Theories Relating to Lunar and Solar Luminosity

I can't help but to wonder how the flat moon supporters explain the observations of libration.

What's to wonder about? I myself have told you, many times.

Quote from: markjo on April 25, 2011, 08:23:58 AM

I can't help but to wonder how the flat moon supporters explain the observations of libration.

What's to wonder about? I myself have told you, many times.

What is the explanation? I'm curious and haven't seen it addressed specifically before, I don't think.

Extremely regular weather patterns/shrimp migrations. 

Excuse me? What? From around 100 BCE to around 1500 CE the general consensus among astronomers was a round Earth with the sun going around the Earth. I'm going to strongly suggest that you don't know much about these topics and maybe you should try to read a little about the history of astronomy before you rush to conclusions? Two excellent books on this subject are Kuhn's "The Copernican Revolution" and Hirsfheld's "Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos".

Oh, really? It's amazing how, when you make people feel stupid by proving an idea, they suddenly change their minds. It turns out they've always believed in the concept in question. Particularly big entities like the Church. I shouldn't think they'd be above doctoring a few documents and they've done it in the past.

And it's not like philosophers are above retroactively changing their minds.

Besides, they couldn't prove it, could they?

Quote

Excuse me? What? From around 100 BCE to around 1500 CE the general consensus among astronomers was a round Earth with the sun going around the Earth. I'm going to strongly suggest that you don't know much about these topics and maybe you should try to read a little about the history of astronomy before you rush to conclusions? Two excellent books on this subject are Kuhn's "The Copernican Revolution" and Hirsfheld's "Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos".

Oh, really? It's amazing how, when you make people feel stupid by proving an idea, they suddenly change their minds. It turns out they've always believed in the concept in question. Particularly big entities like the Church. I shouldn't think they'd be above doctoring a few documents and they've done it in the past.

And it's not like philosophers are above retroactively changing their minds.

Besides, they couldn't prove it, could they?

This isn't just a handful of documents. The Almagest was written around 200 C and was for about 1300 years the main guide for astronomy. This used an explicitly geocentric system with a round Earth. In the 1500s the dispute over the nature of the solar system was essentially over whether geocentrism was correct.  No one substantial in that time period was saying that the Earth was flat. Your argument about changing documents is just silly given that a) there aren't just a handful of documents from the Church but a lot of old sources about the geocentric system (not just Christian sourcs but also Muslim and Jewish sources as well), b) the Protestants if they had any reason to think that the Church had recently messed with documents would have said so c) The Church didn't remove the handful of writings by the small number of early Church fathers who were actually flat-earthers. Please read a basic history book on this subject. You really don't know what you are talking about.

This implies that history books are correct.

This implies that history books are correct.

No. It simply uses the not so silly assumption that large numbers of contemporaneous and easily accessible documents are correct. There's no point where any organization had access to all copies of the relevant documents. So when did this amazing conspiracy manage to do its work? Was it before or after Copernicus? I presume before since we have lots of physical copies of "De revolutionibus" which is very explicit about the prevailing view for a very long time being before hand being geocentric with a round earth. There's no sign of forgery or modification of the texts. Similar remarks apply to other contemporary authors such as Rheticus . So that means that at minimum at the time Copernicus was writing, the prevailing viewpoint was geocentric and that this had been so for some time (at least about a hundred years). We also have a lot of records of responses to Copernicus and no one says to Copernicus "um, hey, actually there have been a lot of flat earthers and we're still around." So no, the bottom line is that the history is really quite easy to verify. Prior to the Copernican revolution the standard model was geocentric with a spherical earth.


 

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round, means believers in a Flat Earth are even historically ignorant.

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round

is false.

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round, means believers in a Flat Earth are even historically ignorant.

We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round. It is interesting that the attempts above to say otherwise seem to rest primarily on claiming that there's a conspiracy among the historians or something like that.

Quote from: Omega on April 26, 2011, 01:34:30 PM

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round

is false.

Facts are never false.

We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round.

... Wait, hold on. Is it not true that many who opposed Marco Polo's voyage did so on the basis that he would fall off the edge of the world?

... Because, y'know, it is...

Quote from: Omega on April 26, 2011, 01:34:30 PM

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round, means believers in a Flat Earth are even historically ignorant.

We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round. It is interesting that the attempts above to say otherwise seem to rest primarily on claiming that there's a conspiracy among the historians or something like that.

This superset of people is only the majority because they all read, study and the believe the same verbiage.  You are making an assumption that they are correct.

Quote from: JoshuaZ on April 26, 2011, 01:59:29 PM

Quote from: Omega on April 26, 2011, 01:34:30 PM

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round, means believers in a Flat Earth are even historically ignorant.

We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round. It is interesting that the attempts above to say otherwise seem to rest primarily on claiming that there's a conspiracy among the historians or something like that.

This superset of people is only the majority because they all read, study and the believe the same verbiage.  You are making an assumption that they are correct.

And you are making the assumption that they are not.  Stalemate.

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We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round.

... Wait, hold on. Is it not true that many who opposed Marco Polo's voyage did so on the basis that he would fall off the edge of the world?

... Because, y'know, it is...

No one opposed Marco Polo when he left. In fact, he went to China at age 6 with his father and uncle. Later he went back. But when he came back to Europe, many thought he made up his adventures.

If you are thinking of Christopher Columbus, he was also not opposed based on 'flatness'. This is a myth that came about quite recently:

No one before the 1830s believed that medieval people thought that the earth was flat.

