Most heliocentrists see the atmosphere as having both rigid and gaseous properties simultaneously, so that the air can both be "stuck to" and "not stuck to" the earth at the same time. Or, in other words, be able to turn with and not turn with the earth at the same time. But how can the air have both abilities at once? How could it be both a solid and a gas simultaneously? For the air to turn with the earth implies rigidity, and nothing...NOTHING...could displace it as it has to keep up with the feverishly turning ground below. And we humans would all kind of suffocate because we couldn't displace the air to breath, nor even move.

On the other hand, for the air to act like a gas means that it cannot possibly "stick" to the turning earth, and since we don't have the concomittant devastating winds, the air must either be a solid or the earth must not be turning. I leave it to everyone's judgement: do we see the air acting like a solid, or like a gas blowing the leaves on trees and roaming freely over the ground? And, can we breathe the stuff?

To me, this is so critical that the only thing the opposition can say is that "yes, it can be both stuck to and not stuck to the earth at the same time". But I have news for these guys. Air cannot have a dual nature. It cannot be both solid and gas simultaneously. Nor, can anything else do this. "What do you know that can be at once and in the same place in any two of the three basic states of matter, ie., solid, liquid, or gas?" I ask them. Nothing, that's what. And they have to shut up. Then because I'm so onery I always pour a Bible verse into their fresh would just to rise their irritation a bit more, and to make the point for everyone else. In this case I point to Ecclesiastes 1:6 where it says the wind goes south/north so, Biblically speaking, it cannot possibly be rotating west to east only.

It boils down to this: wind currents contradict a rigid turning atmosphere. Air cannot have dual nature. If you believe that it can and does, show me anything on this globe that can exist simultaneously as a solid and a gas. Otherwise, your position is simply untenable.

The only way I can see the atomosphere having a "shape" that turns as a body with the earth is if the earth is surrounded by an enormous container of some kind. Otherwise, the atmosphere is a gas and has no rigidity. I wonder if all the heliocentrists want to tell us: "There's this big glass jar around the earth making it all happen the way we say!"? I'm giving them that option. Can't say I didn't give 'em an option...

The air doesn't have to be rigid in order to rotate with the ground. The air molecules have angular momentum just like everything else.

It would be an issue if the Earth rotated in a ("stationary") medium that would apply friction to the atmosphere, dragging it behind. However, there is no friction with space, thus no "dragging" force. This is simple Newtonian physics.

Gary,

Welcome to the board. (You may recognise me from Neville Jones' forum.)

There is no reason why an atmosphere should not share the same angular momentum as a rotating planet. True, an atmosphere is a gas. It is not fixed to the Earth. But it is closely bound to the Earth - in terms of relative thickness, it's like a piece of tissue paper, or a very thin film of liquid, wrapped round an apple. If I spin the apple, the film will spin round with it.

Only if a planet were perfectly smooth, uniform and frictionless, would you expect an atmosphere not to associate itself with a planet in this way. As it is, the atmosphere bangs into mountains, sinks over oceans, and in general has a lot of interaction with the ground.

The angular momentum of the Earth is colossal. It would dominate any resistive force the atmosphere could try to put on it.

But - where would any resistive force come from? The atmosphere extends into vacuum at the top, no resistance going on there. And it won't come from the ground, the ground is moving - and at the equator, it's moving at 1,000 mph.

Why on Earth should the atmosphere 'stop' - or, from our point of view, spontaneously generate 1000 mph winds at the equator?

To turn with the Earth does not require 'rigidity'. That assertion is simply incorrect.

Rob.

edit: fix typos.

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"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

Not true. I'm not aware of any physicists that consider the atmosphere to be a solid phase of matter (at most temperatures). Re "stuck to" in order to rotate along with, please see below re conservation of momentum.

Improper use of logic, known as petitio principii.

Conservation of momentum and gravity. Gas is matter. Matter has mass. Mass moves in a straight line unless acted upon. Gravity acts upon the matter to change the straight line to a curve. Where the mass is sufficient, the curve is synchronous to the the Earth's rotation or less. When less, factors such as density and bouyancy take effect.

Per your statements, fans and propellers should not work. Re the observations on suffocation, there's no discernible logic there.

False dichotomy. See above. Plus see this link about the jet streams.

Please investigate fluid dynamics and Newtonian physics.

Ever hear of a triple point?

See above.

Who are "they"? They can't be physicists.

