2 Questions

Having just read through the newbie FAQ, I am still curious about 2 issues in particular that I don't believe have been answered in the FAQ. (Apologies if they have, I' have only just stumbled across this website tonight and am interested to hear your views)

1. How to FE believers explain the predictions made about movements of heavenly bodies without a heliocentric model of the solar system, (ie. how would parallax measurements work when presumably the earth does not move on a seasonal basis relative to the sun)

2. How can different constallations be viewed in what would be the Southern hemisphere in the RE model

Thanks

Well, it would be wise to do a search on this because I've read threads regarding both questions. But basically the explanations usually revert to the theory that there are many "celestial gears" upon which the heavenly bodies move about which creates the different constellations apparent to the two hemispheres. Remember in the FAQ where it said that all of the stars are only about a hundred miles farther out than the sun and moon. I dont think RE'rs can put a very strong or valid argument upon anything beyond our solar system since they keep finding things that they can't explain.

I'm not quite sure how the theory of "Celestial Gears" would solve the problem of the same constellations being observed from different locations within the "Southern hemisphere", but not being observed in the North. Using the map given in the FAQ as a reference, surely there must either be duplicate star patterns around the Earth to allow people in South America and Austrailia to observe the same constellations, or there must be something preventing the "North" from observing the "Southern" constellations and vice versa. (from a plain line-of-sight argument if there were no replicated constellations, the same stars should be visible everywhere) Furthermore, I am unsure as to how a "Celestial Gear" model would explain observed proper motion of stars, and the differences between proper motions of different stars. from my limited understanding of the theory, this surely would imply an infinite sequence of gears for each individual star. At the very least, I cannot see any alternative to cogs within cogs in explaining binary stars; their movement relative to each other coupled with their movement relative to other stars and the Earth.

Also, what do you guys think about obseved doppler red shift from galaxies and stars. What causes it?

I'm not quite sure how the theory of "Celestial Gears" would solve the problem of the same constellations being observed from different locations within the "Southern hemisphere", but not being observed in the North. Using the map given in the FAQ as a reference, surely there must either be duplicate star patterns around the Earth to allow people in South America and Austrailia to observe the same constellations, or there must be something preventing the "North" from observing the "Southern" constellations and vice versa. (from a plain line-of-sight argument if there were no replicated constellations, the same stars should be visible everywhere) Furthermore, I am unsure as to how a "Celestial Gear" model would explain observed proper motion of stars, and the differences between proper motions of different stars. from my limited understanding of the theory, this surely would imply an infinite sequence of gears for each individual star. At the very least, I cannot see any alternative to cogs within cogs in explaining binary stars; their movement relative to each other coupled with their movement relative to other stars and the Earth.

Haha take it easy man, I'm no astronomer. I was just pointing some things out and trying to get you to find the threads related to this so you can argue about it there.

Ha ha, okay, sorry. I did a search for "proper movement" which returned nothing relevent, but I did find a few threads on the constellations point. Unfortunatley, as of the time of writting, I don't think a conclusive answer has been given to the posed question. (The best I can find is "They're too far away") I don't think there's much regarding the red shift observed from distant galaxies either, although there's a lot of other stuff to do with the doppler effect applied to slightly different problems. There is one thread about this actually, but I don't think the question is really addressed in its entireity before it just becomes a shouting match. Bit of a shame really.

Yea well, the stars in general are still somewhat of a mystery to modern day astronomers, so its basically which theory you find more plausible. Or just which one you choose to believe.....

Yea well, the stars in general are still somewhat of a mystery to modern day astronomers, so its basically which theory you find more plausible. Or just which one you choose to believe.....

Except they aren't. Stars are very well understood objects. Stars observed radiation matches our theories pretty closely. Spectrum analysis shows that stars are  made up of primarily hydrogen with smaller amounts of other substances. Stars heat and light comes from the process of fusion taking place in a star's core. These ideas are well-understood. Moreover, many predictions based on our theories about stars and how they form have been then  verified. For example, the presence of planets around other stars was predicted and has been observed by small amounts of wobble in stars. Similarly, the existence of brown dwarfs was predicted and then observed. We understand stars quite well.

Quote from: WailingFungus on February 23, 2009, 08:10:10 PM

Yea well, the stars in general are still somewhat of a mystery to modern day astronomers, so its basically which theory you find more plausible. Or just which one you choose to believe.....

Except they aren't. Stars are very well understood objects. Stars observed radiation matches our theories pretty closely. Spectrum analysis shows that stars are  made up of primarily hydrogen with smaller amounts of other substances. Stars heat and light comes from the process of fusion taking place in a star's core. These ideas are well-understood. Moreover, many predictions based on our theories about stars and how they form have been then  verified. For example, the presence of planets around other stars was predicted and has been observed by small amounts of wobble in stars. Similarly, the existence of brown dwarfs was predicted and then observed. We understand stars quite well.

Please note the "stars in general" and the "somewhat of a mystery" in my quote. Of course we know what stars are, I was being somewhat vague and should have said "astronomy in general". If you read an astronomy book, there are still plenty of mysteries left unsolved. Its not fully understood is what I was trying to get at. Please refrain from getting your panties in a wad.

Please note the "stars in general" and the "somewhat of a mystery" in my quote. Of course we know what stars are, I was being somewhat vague and should have said "astronomy in general". If you read an astronomy book, there are still plenty of mysteries left unsolved. Its not fully understood is what I was trying to get at. Please refrain from getting your panties in a wad.

That's a very different claim and it doesn't support the statement you made initially that this somehow justifies arbitrarily deciding which to believe. We have a series of well-understood phenomena that raise some interesting questions but by and large have served us very well or we have as the alternative a hypothesis so ill-formed it isn't even clear it is falsifiable as normally phrased with no idea what stars are, how far exactly they are away, or how they shine, or how they came to be. They aren't comparative.

I've been searching this site on and off for a while now, and I still can't seem to find any satisfactory answers for my original two questions, in particular the one regarding the different constellations visible from different points on the Earth's surface. I also can't believe that no one's really explored the phenomenon of magnetic pole reversal on the Earth, and how it would occur with a liquid core that presumably experiences no turbulence due to a FE's lack of an angular velocity. Unless of course, the flat Earth does spin. As a consequence of a rotating flat Earth, if I throw a ball in the air, it will not land where I would expect it to land but would appear to vear off to one side. (Because I am not longer applying a centipedal force to the ball, it travels straight, I still have some angular velocity from the Earth's rotation)