Due to the untidiness of the other thread (unintended repeated posting) I am creating an new one.

"AstroRockHunter wrote:
For your backward audience, could you please state the Equation of Time??? I'm not totally familiar with it.

Thanks.

Grey wrote; "I'm not oriel, of course, but here's a pretty straightforward site that gives a description of the issues involved in relating the sidereal day to the solar day. This is also an excellent site devoted to the equation of time"

The Equation of Time is not a formula but if you get it wrong and decide the rotation of the Earth is calculated off 23 hours 56 minutes instead of an equable 24 hours ( which the EoT reduces the unequal natural day to) you certainly can't do astronomy.

So now everyone is faced with a simple choice be they 'expert' or novice in that the Earth's rotation as determined by Foucault's pendulum completes one revolution in 24 hours while you determine that its rotation is tied to the stars or the sidereal motion of 23 hours 56 min.

Almost all the websites on Foucault's pendulum state that the rotation of the Earth on its axis is 24 hours per 360 degrees ,the history of the development of clocks,astronomy and geometry depend on it,

http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/pendulum.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/surf/pendulum/pendulum.htm




Grey,you can't figure the whole thing out,that much I know and I don't expect anyone else to,it is far too complicated and even unecessary if you press it far enough,but that is why I find the Albert's isolation of the motion of Mercury so very,very funny but you have to go to the relativity websites to know why this is so.

Of course the site has the Earth's rotation at 23 hours 56 minutes even though the pendulum only registers the Earth's axial rotation devoid of its orbital elliptical rotation.


http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/PHYSICS_!/FOUCAULT_PENDULUM/foucault_pendulum.html

When Albert uses the "influence (!!!!) of the motion of the fixed stars" he is drawing on Mach who never understood what Newton meant by absolute/ relative time,space and motion in the first place,the easiest being Newton's framing of the EoT as the difference between absolute and relative time.All discernment of the motion of the primary planets was reduced to the equable day by astronomers in Newton's era and the EoT itself is a direct expression of Kepler's second law so when Newton works out his gravitational laws he is basing it on Kepler's planetary laws,that is why Albert is so funny when he attempts to paste Newton's law directly on to observation to come up with an ellipse.


I guess you have to understand the astronomical issues to know why the relativistic salesman is hilarious but it helps to know why basing observed planetary motions on 23 hrs 56 minutes instead of an equable 24 hours is an astronomical catastrophe.

Here is Albert's passage again with Mach's principle to send you on your way,again,I now don't think that you will have a good chuckle at it but a reasonable astronomer who knows his history should.


http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/mach.pr.html

"We must draw attention here to one of these deviations. According to Newton’s theory, a planet moves round the sun in an ellipse, which would permanently maintain its position with respect to the fixed stars, if we could disregard the motion of the fixed stars, themselves and the action of the other planets under consideration. Thus, if we correct the observed motion of the planets for these two influences, and if Newton’s theory be strictly correct, we ought to obtain for the orbit of the planet an ellipse, which is fixed with reference to the fixed stars" Albert's teletubby astronomy

Gr is elegant - funny,funny,funny !!!.

Oriel,

If you're going to use websites like this one to try to present your position, you should be careful to read the whole thing:

BTW, please don't ignore me.

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SeanF

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I second that, SeanF. This website gives the period of the Earth's rotation as 23.93 hours, as it should.

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The referenced websites are used for the purpose of presenting that there are two split views out there,often these sites contain the same contradictions I point out,needless to say that accurate clocks were developed based on the rotation of the Earth once in 24 hours.

So,it is not difficult at all and participants can decide for themselves based on historical,observational and commonsense evidence.If they go along with a rotation rate of 23 hours 56 minutes they clearly belong with relativity,if they decide that clocks were developed off the rotation of the Earth in 24 hours using the EoT to make up the difference with the natural day,it is not difficult to see why Newton defined the difference as between absolute time (24 hour day) and relative time (unequal day).

It is common among relativists to bring in atomic clocks into the discussion to frighten away investigation but the inventor of the cesium clock detested everything about relativity and knew it for the sham it is.

http://www.btinternet.com/~time.lord/Relativity.html

There is no contradiction. The Focault pendulum, and other similar experiments, do indeed measure the rotation of the Earth regardless of any other motions. In other words, the results are linked to the length of the sidereal day.
Here's a passage from the previous link (emphasis mine)
Navigators, Newton's work on the EoT and so forth on the other hand use the sun for reference, so the observations are linked to the length of the solar day.
This rotation period is influenced by the combined effects of rotation and orbital motions around the sun, and is indeed is 24 hours; the Earth moves a bit in its orbit while rotating a full 360 degrees, so the sun hasn't quite come back to the original position in that time; the Earth has to rotate about 1 degree more, so it takes approximately 4 minutes longer than the sidereal day. (For a quick estimate, divide 24 hours by 365.25).

While your articles state 24 hours for Focault's pendulum, they're being a tad sloppy. Further, the experiment is better as a demonstration than a measurement; you're lucky if you can end up within 15% of the actual value.

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oriel36,

Are you aware of the difference between sidereal time and solar time and why it is relevant to this discussion?
Hint: It has nothing to do with relativity! :roll:

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Oriel's main misunderstanding comes from the word "relative." Einstein and Newton were talking about different things when they discussed "relative" time and Oriel doesn't understand that.