Bible quotes won't help your case on an astronomy board.

Check out this link re the effect of the Earth's atmosphere on its rotation. Perhaps aerodynamics might be a good field to get familiar with. That's where things like drag are studied.

It is, only the container is called "gravity".

You seem to be thinking that only rigid objects rotate. For obvious examples other than Earth, check out the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

There's no big glass jar. Instead there's a property of matter called gravity that affects the trajectories of all other matter in its field. As mentioned above, please investigate fluid dynamics and Newtonian physics.

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To Robert Andersson and Yorkshireman,

While I was working on my response to the OP, you posted your responses. Therefore, please understand that any duplication of your content in my post is an artifact of timing (in the latter case, two minutes).

Thanks.

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Actually there is the not-so-insignificant effect of fluid dynamics. In it's simplest terms, fluids (which includes the gasses in our atmosphere) move from areas of higher pressure to areas of lower pressure. As pointed out in the website attached to this board, the amount of heat received from the sun is most affected by the earth's inclination, or angle of tilt relative to the sun. Since the equatorial region of the earth receives more direct sunlight than its polar regions, the atmosphere near the equator becomes warmer in temperature and lower in pressure while the atmosphere near the poles becomes colder in temperature and higher in pressure. You may recall that cold air is more dense than warm, which causes the warm air to rise and be displaced by the cold. This pressure gradient is what fuels Earth's weather systems and renders the direct effect of the earth's rotation unnoticeable. (There is a noticeable indirect effect mentioned below.)


And anyone that dives into a swimming pool would be slammed into one of its walls as the earth rotated it to the point which you are occupying. At least frozen cavemen would safe from this phenomenon.

[quote="Gary Shelton"]On the other hand, for the air to act like a gas means that it cannot possibly "stick" to the turning earth...[\quote]

It doesn't stick in terms of the atmospheric molecules being affixed to a point on the earth's surface, but it is loosely contained by Earth's gravity well.

The indirect effect mentioned above that really blows your argument out of the water is the jet stream, which is a result of the angular momentum of local regions of the atmosphere imparted by the Earth's rotation combined with the pressure gradient due to uneven heating of the Earth's atmosphere. Place those at ground level, and you will create some unhappiness in the surface-dwellers.

It's a fluid.

Let me see. ... Breathing? Check.

Yes, it can be both stuck to and not stuck to the earth at the same time. It's just not perfectly rigid. But then again, nothing is perfectly rigid.

It is fluid.

It is fluid.

Which is a tactic frowned upon by this board's admin.

It's a fluid.

The Earth's gravity contains the atmosphere.

It's a fluid.

It's a fluid loosely contained by Earth's gravity.

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In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

I'll admit not being 100% sure, but our atmosphere is chemically a gas and not a fluid. However, when physically modelling air, it can/should be considered a fluid. Right?

Fluid !== Liquid. Fluid = !Solid.

Both liquids and gases are fluids, in that their movements are determined by the wonderful laws of fluid dynamics. An area I shall refrain on going too far into, as my brain still hurts at the memory of my degree course.

Fundamentally, however, all of Gary Shelton's arguments also apply to every other planet in the solar system with an atmosphere. So unless he's a closet Jovicentrist this isn't going anywhere.

Right (in the sense that fluids are commonly thought of as liquids).



[edit/clarification]

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Another easy answer, by the way -

Has anyone else juggled on a plane in flight? I have, and the balls didn't hit me in the face at over 300 mph either. The surrounding air was moving at the same speed I was.

Hmmm... Is the point that the OP thinks that the rotation of the earth could not transfer to its atmosphere? Even the stirring of air around someone that is moving shows a fluid-dynamic nature, I would think. Anyway, the atmosphere never needed to be "sped up" by the surface, the cloud of gas that the earth formed from was already rotating, so it is simple conservation of energy. There is nothing for the atmosphere to rub against on the outside, so you don't get much loss of energy that way.

Why the talk about heliocentics anyway, the scientists seems to handle the universe in a noncentric way, and use what ever reference frame is best for what they want to do. If you want to travel close to the earth, using an earth based reference is easiest, if you are computing the orbits of the planets, the sun is probably the easiest, and for stars in a galaxy, it seems likely that one would use the galaxy center...

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Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

Yup. The term fluid is less restrictive than the terms gas and liquid. In a fluid, molecules or atoms freely move in relation to one another - which is true for both gasses and liquids.

