Angular acceleration of the earth

Hello Makis,

I'm not sure why Dr Van Flandern is being so picky on this issue (since I'm not an orbital mechanics expert, it might be that I'm just not aware of a VERY GOOD reason for taking this stand), but it seems to be getting in the way of finding out what your complaint is. And it seems possible to work around it.

For the purposes of this discussion, I define a flexible body as "similar to a rigid body, but able to stretch and compress to a certain extent".


<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[makis]
Just forget about rigid body mechanics and consider the earth and the sun as particles ...
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Perhaps you should move the other way - treat the Earth and Sol as a single rotating flexible body. Ignore the fact that one or more parts of this body are themselves rotating-in-place at independent rates.

Now it makes sense to speak of the ANGULAR velocity and the ANGULAR acceleration of this rotating body. And we can imagine a one to one correspondence between the various parts of this flexible body and the real Earth/Sol system.

We can define a reference angle by imagining a line between Sol and one of the "fixed" background stars.

Observations indicate that as this flexible body rotates:
1) its instantaneous angular velocity varies between a minimum and a maximum value
2) its instantaneous angular acceleration varies between a small negative and a small positive value.
3) its instantaneous "length" (the distance between the part of the flexible body that is analogous to Sol and the part that is analogous to Earth) varies between a minimum and a maximum value.

Over an integer number of rotations of this flexible body both the angular velocity and the angular acceleration are constant (at 1 rev/yr and zero rev/yr^2, respectively).

=======

Jim, Makis, Dr Van Flandern -

Can this setup be used to explore Makis' issue?


Regards,
LB

from Larry:

Perhaps you should move the other way - treat the Earth and Sol as a single rotating flexible body. Ignore the fact that one or more parts of this body are themselves rotating-in-place at independent rates.

Larry, I am not talking about the angular acceleration of a rigid body as a result of its rotation about an axis through it, such as for instance a car wheel where the angular acceleration vector is perpendicular to the wheel plane. I am talking about the angular acceleration of a particle rotating around another particle. In the case of circular uniform motion, the angular acceleration is zero. My question was dealing the the concept of elliptical orbits. I claim that if the orbit of the earth is trully elliptical then Kinematics predicts an angular acceleration. This is avoided in orbital mechanics books because according to Newton's second law it would imply a torque application on the particle and therefore some type of aether to transmit that torque. This does not preclude conservation of angular momentum and energy. However, astronomical observations do not show a angular acceleration and this is in contradiction with Kinematics. In Mechanics, this was cleverly hidden out by the use of symbols and by hidding the resulting angular acceleration in the integration resulting in constant angular momentum.

There is more meat into this than TVF wants to admit there is. TFV claims adherence to existing doctrines and declares me ignorant.

But I will ask you a simple question: if you are rotating a bucket of water attached to a string and you release a small lenght of the string, won't the angular velocity of th bucket change? If not, something holds it constant and just increases the linear speed. If there is a radial velocity in the orbit of the earth, angular velocity must either change and so angular acceleration or a process that keeps it constant must be defined. Something is then transmititng a torque, some place, and either Newtonian mechanics is absurd or there is something out there doing that.

My solution to this is that the orbit of the earth is circular and the stories about elliptical orbits are to be investigated. In my view, the orbits are "apparently" elliptical to a Euclidean geometry based observer frame but circular in "reality" when other parameters are added.

TVF thinks this is not an interesting subject. It's his prerocative of course. He seems not interested in challenging 400 year old ideas developed when there was not even an accurate clock to measure time and distance. Like Galileo's false observations about free fall, etc.

I understand you have to reinforce certainty at schools otherwiese the educational foundation will collapse. Doing that "dirty" job requires teaching people a lot of "crap", often indistinguishable from religious doctrines. But here is Metaresearch board, our last hope...

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[makis]: I'm not sure why Dr Van Flandern is being so picky on this issue<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

Meta Research encourages challenges to mainstream science based on reasoning, observations, or experiment. At the same time, we try to provide guidance to the far-more-numerous faulty challengers out there to show them where they have gone wrong.

As a result, we hear continually from people all over the world. Experience with trying to help these people has quickly led to a few generalizations about who can be helped and who is not really seeking help at all. Especially, the former are appreciative and the latter are resentful when help is offerred.

Makis has created a situation. Instead of simply asking why mechanics is this way or how changes in angular velocity are explained, he has declared that the world is full of idiots who don't understand what they are doing and are rationalizing to maintain their picture of reality; whereas his personal genius has at last discovered the one true picture of reality regarding orbital mechanics. Meta Research does not encourage challenges based on a failure to understand the mainstream position on any issue.

In order to maintain this self-centered opinion, he has to maintain ignorance of vector mechanics, treat things called "vectors" as if they were scalars, deny the role of radial accelerations in changing angular velocity, and remain ignorant of basic astronomical observations. In this last camp, he denies simple observations showing the angular velocity of the Sun relative to the background stars increasing to a maximum in January and decreasing to a minimum in July. He ignores simple measurements of the Sun's angular diameter showing it is larger in January and smaller in July, making accurate solar eclipse predictions possible. He hasn't a clue that we can now use radar ranging to measure directly the distance from Earth to other solar system bodies, and plainly see that we are closer to the Sun in January than in July.

