Nice try, but I'm not taking the bait. You are trying to divert attention from your inability to comprehend simple spatial relationships as exemplified by your zigzag theory. ( And the sun is 93 million miles away )
DISTANCES BETWEEN CELESTIAL "BODIES" :0f all the various methods of estimating the distance of the sun, that by means of the measurement to Mars is by far the most important, while the second in order of merit is the one we have just dealt with ; the computation by the transit of Venus, which, it will be remembered, was first used by
Encke in 1824. But there are, no doubt, many adherents of astronomy who will still hope to save the time-honoured dogma which hangs upon the question of the distance to the sun ; too egotistical to admit that they could have been mistaken, or too old-fashioned to accept new truths ; and so— while they cannot any longer defend the Mars and Venus illusions— they will say that they know the sun is 93,000,000 miles away because it has been estimated and verified by quite a number of other methods, with always the same result, or thereabouts.
In these circumstances it becomes necessary for us to touch upon these also. The brief examination we shall give to them will be illuminating, and Astronomers will probably be surprised in one way while the layman will be surprised in another. . . . There are some things which every man or woman of ordinary intelligence knows are nonsensical; but when such things have been permitted to pose for generations as scientific knowledge it is not sufficient merely to say that they are absurd ; they must— for the moment-
be treated as seriously as though they really were the scientific concepts they are supposed to be, and it must be shown just how, and why, and where, they are absurd. Then, when that is done, they can masquerade no more, and will no longer obstruct the road to knowledge. Any one of these means of estimating the sun's distance might be made the subject of a lengthy argument, for they are like "half-truths” which, as we all know, are harder to deal with than down-right falsehood.
Every one of these things which are believed to be methods of computing the distance to the sun, or means of verifying the 93,000,000 mile estimate, presumes the distance of the sun to be already known ; and in every case the method is the result of deductions from the figure “93,000,000 miles.” The verification of the sun’s distance by the measurements to the minor planets Victoria, Iris and Sappho, in 1888 and 1889, was done in the same manner as the measurement to Mars, and fails in precisely the same way, by the fallacy of
Dr. Hailey’s Diurnal Method of Measurement by Parallax.
There is the calculation of the sun’s distance by the “Nodes of the Moon,” which it is not necessary for me to dilate upon, because it has already been discredited, and is not considered of any value by the authorities on astronomy themselves. The computation of the distance to the sun by the ”Aberration of Light ” is based upon the theory that the earth travels along its orbit at the velocity of 18.64 miles per second. This velocity of the earth is the speed at which it is supposed to be travelling along an orbit round the sun,
18.64 miles a second,
66,000 miles an hour,
1,584,000 miles a day, or five hundred and seventy eight million miles in a year (
578 000 000 miles/year).
The last of these figures is the circumference of the orbit, half of whose diameter— the radius— is of course the distance of the sun itself, and it is from this (pardon the necessary repetition) distance of the sun, first calculated by
Encke in 1824, and later by
Gill in 1877, that the whole of the figures—including the alleged “velocity of the earth 18.64 miles a second”— were deduced.
The 18.64 miles is wrong, because the 93,000,000 is wrong, because neither Encke nor Gill obtained any measurement of the sun’s distance whatever; and the whole affair is nothing more than a playful piece of arithmetic, where the distance of the sun is first presumed to be known; from that the Velocity of the earth per second is worked out by simple division, and then the result is worked up again by multiplication to the original figure, “93,000,000,” and the astronomer then says that is the distance to the sun.That is why it is absurd.That is why all heliocentrists can kiss my ass, also! @AusGeoff, be free to quote this sentence as many times as you wish!
Finally the sun’s distance as 93,000,000 miles is said to be justified by the “Velocity of Light.” The Velocity of Light was measured by an arrangement of wheels and revolving mirrors in the year 1882 at the Washington Monument, U.S.A., and calculated to be 186,414 miles a second. N.B.— Experiments had been made on several previous occasions, with somewhat similar results, but Professor Newcomb’s result obtained in 1882, is the accepted figure.
Taking up this figure, astronomers recalled that in the 17th century Ole Roemer had conceived the hypothesis that light took nearly 8 1/2 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth, and so they multiplied his 8 1/2 minutes by Newcomb’s 186,414, and said, in effect — “there you are again— the distance of the sun is 93,000,000 miles.” It is so simple ; but we are not so simple as to believe it, for we have shown in diagram 4 how
Ole Roemer deduced that 8 1/2 - minute hypothesis from a mistaken idea of the cause of the difference in the times of the Eclipses of Jupiter’s Satellites ; and we know that there is no evidence in the world to show that light takes 8 1/2 minutes to come from the sun to the earth,
so the altogether erroneous and misconceived hypothesis of Ole Roemer can not be admitted as any kind of evidence and used in conjunction with the calculation of the Velocity of Light as an argument in favour of the ridiculous idea that the sun is ninety-three — or any other number of millions of miles from this world of ours.All the extraordinary means used by astronomers have failed to discover the real distance of the sun, and the many attempts that have been made have achieved no more result than if they had never bee done ; that is to say— that it is not to be suppose that they may perhaps be somewhere near the mark but it is to be understood, in the most literal sense the word, that the astronomers of to-day have no more knowledge of the sun’s real distance than Adam.Original post :
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