The idea was established, almost contemporaneously, by a Frenchman and an American, between whom I have not been able to establish a connection, though they were both in Paris at the same time. One was Antoine-Jean Letronne (1787-1848), an academic of strong antireligious prejudices who had studied both geography and patristics and who cleverly drew upon both to misrepresent the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat earth, in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers (1834). The American was no other than our beloved storyteller Washington Irving (1783-1859), who loved to write historical fiction under the guise of history. His misrepresentations of the history of early New York City and of the life of Washington were topped by his history of Christopher Columbus (1828). It was he who invented the indelible picture of the young Columbus, a "simple mariner," appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, all of whom believed, according to Irving, that the earth was flat like a plate. Well, yes, there was a meeting at Salamanca in 1491, but Irving's version of it, to quote a distinguished modern historian of Columbus, was "pure moonshine. Washington Irving, scenting his opportunity for a picturesque and moving scene," created a fictitious account of this "nonexistent university council" and "let his imagination go completely...the whole story is misleading and mischievous nonsense."

Quote

We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round.

... Wait, hold on. Is it not true that many who opposed Marco Polo's voyage did so on the basis that he would fall off the edge of the world?

Are you trying to troll? No one opposed Marco Polo because they were worried about falling off the edge of the world. Marco Polo for the sea parts of his voyages never went far from land. This sounds like some sort of very misguided and confused notion connected to myth s about Columbus.

Quote from: JoshuaZ on April 26, 2011, 01:59:29 PM

Quote from: Omega on April 26, 2011, 01:34:30 PM

The fact that most people during most ages knew the Earth was round, means believers in a Flat Earth are even historically ignorant.

We don't have any surveys to determine what the general population believed. But it does seem clear that for the last 2000 years the vast majority of the educated population knew that the Earth was round. It is interesting that the attempts above to say otherwise seem to rest primarily on claiming that there's a conspiracy among the historians or something like that.

This superset of people is only the majority because they all read, study and the believe the same verbiage.  You are making an assumption that they are correct.

If you prefer, replace "knew" with "believed" which is relevant to the above claims that people in the Middle Ages thought that the Earth was flat. The discussion above was about their beliefs not the correctness of their beliefs.

Shrug. As you pointed out, light diffuses over distance.

Please be careful with your terms. Diffusion is not the same as dispersion.

Diffusion is what happens to light passing through fog. Dispersion is has to do with the fact that light covers more area as it moves away from the source, therefore becoming less brilliant.

If you are going to understand any scientific explanation at all, you have to be precise with the terms you use.

in answer to OP; the sun shines because it is a million mile wide ball of highly compressed hydrogen that's currently fussing atoms together in a rather spectacular nuclear reaction, the moon simply reflects the light from the sun when it's on the other side of the earth, but still has line of sight to the moon. any other reply is retarded in the extreme

in answer to OP; the sun shines because it is a million mile wide ball of highly compressed hydrogen that's currently fussing atoms together in a rather spectacular nuclear reaction, the moon simply reflects the light from the sun when it's on the other side of the earth, but still has line of sight to the moon. any other reply is retarded in the extreme

Do yourself a favor and stop posting before you say something stupid.

And other answers aren't "retarded in the extreme", they're just wrong.  That's all.

do yourself a favour and jut ignore my posts if you don't like them, jut bury your head in the sand and ignore the facts. anyone who suggests the sun is not a star, which is reacting hydrogen, is retarded, not wrong, but deliberately going against logic and proven science

do yourself a favour and jut ignore my posts if you don't like them, jut bury your head in the sand and ignore the facts. anyone who suggests the sun is not a star, which is reacting hydrogen, is retarded, not wrong, but deliberately going against logic and proven science

Lurk moar, you little failure.  I'm a RE'er.

Um, what is powering these solar and lunar creatures (whatever they are)?  On earth, nearly all of our energy comes from the sun in some form, be it fossil fuels or food, its all driven by sunlight.  What is allowing such large quantities of energy to be produced for such long periods of time? 

Um, what is powering these solar and lunar creatures (whatever they are)?  On earth, nearly all of our energy comes from the sun in some form, be it fossil fuels or food, its all driven by sunlight.  What is allowing such large quantities of energy to be produced for such long periods of time? 

Great question, considering that life on Earth depends on the Sun for energy.  There must be an explanation... :X

Quote from: karl on May 04, 2011, 10:45:43 AM

do yourself a favour and jut ignore my posts if you don't like them, jut bury your head in the sand and ignore the facts. anyone who suggests the sun is not a star, which is reacting hydrogen, is retarded, not wrong, but deliberately going against logic and proven science

Lurk moar, you little failure.  I'm a RE'er.

I know you are, I wasn't questioning your theory allegiance, merely pointing out that you can ignore my posts if you don't like them, so don't be such a girl, grow some balls and man up, only losers name call on the internet

I know you are, I wasn't questioning your theory allegiance, merely pointing out that you can ignore my posts if you don't like them, so don't be such a girl, grow some balls and man up, only losers name call on the internet

Irony.

please don't make low content posts, and learn the definition of irony, and also look up some basic grammar, just so you knwo the difference between someone being called something, and when a similie is being used to exemplify idiocy kthnxbie

Um, what is powering these solar and lunar creatures (whatever they are)? 

Well, one of them is a chargrilled shrimp (5800K will do that to a mythical creature) and the other one is cyanotic and frozen solid (complete lack of gaseous atmosphere and temperatures wildly swinging from 123C to -233C will also do that to a mythical creature).

Or, of course, it could all be bollocks? What do you think?

Quote from: karl_2 on May 04, 2011, 02:12:13 PM

I know you are, I wasn't questioning your theory allegiance, merely pointing out that you can ignore my posts if you don't like them, so don't be such a girl, grow some balls and man up, only losers name call on the internet

Irony.

I don't think he is calling the guy a name to be fair, the loser part is only applicable if the other person insists on name calling on the internet, it's a self fulfilling prophecy, so it isn't irony I'm afraid!!!!!!!!