[Tom Bishop]

One need only casually peak into the mess that is going on with "dark matter" and the "dark energy" which needs to hold most of the universe together to see that Einstein's theories don't really explain anything. We don't have an elegant model of the universe. Gravity, whether by Newton or Einstein, doesn't even work.

Look no further than the rotation of galaxies. Astronomers can't even use GR to explain very simple things like the spinning movement of galaxies. Galaxies are observed to spin as if they were solid disks, but according to theory, the center of the galaxy should be spinning much faster than the edges. In order to explain the rotation of galaxies they need the entire galaxy filled with some kind of substance which holds the stars strongly together.

We (RE) don't have an elegant model of the universe. You (FE) don't have a model of the universe at all.
You talk about galaxies as if they are simple? Think of the shear enormity of the issue, we don't fully understand something at that scale. Can the flat earth give even a single mathematical prediction for any observation?
Tom, I think you should leave discussions about astrophysics to the adults. The galaxies we don't understand are just 'lights in the sky' to you. Can you explain or predict anything about them with your flat earth nonsense?

You (RE) do not have any model of the universe. There is literally nothing that can be predicted using the Round Earth model. The public is educated to be ignorant to astronomy by design. The standard models are not actually based on heliocentric theory at all. The Ancient Babylonians, a Flat Earth civilization, came up with the pattern-based method that is still used to find the timing of the eclipse today, for example.

Astronomy, is, and always has been, based on patterns in the sky. They are still in the stone age, and it is quite pathetic.

Astronomy is based on patterns in the sky:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbation_(astronomy)

Special Perturbations

In methods of special perturbations, numerical datasets, representing values for the positions, velocities and accelerative forces on the bodies of interest, are made the basis of numerical integration of the differential equations of motion.[6] In effect, the positions and velocities are perturbed directly, and no attempt is made to calculate the curves of the orbits or the orbital elements.[2] Special perturbations can be applied to any problem in celestial mechanics, as it is not limited to cases where the perturbing forces are small.[4] Once applied only to comets and minor planets, special perturbation methods are now the basis of the most accurate machine-generated planetary ephemerides of the great astronomical almanacs.[2][7] Special perturbations are also used for modeling an orbit with computers.

Thomas Winship provides the following—

"Sir Richard Phillips in his Million Facts, says, 'Nothing therefore can be more impertinent than the assertion of modern writers that the accuracy of astronomical predictions arises from any modern theory. Astronomy is strictly a science of observation, and far more indebted to the false theory of Astrology, than to the equally false and fanciful theory of any modern.

We find that four or five thousand years ago, the mean motion of the Sun, Moon and Planets were known to a second, just as at present, and the moon's nodes, the latitudes of the planets, &c., were all adopted by Astrologers in preparing horoscopes for any time past or present. Ephemerides of the planet's places, of eclipses, &c., have been published for above 600 years, and were at first nearly as precise as at present.'"

Pattern-based prediction methods can predict the elements of the eclipses. Read the end of the Lunar Eclipse chapter in Earth Not a Globe. A method is shown: http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za29.htm

From the book Galileo Was Wrong (p 58 - 61) we read the following:

As Imre Lakatos admits:

"The superior simplicity of the Copernican theory was just as much of a myth as its superior accuracy. The myth of superior simplicity was dispelled by the careful and professional work of modern historians. They reminded us that while Copernican theory solves certain problems in a simpler way than does the Ptolemaic one, the price of the simplification is unexpected complications in the solution of other problems. The Copernican system is certainly simpler since it dispenses with equants and some eccentrics; but each equant and eccentric removed has to be replaced by new epicycles and epicyclets...he also has to put th e center of the universe not at the Sun, as he originally intended, but at an empty point fairly near to it....I think it is fair to say that the ‘simplicity balance’ between Ptolemy’s and Copernicus’ system is roughly even. 125"

In fact, considering how mathematically complex the motions of the celestial bodies really are (e.g., the complex motions of the sun and moon cited earlier; Newton’s “three-body” problem and the “perturbations” of the planets, all requiring the use of complex differential and integral calculus to chart their motions), no cosmological system should base its appeal on the simplicity of its system, for in the case of celestial motion, modern science has actually found that if the solution is too simple it is probably wrong, for it means that it isn’t taking everything into account.

Even more revealing is the fact that, as modern science prides itself on having dispensed with Ptolemy’s epicycles, conceptually speaking they are still very much in use, although they are labeled with different names in order to conceal their identity.

Charles Lane Poor revealed this secret back in the 1920s:

The deviations from the “ideal” in the elements of a planet’s orbit are called “perturbations” or “variations”.... In calculating the perturbations, the mathematician is forced to adopt the old device of Hipparchus, the discredited and discarded epicycle. It is true that the name, epicycle, is no longer used, and that one may hunt in vain through astronomical text-books for the slightest hint of the present day use of this device, which in the popular mind is connected with absurd and fantastic theories. The physicist and the mathematician now speak of harmonic motion, of Fourier’s series, of the development of a function into a series of sines and cosines. The name has been changed, but the essentials of the device remain. And the essential, the fundamental point of the device, under whatever name is may be concealed, is the representation of an irregular motion as the combination of a number of simple, uniform circular motions."

