Problems with Heliocentrism

[JohnMartin]

Problem 4 - Another problem for the heliocentric model regarding the foucault pendulum (FP) - Apparently the FP moves during the day and the heliocentrists say the pendulum motion occurs because of the daily motion of the earth rotating on its axis. The claim infers the earth rotates around the earths center of mass as the local barycentre of the earths daily rotation. Yet the heliocentric model using Newtonian mechanics also says the earth orbits the solar system barycentre every year and the earth-moon barycentre every month. If the FP accounts for the earths daily rotation, how then does the FP account for the earths yearly and monthly orbits around the solar system and earth-moon barycentres respectively?

Gravity is restricted by the inverse square law. That is to say, the gravitational force acting upon two bodies grows exponentially smaller the farther apart those bodies are from one another; however, the force of gravity grows proportionally to the masses of the two bodies. As you'll remember from High School math, a proportional change is very quickly overshadowed by an exponential change.

A Foucault pendulum at the North Pole of the Earth lies only a little over 6,371 km from the Earth's center of mass, but it lies 147,300,000 km from the Sun's center of mass. So, even though the Sun has approximately 332,900 times the mass of the Earth, it's far greater distance results in a gravitational force which is negligible upon our Foucault pendulum. Similarly, the baricenter of the Milky Way Galaxy much, much farther away, causing its direct gravitational influence upon the Foucault pendulum to be unnoticeable by any means which we currently possess.

Your answer sounds all very convincing, but Brown University takes a different spin -

So how does it work? The elegant answer is that the pendulum swings in a fixed plane and the Earth rotates beneath it, but this explanation is misleading. At the north or south pole, the pendulum is moving in a fixed plane (if we disregard the fact that the Earth is also revolving through space)

Apparently for the FP to work we must imagine the FP is in a fixed plane. This means we must exclude all the other earth motions from the FP and assume the earth is fixed in space, with only a daily rotation.

In order for a pendulum experiment to be accurate, precautions must be made to assure that the pendulum is not acted upon by any outside forces other than gravity. For example, to start the pendulum moving, it is usually held at an angle by a string, which the experimenter then burns to release the pendulum. Letting the pendulum go from one's hands, or even cutting the string, could give the pendulum undesired momentum in a particular direction. A heavy pendulum on a long, rigid wire can continue oscillating for long periods of time, but eventually air resistance will cause the motion to lessen and stop. Museums will often use an electromagnetic drive to keep their pendula moving, because such a setup provides additional energy to the pendulum without affecting its direction of motion. http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Ita.../pendulum.html

It is worthwhile correcting a common misunderstanding about Foucault's Pendulum. It is sometimes said (perhaps poetically) that the pendulum swings in a plane fixed with respect to the distant stars while the Earth rotates beneath it. This is true at the poles. (It is also true for a pendulum swinging East-West at the equator.) At all other latitudes, however, it is not true. At all other latitudes, the plane of the pendulum's motion rotates with respect to an inertial frame.

It is easy to deal with this misunderstanding. Consider a pendulum at the equator, swinging in a North South plane. It's obvious from symmetry that the plane of this pendulum doesn't rotate with respect to the earth and that, relative to an inertial frame, it rotates once every 24 hours.

Apparently the FP moves in a fixed plane at the poles, but nowhere else on earth, because the earth rotates (except for the E-W at the equator). Yet the inertial frame for the earth at the poles must ignore the motion of the earth around the sun, moon and galaxy

. . . the pendulum swings in a plane fixed with respect to the distant stars while the Earth rotates beneath it. This is true at the poles.

Yet the moving galaxy is full of stars, which means the earth and the poles are not fixed relative to the moving galaxy stars for the FP to work at the poles.

Evidently the Helio model requires some very eclectic thinking for the FP to be evidence for the moving earth. Apparently the fixed plane is fixed relative to some stars and not others. Apparently for the FP to work as desired by the Helios,

1. the moving stars within the galaxy become fixed, yet the Helio model requires that they always move,

2. the plane of inertia at the poles is also fixed, thereby ignoring the motion of the earth around the sun, moon and galaxy.