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In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

Within the solar system reference frame, heliocentrist here. The problem is there are a few folks who, within the solar system reference frame, are still geocentrists.

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Hmm, yeah, my fault. I somehow thought of "fluid" as the chemical term for the liquid state. I blame it on english not being my primary language ops: .

Don't they teach BASIC physics in school anymore?

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The meek will inherit the earth ... the rest of us will go to the stars.

Specifically, look into the concept of "viscosity."

NEXT!

I would say:
"Don't people look around?"

Drag in atmosphere is something everybody can experience (not just read about).

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Gary lives in a different world, for as we all know, the bible does not contain automatic transmissions, blenders, turbochargers, jet engines or anything else that I can think of that operate on the principle of fluid mechanics, except of course, Noah's ark, which using Gary's laws, would not have to moved from it's place of origin. (No problem for Gary, either, when you have the faith to move a mountain, who needs fluid mechanics?)

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Whoa there! Slow down! "Blowing the leaves"? Doesn't that mean that air has to be solid so that it can stick to the leaves in order to tug at them? You said gases can't do that.

My favourite application of drag is to stick my hand out the car window. Man, is that ever fun!

I'm amused by simple things.

I bet capillary action would really blow Gary's mind right about now...

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"I'm making wheatloaf. It's like meatloaf, only with wheat"
"Isn't that just...bread?"

Today the wind was blowing from the West, this PROVES that the bible is wrong. No arguments, no problems, I felt the wind from the west with my own hand.... that's what I call evidence!

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The meek will inherit the earth ... the rest of us will go to the stars.

OK calm it guys, he's a newbie. Give him chance to respond?
Rob.

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"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

Somehow, I doubt that he is a "newbie". But still, we must give him a chance, and not throw around blind accusations...

Well, they do--but in the U.S. public school system, it's usually just a one-year elective course, at the high school level. And thus usually only college-bound seniors take it. Which is kind of like preaching to the converted...

IT'S A SING-A-LONG!

The inner core's connected to the..
mantel.
The mantel's connected to the..
upper crust.
The upper crust's connected to the..
topography.
And the topography moves aginst the aiiiiiiir.

Everybody now!

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"Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time... and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

Yep, don't I know all about that. To put things bluntly, America's public schools have some major suckage problems... And I won't even talk about the private ones. The gods know I've gotten enough crap from them to last a lifetime.

Dear Robert,

If the air molecules all have angular momentum, then what causes them to break away from that force of angular momentum and go blowing away in almost random directions? And then what force works to returns those molecules back into the rank and file of the bulk of the air allegedly turning with this turning earth?

Momentum is momentum. Angular or otherwise. What force must break this momentum and then re-establish it again?

Sincerely,

Gary Shelton

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Gary Shelton

Psalms 19:6 "His [the sun's] going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it."

Hello Rob,

I'm bruised and battered after my first full day in your turf, but I'm still standing, in case you were wondering. I have answered a gob of posts tonight. I haven't quite got this posting replies down yet in this system. Your words are copied within. Got any sympathy for a fellow against-the-grain wanderer?

Okay, here we go.

[you wrote:] "...like a piece of tissue paper, or a very thin film of liquid..."

Rob, let's keep it a liquid. That way the fluid dynamics are still applicable. Oh, by the way, I liked the "do do" comment about a previous metaphor I made. Why was that? Due to the small scale size? An apple's pretty small, Rob. Ha. No, it's okay. Just don't tell me the air is like paper or the skin of the apple.

[you wrote:] "Only if a planet were perfectly smooth, uniform and frictionless, would you expect an atmosphere not to associate itself with a planet in this way. As it is, the atmosphere bangs into mountains, sinks over oceans, and in general has a lot of interaction with the ground."

Good gosh, Rob. You talk of the air as being like tissue paper and liquid in the same sentence above, and here you imply that the air has the same angular momentum as the ground but somehow "bangs into mountains"? Would you be meaning to say that the air gets pulled by the mountains, Rob? What, exactly, is the force and how does it work, to pull the air along with the rotating earth? How could the air at once have the same angular momentum as the earth and "bang into" mountains?

[you wrote:] "The angular momentum of the Earth is colossal. It would dominate any resistive force the atmosphere could try to put on it."

Rob, how does the atmosphere get its angular momentum? Are you saying that the ground imparts its angular momentum to the air? At the surface of the earth, Rob? Then how in the tar can you explain how the whole atmosphere begins to turn, Rob? Aren't we back to the fluid dynamics of my ball bearing in oil example?

