longitude is
clearly discovered." John Harrison

There is an even greater story behind this that stretches back thousands of years when the great astronomers realized they could not base their annual cycle on years of 365 days but required an additional day after every 4th cycle,the one we now know as Feb 29th.Without understanding this system and the references used,it is impossible to build the later 24 hour AM/PM system and the Lat/Long system.

Look at it as a victory for humanity in the face of a hostile crowd who tried to undermine the principles which John Harrison explains above even as they now create a different version that is equally as poor as the 'solar vs sidereal' time one.This is why it is now so easy to dismiss them now.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Ask him about retrograde motion of the planets! I dare you!

Many like you get to wander the forum here like intellectual ghosts,having defended the 'solar vs sidereal' cult ideology with such aggressiveness you are now forced to go along with a recent alternative version that doesn't work either -

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_rotation_cause_day_and_night

A person like yourself caught between an error and a lie is in an extremely poor position,of course,there is always a way out through the genuine and enjoyable way the timekeeping systems were actually put together.

I don't normally travel in moderated forums as they tend to favor spectators rather than innovators,productive people or people willing to question spurious 'facts',it is a fact that for over two hundred years scientists lost the ability to preserve the most basic astronomical and terrestrial fact of them all - how long does it take our planet to turn 360 degrees and that is remarkable for all the wrong reasons.

The worst is over now and my contribution is done,eventually people will discover how the systems were put together in order and enjoy them as real human achievements.As for you and your astronomical version of 'Piltdown man',there is no intellectual redemption as you become irrelevant through your own choice insofar as you now have to follow a lie instead of an error -

"The reason for adding a leap second is that the planet does not rotate exactly once every 24 hours (86,400 seconds). The rotation actually takes 86,400.002 seconds so that each day this little difference builds up between the atomic clock and the earth's rotation. "

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Well, no. If there is a disagreement about facts, such as how long it takes the earth to rotate 360 degrees around its axis, the way to settle it is to measure it.

The genuine history of timekeeping is entirely irrelevant.

Flailing around with nothing to say and caught between an error and a lie is quite a jam you are in and the fact is that I put you and a lot of other people there,that is the way these things work out.

If you were so adamant last year that the Earth turns once in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds then your issues are with your own community who now tell you that the Earth rotated once in exactly 24 hours back in 1820.

For everyone else,what they are seeing is an unfolding scandal as a community struggles to undo damage done a few centuries ago where scientist lost the connection between one rotation and one 24 hour AM/PM cycle and decided that they fell out of step.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Is the correct answer!!

Now, what causes Mizar to make one circumpolar circle in that time period?

Your community has decided to jettison your old 'correct' answer and the one you like so much for a new 'correct' answer and a different story -

"The Earth's rotation is slowing but at a much slower rate than 1 leap second every so many years. The length of time it takes the Earth, at the present time, to rotate once is 86,400.002 seconds compared to 86,400 seconds back in 1820."

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_rotation_cause_day_and_night

Your old 23 hour 56 minute 04 second value had the number of rotations falling out of step with 24 hour AM/PM cycles making your community the dumbest ever to set foot on the planet so they tried to change it to make daily rotation in 24 hours the cause of the day/night cycle.

You are now faced with a community who no longer pays attention to your 'correct' answer while making a further mess of things so your issues are with them and not me, even in this dysfunctional forum there may be people who actually like topics like the Lat/Long system and how clocks and daily rotation solved the Longitude problem based on principles that all students and interested adults understand.If all you can do is scream about stellar circumpolar motion then good,you are even outside your own community in that case - an irrelevant 'solar vs sidereal' ghost like those who believed in the Piltdown man skull.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Another correct answer! Full marks.

Next question: if Mizar is back at the same position afer 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds, why is it 24 hours before the Sun is back at the same spot in the sky?

You poor thing !,your community now says the Earth turned in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds tens of millions of years ago from a hypothetical 23 hours at the time of the dinosaurs to 24 hours exactly in 1820 -

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about
23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA
Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or
86,400 standard seconds." NASA

I don't give you credit for realizing that they changed the story from your old 'solar vs sidereal' format to this new version of idealized rotation once in 24 hours in 1820 using a slowing down Earth.Now that you find yourself outside the current empirical belief ,you are no use to me apart from a cautionary lesson and you certainly and no use to those who try to justify the addition/subtraction of a leap second based on this 'idealized rotation and the planet slowing down from an idealized rotation in 1820.

I managed to force the attempted shifted away from the fairytale of stellar circumpolar motion linked directly to daily rotation to the new unstable view which ignores the stable narrative of the 24 hour system, and the Lat/Long system tied to the rotation of the planet.It is quite an experience as an Irish astronomer to be 'moderated' out of the forum while knowing exactly what went wrong,how to fix it and why the new version is as bad as the old 'sidereal' myth but unfortunately I do not give the Irish here credit for appreciating what was done and why it is exceptionally important as they are more spectators and imitators than original thinkers.

im invisible wrote: »

i'm confused... what EXACTLY are you saying, never mind what he said or she said or what happened over 100 years ago, what is your point, exactly?

You see,it is far more complicated than just getting the most basic fact in astronomy wrong by way of a stupid conclusion drawn in the late 17th century using stellar circumpolar motion,Newton's clockwork solar system is built on the wrong value for rotation and Newton's agenda is at the core of all mathematical modeling.It is quite a scam and the fact that anyone can affirm through easily understood principles that the Earth turns once in 24 hours while you cannot is more than sufficient to draw attention to a huge problem.

You see readers here scream that the Earth turns once in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds but their community has recently moved away from that value and very close to the 24 hour value without explaining how the 24 hour value was extrapolated from principles that are very stable and are tied to the Lat/Long system through rotation.You don't get the point but it dawned on others a long time ago that the imbalance between rotations and 24 hour days that the 'sidereal time' principles was generating was so nonsensical that it had to be buried,after all,immediate experience tells you that one rotation of the Earth and one 24 hour cycle keep in step.

If it is any consolation,not being good enough to handle the issue is not your fault nor even those poor individuals who hold on to an idea that has all the astronomical substance of a 'Piltdown man' skull because they can't reason things through.It means that all their other opinions have little value so to speak for who wants to listen to a person who can't match a rotation with a 24 hour day ?.