Even so, for the FP to be evidence of the Helio model, the FP assumes all other bodies are either fixed, or irrelevant and all other forces other than gravity (except the engine) do not act on the FP.

Wow!! Now that is some eclectic proof for something the Helios already know is true - the moving earth, that according to the FP only spins once per day.

The FP is standard Helio gibberish, which makes physics into a laughing stock.

JM

[JohnMartin]

It's a computer-simulated image based on a myriad of photographs of the Milky Way.

Yes, it's self-evident that that view is not possible in one shot, else Earth would have to be thousands of LY beyond the wisps of the spirals.

It's very interesting and purtty though!

Its not evidence for the MW as a spiral galaxy, simply because we cannot have any photo from outside the galaxy. The MW pictures are merely the product of vivid imaginations.

JM

[shunyadragon]

Its not evidence for the MW as a spiral galaxy, simply because we cannot have any photo from outside the galaxy. The MW pictures are merely the product of vivid imaginations.

JM

Not correct! The MW pictures were developed by actual measurements of different parts of the Milky Way and known distances.

[JohnMartin]

Another thought on the FP -

For the FP to work as the Helios "desire", the following must occur -

1. Newtonian mechanics assumes instantaneous action at a distance without a medium for gravitational mass attraction to work. Newtonian mechanics requires a breach in causation for Newtonian gravitational theory to be applied. Newtonian mechanics is based upon an unsound premise.

2. The FP must ignore all forces in the universe other than gravity. Evidently the FP must act independent of physical theory.

3. The FP must ignore all motions in the universe relative to the earth, except one - the rotation of the earth around its own axis.

4. The FP must ignore all barycentres except the earth's rotational barycentre.

5. The FP must ignore all forces other than gravity, but apply an engine, and then ignore the momentum caused by the engine.

6. The FP must include the momentum in the inertial reference from of the earths rotation, but must ignore the Earth's momentum caused by the motion of the earth around the sun, moon and galaxy.

7. The FP must act in accord with the Helio's Newtonian mindset, apart from any other explanation that includes other motions, forces, etc.

8. The FP must assume the earth is rotating (and only rotating around the earth barycentre), then proceed to produce Newtonian calculations that demonstrate the FP acts as though the earth rotates daily, (and also around the sun, moon and galaxy within the same Helio model). The FP requires the use of Newtonian theory along with circular reasoning and eclectic thinking. The FP model is logically fallacious.

Apparently the stationary earth is inconceivable to modern science, yet any number of other problems are routinely ignored within the standard Helio model.

JM

[JohnMartin]

Not correct! The MW pictures were developed by actual measurements of different parts of the Milky Way and known distances.

How are these measurements done when the MW is apparently 100 light years across?

JM

[Leonhard]

I've considered writing a reply to you about why the Moon can orbit the Earth, and those two together can or it the Sun. However I need to know the following.

The answer will be using Newtonian Mechanics.

The answer will require Calculus.

Are any of these two things a problem for you? We can draw ascii diagrams all day, and I have to be honest I can't read yours, but I'd rather post the real answer.

[shunyadragon]

How are these measurements done when the MW is apparently 100 light years across?

JM

If you look in any astronomy textbook, you'll find somewhere a diagram of the Milky Way Galaxy with dimensions: the disk of our galaxy is about the disk is about 40,000 parsecs = 40 kilo-parsecs = 40 kpc across, and the Sun is about 8,000 parcsec = 8 kpc from the center. How do we know these dimensions?

Source: http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys301/lectures/mw_size/mw_size.html

Is it possible to use parallax to measure the distance to the center of the Milky Way? The best parallax measurements from the Hipparcos satellite have a precision of about 0.003 arcseconds, which means that astronomers can measure distances reliably to about 100 pc .