All these distorted world views are correctable, but only with the cooperation of the party to be educated. If his responses are always of the form that you are a genius too when you agree with him, but part of the world's mass self-delusion when you disagree with him, where is there room for change or evolution? If the mere effort to help is resented and attacked, how is one supposed to help?

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Can this setup be used to explore Makis' issue?<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

You already have your answer from Makis. I encourage you to continue to try to find a way to get through to our friend. I would love to be shown a way. But I haven't discovered an effective approach yet. In earlier discussions, when helpful people here explained simple basics that were in conflict with the world views of various posters, those psoters became increasingly defensive and hostile, and finally left the Message Board with a few uncharitable salvos.

If you can get this individual to listen thoughtfully to a possible explanation and respond in a positive way, I will be mightily impressed with your diplomatic skills, and am prepared to apologize to Makis for treating him as learning invincible if you can discover a way to get through to him. But I don't know what else to try after reason, observations, and experiments have failed. Any delusion can be maintained if one is willing to believe that the rest of the world is part of a conspiracy of malefactors and sheep.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. One of the possible weaknesses that some people suffer from is the inability to unlearn something once learned incorrectly. As things stand, I don't see a way to deal with people who at least superficially appear to have this disability. For example, teaching Makis orbital mechanics on this MB would surely lead to another argument, probably over the definitions of terms, but not a resolution. -|Tom|-

All this emotiom has nothing to do with science. The simple fact is there is no force to cause angular acceleration of any orbit and I don't think this is open to any debate. What Makis is saying and me too is that data is not avalible to confirm the statements being made by TVF about the truth of Earth's orbit. There are lots of models to show that TVF is correct-where is the data?

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In this last camp, he denies simple observations showing the angular velocity of the Sun relative to the background stars increasing to a maximum in January and decreasing to a minimum in July. He ignores simple measurements of the Sun's angular diameter showing it is larger in January and smaller in July, making accurate solar eclipse predictions possible. He hasn't a clue that we can now use radar ranging to measure directly the distance from Earth to other solar system bodies, and plainly see that we are closer to the Sun in January than in July.

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All thsee should ring a bell to you. Because you seem to lack basic understanding of what a contradiction between theory and observation means. This is due to a lack of rigor and philosophical insight. Your example of how Zeno's paradox is resolved illustrates your superficial and mandane undrertanding of science and its problems. Your so called latest "resolution" to the twin's paradox clearly illustrates you do not understand what the paradox means.

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Makis has created a situation. Instead of simply asking why mechanics is this way or how changes in angular velocity are explained, he has declared that the world is full of idiots who don't understand what they are doing and are rationalizing to maintain their picture of reality; whereas his personal genius has at last discovered the one true picture of reality regarding orbital mechanics.

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Uncalled for. Find a statement of mine declaring the world full of idiots or calling myself a genious. You perceive it that way because you are full of racial, scientific and other kind of biases.

There are others reading these threads and if they are unbiased will judge your statements accordingly. You are spending a lot of time attacking me instead of focussing at the issue at hand. I just asked a question based on my own interpretation of Kinematics and their relation to Newtonian Mechanics. I cannot see how a reasonable man with an acceptable sanity level will make all these statements and personal attacks.

I feel sorry once more for coming back to these threads. I let you continue your sales job of FTL gravitons to the uninformed public TVF.

Larry thanks, I won't be coming back. Metareasch is being deleted from my favorites list. It was a grand mistake coming back here.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[makis]: I just asked a question based on my own interpretation of Kinematics and their relation to Newtonian Mechanics.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

And what question would that be? The only unanswered question that I saw was about whether I would hold a press conference extolling your praises if you could convince an independent review committee of your genius. I ignored the disingenuous "question" and implied insult.

Anyone who wants to understand Newtonian orbital mechanics mathematically just needs to understand one equation, which contains Newton's universal law:
d^2(r-vector)/dt^2 = (GM/r^3) r-vector
Merely knowing what the symbols mean would allow anyone to program a computer and see what trajectories result from this single equation. It is obvious to others, though apparently not to you, that any body moving at an angle relative to a circular orbit must be increasing or decreasing its speed because of changes in the radial acceleration. Those changes are sufficient to explain all "angular acceleration", whatever you chose that ambiguous expression to mean.

Anyone who wants to understand Newtonian orbital mechanics physically would be well-served by reading chapter six of <i>Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets</i>.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>I won't be coming back. Metareasch is being deleted from my favorites list. It was a grand mistake coming back here.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

You have had your say through several incarnations now, and are clearly not interested in learning answers, but only in promoting your own estranged viewpoints. So let's avoid doing this repeatedly.

If you stay, let's agree that you will confine your remarks in this thread to questions about how standard Newtonian mechanics works, and forget about promoting your own agenda in this forum. You can go elsewhere on the internet for that (e.g., USENET), or set up your own Message Board.

If you leave, please take all your alter egos with you. One thing that has aggravated us from the start was when you would sign up as several personalities and post messages under another name praising your own posts. It is easy for our webmaster to trace these aliases these days. -|Tom|-