One thing I would like you to see is that if the air is turning with the earth, it must have some kind of nature that can be "grabbed" by the earth. If you say it does not have to be rigid, then how does the atmosphere as a whole get turned by the earth, Rob?

Further, to use my ball bearing example again. The oil closest to the ball bearing would turn with the bearing just as sure as the air would turn with the earth as it spun, if I have understood you correctly. Now if this is the case, Rob, why would we ever see the wind blow?

Per the oil spinning with the bearing, would not the air all turn in one direction only...WITH THE TURN OF THE EARTH? So when would it ever blow? Plus, what causes the air to be turned by the earth and then be able to be breathed or displaced by us mere humans? Think about the oil. (By the way, you may call this example "do do", but I don't think you've offered a better one.) It is spinning is uni-directional and has no inobedient flows of oil in various directions. If the earth were causing the air to spin, it would be much like this. I maintain, Rob, that the air would have to have a rigid nature for it to be pulled by the earth as you describe. Otherwise, how does the lower air not suffocate us with its powerful dynamic relationship with the ground which is turning it?

[you wrote:] "But - where would any resistive force come from?"

Well, Rob, the air itself resists. You keep thinking of the air as some big group thing that moves as a unit. That is why I keep referring to it as a "rigid". But the air is a fluid dynamic thing. I see examples of the unstuck (free roaming) air all the time. The wind blows. I breathe and walk through the air. Do you ever see examples of the air stuck to the ground and turning with the earth?

[you wrote:] "Why on Earth should the atmosphere 'stop' - or, from our point of view, spontaneously generate 1000 mph winds at the equator?"

Let me ask you another question back, Rob. If the atmosphere is turning with the earth, and yet all these winds pop up in almost random directions, what force causes the winds, and then next acts upon those winds to bring them back into differential rotation with the earth?

I'm getting tired now, Rob.
I'll carry on tomorrow. Good night. Thanks for informing me of this BadAstronomy board. It's been good.

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Gary Shelton

Psalms 19:6 "His [the sun's] going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it."

Gary, I suspect you're unwittingly wanting to both have your cake and eat it. Getting replies from so many different people pointing out the problems with your idea in different ways might be partially responsible, but I'll have another go for you.

Firstly, lets remember that NO angular momentum in the atmosphere would mean those 1000 mph winds. Since even in hurricanes and tornadoes you don't get above a couple of hundred mph, these "winds blowing in almost random directions" are all moving with the Earth to at least a very large extent.

Secondly, while the rough topography would cause the atmosphere to settle down to roughly the same rate of rotation as the landscape over a couple of billion years, this wasn't necessary - conservation of angular momentum as the planets coalesce means that the atmosphere has always rotated at roughly the same rate as the ground underneath it anyway.

Thirdly, while the fact that the wonders of chaos theory and the non-linear equations of fluid dynamics mean that weather forecasting will never be 100% correct all of the time, your "almost random directions" really aren't that random. If Meteora is around I'm sure you can get chapter and verse on this subject should you really be interested. Basically, though, its a combination of pressure differentials, coriolis effect and a whole bunch of other factors.

Finally, though, I'd ask why you think that this backs up a Geocentric viewpoint - all your arguments have exactly as much (or as little) validity irrespective of whether the planet you're referring to is Earth, Mars, Venus or any other. Apart from anything else, they even hold for the movement of the fluid Sun, so you're certainly not going to score any points against heliocentricity. Ultimately, there is no 'true' centre, only whichever is the most useful reference frame for what you're studying at the time.

Gary, please make use of the "Quote" button.

Ok, the issue is a bit infected. The core of the discussion is that you argue that a rotating Earth cannot work and we argue that it can, right?

It boils down to "relative motion". There is no such state as absolute rest; there is no frame of reference that is at true rest.

I know you didn't accept it 100% last time, but I will use the train car example again. Let's say it is moving very fast, and the air inside it to; there is no currents in the air. You then stirr the air in the car, and cause motions relative to the velocity of the container. If nothing moves inside the train car, the air will soon find its rest position (relative to the car).

The fact that the atmosphere is rotating, instead of having linear motion, doesn't really make a big different here.

I am sorry that my answer isn't very good, but I am no good at expressing myself, nor do I really have time at the moment (I should be working ).