So much of a sham that the frequency of GPS clocks has to be adjusted from their value on the ground in order to compensate for the kinetic and gravitational relativistic shifts. They tested this effect at the beginning of GPS, because of the people that didn't think relativity was correct.

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With all due respect, BS. You prefaced those websites by saying "Almost all the websites on Foucault's pendulum state that the rotation of the Earth on its axis is 24 hours per 360 degrees ,the history of the development of clocks,astronomy and geometry depend on it."

You were trying to present examples showing the day is 24 hours.

Nice try at back-pedaling, though.

And you're still ignoring me.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Oriel36:

http://www.americanantiquities.com/a...article14.html

This site give a history of the sundial. Quite informative. An interesting passage from there is:

and

Now, Oriel36, the reason that we have 360 degrees in 24 hours is because The ancients believed that the Sun orbited the fixed, non-rotating Earth. It wasn't until after Coppernicus that scientists realized that the Earth not only orbited the sun, it rotated on its axis. By that time, the 360 degrees in 24 hours was too entreched as the time standard to be changed.

So, your hypothesis that the 24 hour day is absolute time is based upon a geocentric view of the universe. Since we know that the Earth is not the center of the universe, your hypothesis cannot be correct.

Oh, I'd disagree with this. I don't thing it's got anything to do with being entrenched. Sunrise-to-sunrise averages 24 hours, not 23.93whatever, and that's what's important in day-to-day life. Would you want to live in a world where "11:00" comes at dawn in March, in the middle of daylight in June, and at sunset in September?

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

SeanF:

Point taken. I was trying to keep the post short to get to my point at the end.

But, would you agree that it is closer to 361 degrees in 24 hours, rather than 360???

(Trying to save a little face here.) ops:

AstroRockHunter, I'm more nit-picking than anything else.

The Earth rotates around its axis once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds. Closer to 361 degrees per 24 hours than 360. Absolutely.

I'm just saying that I don't think it would've made any difference if we'd known all along that that's how it works. Our clocks would still be based on the solar day and not the sidereal day because that's what's important to Earth-bound life.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

SeanF:

My point exactly. WE created the concept of 24 hour days to accomodate US, not the universe.

Which is the point that has been bothering me during this whole thread. It didn't occur to me until today to look up the history of the sundial, which provided the historical account of how we came up with the 24 hour day in the first place. Since Oriel36 loves to quote historical texts, I figured he wouldn't listen to a differing viewpoint without some reference or other.

I hope this finally puts this to rest. =D>

Hogs and pens. Good analogy. The concept of a "synonym" escapes Oriel. I think the main purpose of starting redundant threads is its a little easier to ignore the unanswerable points.

AstroRockHunter wrote;"So, your hypothesis that the 24 hour day is absolute time is based upon a geocentric view of the universe. Since we know that the Earth is not the center of the universe, your hypothesis cannot be correct."

Funny,funny,funny!.

I guess you just have not enough sense to understand how the 24 hour clock refers to the natural unequal day via the Equation of Time.

Hey, if you believe that the combined rotations of the Earth,the axial and annual orbital cannot be seperated (this is what the EoT does) ,good for you,in fact you will be following in the footsteps of your mentor Albert .

It is actually enjoyable to see so many link the Earth's rotation to circumpolar motion or 23 hrs 56 min,sort of like watching creationists go about things,too simpleminded to be of any use yet amazing to see the lenghts to distract that accurate clocks were developed via the EoT to reflect axial rotation through 360 degrees in 24 hours exactly.This is how clocks become rulers of distance so forget the dummy 4th dimension.

OK, lets try this again.

Your holy EoT allows you to seperate the rotation into axial and annual. Why do you wish to do this? To maintain the idea that 24 hours is 360 degrees. Why do you wish that? I have frankly no concept. You've been bashed over the head repeatedly with evidence that it is nothing of the sort, and yet continue to call everyone idiots for believing the mere facts rather than Lord Newton.

And yes, I will be convinced that you are a deliberate troll who should be ignored in all future posts if your reply contains the words simpleminded, idiotic, or similiar. You have presented no evidence to back your claim, other than to personally insult people for not accepting Newton's word as gospel.

(emphasis mine)

Check your sources, oriel36. The Equation of Time does not do what you think it does - all it does is average the effects of orbital obliquity and eccentricity over a year. It doesn't relate the lengths of the sidereal and solar days - it relates the individual and average solar day. The length of an individual day is what you call the "natural, unequal day" and depends on where the Earth is in its orbit. The average solar day is simply this span of time averaged over a year. We on this forum normally talk only about the averaged timespan; few of us ever determine positions by measuring the sun's height, but if we ever did, yes, the EoT would be very important.

However, when I'm looking at stars, tthe individual solar day is of no interest; I'm more interested in position relative to the other stars. So the relation of interest is that between the averaged solar day ("clock time") and sidereal time. The EoT does not enter into this at all.

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Uh ... you do realize, don't you, that in Sir Isaac Newton's time they didn't have accurate clocks? It took a couple of centuries before anyone invented a mechanical clock that didn't lose or gain a few minutes each day.