In essence, Poor  tells  us  that the introduction of  the  Fourier series, invented by Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (d. 1830), takes the veil off the Copernican system and re-establishes geocentrism to its rightful place. The Fourier series plainly shows that any cosmological system can be demonstrated within reasonable accuracy simply by introducing the proper amount of cyclical modulations (or “circular arguments,” if you will, including, as we will see, the “curved space” of General Relativity). In other words, one can create any mathematical system and then “curve-fit” any deviations or discrepancies back into the system. In the end, Fourier inadvertently exposed the shaky foundations of modern cosmology by showing that there is simply no possibility of being certain about the coordinates of any rotating system, since the math and geometry can be manipulated to fit the observations. In fact, based on Fourier analysis one could design a universe that is constructed from the foundation of a flat Earth (as we see in a two-dimensional map) and make it mathematically indistinguishable from one based on a spherical Earth. Math works wonders, but it doesn’t provide us with the knowledge of how the actual physical system work. As Poor notes:

"No more did Hipparchus believe that the bodies of the solar system were actually attached to the radial arms of his epicycles; his was a mere mathematical, or graphical device for representing irregular, complicated motions. While the graphical, or mechanical method is limited to a few terms, the trigonometrical, or analytical method is unlimited. It is possible to pile epicycle upon epicycle, the number being limited only by the patience of the mathematician and computer. The expressions for the disturbing action of one planet upon another, due the attraction of gravitation, involve an unlimited number of such terms; or, as the mathematician puts it, the series is infinite."

Koestler adds:

"The Copernican system is not a discovery...but a last attempt to patch up an out-dated machinery by reversing the arrangement of its wheels. As a modern historian put it, the fact that the Earth moves is “almost an incidental matter in the system of Copernicus which, viewed geometrically, is just the old Ptolemaic pattern of the skies, with one or two wheels interchanged and one or two of them taken out.”

[Rama Set]

Pattern based eclipse prediction is only accurate if you use a globe-Earth. Weird coincidence. Surely Tom has a good explanation for that.

[Tom Bishop]

Pattern based eclipse prediction is only accurate if you use a globe-Earth. Weird coincidence. Surely Tom has a good explanation for that.

Pattern based eclipse prediction only says that if you look at a table of historic eclipse predictions, that the timing of the eclipse will eventually repeat. That will allow you to predict a future event. The Ancient Babylonians, a flat earth civilization, originated the eclipse timing concept of the Saros Cycle.

It is possible to look at such patterns and create algorithms from them, and that is the entire basis of astronomy. It has nothing to do with the shape of the earth or kind of solar system.

NASA freely admits that they use ancient cycle charts for their eclipse predictions. The Saros Cycle and those cobby old ancient methods which simply look at past patterns in the sky to predict the next one is precisely how "modern theorists" predict the lunar eclipse today.

Video: http://www.screencast.com/users/tbishop/folders/Jing/media/5fdaffdc-ba0f-45a2-b895-4026b6a5951f

[Rama Set]

Pattern based eclipse prediction is only accurate if you use a globe-Earth. Weird coincidence. Surely Tom has a good explanation for that.

Pattern based eclipse prediction only says that if you look at a table of historic eclipse predictions, that the timing of the eclipse will eventually repeat. That will allow you to predict a future event. The Ancient Babylonians, a flat earth civilization, originated the eclipse timing concept of the Saros Cycle.

It is possible to look at such patterns and create algorithms from them, and that is the entire basis of astronomy. It has nothing to do with the shape of the earth or kind of solar system.

NASA freely admits that they use ancient cycle charts for their eclipse predictions. The Saros Cycle and those cobby old ancient methods which simply look at past patterns in the sky to predict the next one is precisely how "modern theorists" predict the lunar eclipse today.

Video: http://www.screencast.com/users/tbishop/folders/Jing/media/5fdaffdc-ba0f-45a2-b895-4026b6a5951f

And they also admit that they apply geometric transformation to Saros cycle coordinate predictions so that they can find eclipse times (full, partial or otherwise) for any coordinate on Earth. That’s how they can predict the best viewing spots to be in remote places and be right.

[Tom Bishop]

Pattern based eclipse prediction is only accurate if you use a globe-Earth. Weird coincidence. Surely Tom has a good explanation for that.

Pattern based eclipse prediction only says that if you look at a table of historic eclipse predictions, that the timing of the eclipse will eventually repeat. That will allow you to predict a future event. The Ancient Babylonians, a flat earth civilization, originated the eclipse timing concept of the Saros Cycle.

It is possible to look at such patterns and create algorithms from them, and that is the entire basis of astronomy. It has nothing to do with the shape of the earth or kind of solar system.

NASA freely admits that they use ancient cycle charts for their eclipse predictions. The Saros Cycle and those cobby old ancient methods which simply look at past patterns in the sky to predict the next one is precisely how "modern theorists" predict the lunar eclipse today.