© Copyright Original Source

The rest of the article gives more details on how individual measurements ae made.

[Leonhard]

Also you're wrong about the Foucult Pendulum, you can work in the effect of the Sun on thr precession if you want. It would cause an additional minute, and hardly measurable precession. And since the added effect is negligible, its simple not taken into account.

[Leonhard]

5. The FP must ignore all forces other than gravity, but apply an engine, and then ignore the momentum caused by the engine.

I assume you're talking about demonstrations of the pendulum set up in various places, that uses a solenoid in the floor to keep it swinging.

Can you demonstrate that those who build these things fail to take the effect of the solenoid into account?

Or rather what makes you think that they don't. All Foucult Pendulum precesses at the rate expected. At my latitude its one full revolution every 40 hours.

If the precession was just due to pure misconstruction why don't we see random degrees of precession between them?

[Leonhard]

2. The FP must ignore all forces in the universe other than gravity. Evidently the FP must act independent of physical theory.

3. The FP must ignore all motions in the universe relative to the earth, except one - the rotation of the earth around its own axis.

4. The FP must ignore all barycentres except the earth's rotational barycentre.

5. The FP must ignore all forces other than gravity, but apply an engine, and then ignore the momentum caused by the engine.

You're wrong here on all points. Its not a matter of the FP requiring we ignore all these forces. Its just that they are completely negligible. We can safely ignore them. If we included them we wouldn't get any significantly different result, their effects would be so miniscule.

[Leonhard]

8. The FP must assume the earth is rotating (and only rotating around the earth barycentre)

The Earth definitely doesn't rotate around its barycenter. No FP calculations I've ever seen has used such presumption.

The barycenter is the center of mass. Between the Earth and the Moon, not the center of the Earths axis of rotation.

[JohnMartin]

I've considered writing a reply to you about why the Moon can orbit the Earth, and those two together can or it the Sun. However I need to know the following.

The answer will be using Newtonian Mechanics.

The answer will require Calculus.

Are any of these two things a problem for you? We can draw ascii diagrams all day, and I have to be honest I can't read yours, but I'd rather post the real answer.

I'd prefer if you could begin your answer with an explanation countering by butterfly example given previously. I consider the concepts behind the calculations to be at least as important as the numbers. I have studied calculus some time ago at university, but I am currently a little rusty on the subject. I am familiar with Newtonian mechanics.

JM

[JohnMartin]

The Earth definitely doesn't rotate around its barycenter. No FP calculations I've ever seen has used such presumption.

If the earth is an isolated system as the FP assumes, then the earth's CoM becomes the barycentre.

JM

[Leonhard]

I'd prefer if you could begin your answer with an explanation countering by butterfly example given previously. I consider the concepts behind the calculations to be at least as important as the numbers. I have studied calculus some time ago at university, but I am currently a little rusty on the subject. I am familiar with Newtonian mechanics.

If you ask us a question about why the Moon keeps in an orbit around the Earth, even though the Earth and Moon together or it the Sun. The I assume you want the answer science has.

If in reality you believe there is something fundementally flawed with the results of Newtonian Mechanics, then we should discuss that instead.

I'm glad you don't reject Calculus, otherwise this would all become impossible, we're dealing with onjects undergoing continous and gradual changes in positions, velocities and accelerations. To deal adequately with that, we have to use Calculus. Otherwise we might as well give up that discussion.

[JohnMartin]

Also you're wrong about the Foucult Pendulum, you can work in the effect of the Sun on thr precession if you want. It would cause an additional minute, and hardly measurable precession. And since the added effect is negligible, its simple not taken into account.

If the FP is observed over a month the FP would process with the earth's motion around the E-M system. Similarly the earth's procession would be observed annually around the sun. Likewise the earths precession would be observed around the galaxy with a long enough observation of the FP. In ignoring the earth's motion around the moon and the sun, the standard FP explanation by the Helios is fallacious.

JM