Video: http://www.screencast.com/users/tbishop/folders/Jing/media/5fdaffdc-ba0f-45a2-b895-4026b6a5951f

And they also admit that they apply geometric transformation to Saros cycle coordinate predictions so that they can find eclipse times (full, partial or otherwise) for any coordinate on Earth. That’s how they can predict the best viewing spots to be in remote places and be right.

The Saros Cycle will tell you the timing of the lunar eclipse. If you want to know whether the moon is in the sky at the time you would need to use one of the Moon calculators. During a Lunar Eclipse anyone who has the moon in their sky can see it. You just need to figure out if the moon is going to be in your sky.

There are also algorithms for predicting the position of the moon. We have only briefly looked at the moon calculators, but we have looked somewhat at the NOAA Solar Calculator:

https://wiki.tfes.org/NOAA_Solar_Calculator

Feel free to download the worksheet and look at the equations. There is nothing specifically "round earth" in them. They appear to be trigonometric/polynomial relationship equations.

You put in your latitude and get the sunrise and sunset times and such related information, but can we really say that a function cannot be created that relates your latitude to a sunrise time or the time the sun is in the sky over the year based on previous occurrences, wihich off-shifts when the latitude is changed?

You are presuming that all of this must have to do with the Round Earth Theory. At the bottom of the above article we see a demonstration that the data from the NOAA calculators cannot be used to triangulate the position of the sun in the sky. That is, multiple calculator observation data from different parts of the earth show that the sun does not triangulate to be in the same place.

This tells me that it is truly just based on relationships, and not a Round Earth Theory.

[Ofcourseitsnotflat]

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

[TomInAustin]

Tom. I seriously can’t believe you referenced this dude to refute the Cavendish Experiment

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Miles_Mathis

I see that that’s also where you got the pi = 4 nonsense from.

That's a humor website. What are the credentials of those people who call his work "comical attempts"?

Have you read the things Mathis claims?  The man is a nut case of conspiracy.

[Rama Set]

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

This is absolutely correct, but Tom will never concede it.  Indeed, when NOAA talks about predicting solar eclipse paths, it specifically documents the process of applying coordinate transformations to eclipse predictions so that they are useful for every coordinate on Earth.  It's obvious that Tom's objection to astronomy is feeble, but he will never, ever concede a point.

EDIT: According to NASA, they use ephemerides and currently observed locations and velocity of the sun and moon. Plug them into numerical solutions of the 3-body problem and can thusly predict eclipses for 100s of years with a minute accuracy.  Literally no mention of Saros cycles, only mentions of the solutions to 3-body problems that Tom ostriches about.  Not only are they able to use this process to predict eclipse paths of totality with incredible accuracy, super accurate maps of the earth and moon are used to predict paths within 100m's of accuracy as well so that observers can observe exotic effects that only occur along the edge of the eclipse path.  None of this depends on Saros cycles, all of it depends on things Tom claims do not exist.

[AATW]

If you are not going to actually address arguments and instead resort to attempted attacks on character, then you should not bother to debate.

I'm not attacking his character, I'm sure he's lovely to his mother.
What I'm questioning is his credentials to weigh in on the Cavendish experiment or any other topic.
What are HIS credentials to do so?
Look at his website and all the crazy things he claims - an example I was looking at early was another one about Stephen Hawking being "replaced" years ago. Is this someone we are supposed to be taking seriously?
You repeatedly do this, Tom. You just cherry pick quotes or articles from anyone who you think backs up your views. Some of those articles you clearly don't understand yourself and this one is from someone who sounds seriously mentally ill.

[TomInAustin]

If you are not going to actually address arguments and instead resort to attempted attacks on character, then you should not bother to debate.

I'm not attacking his character, I'm sure he's lovely to his mother.
What I'm questioning is his credentials to weigh in on the Cavendish experiment or any other topic.
What are HIS credentials to do so?
Look at his website and all the crazy things he claims - an example I was looking at early was another one about Stephen Hawking being "replaced" years ago. Is this someone we are supposed to be taking seriously?
You repeatedly do this, Tom. You just cherry pick quotes or articles from anyone who you think backs up your views. Some of those articles you clearly don't understand yourself and this one is from someone who sounds seriously mentally ill.

Let's not forget that he says the Beach Boys and the Beatles were part of the CIA and MI6 respectively.    Oh and that John Lennon and Michael Jackson are alive and well.

So yes, I think its safe to attack his credibility. 

[Jimmy McGill]

You guys have pretty much roasted Tom Bishop on Relativity and he won’t even directly apply when told that it’s impossible to predict eclipses without globe geometry.

I’m wondering if Tom can weigh in on the Sun’s size and elevation above earth and why it doesn’t increase and decrease in apparent size over the course of the day.
Also explain why can we not bring it back into view if what FE’s think they know about “the law of perspective” is true.

[Jimmy McGill]

It really is the most simple of questions and their inability/unwillingness to answer them that makes me wonder if this is actually Poe’s law at work.

[Tom Bishop]

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

If you can identify the pattern, you can predict anything.

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

This is absolutely correct, but Tom will never concede it.  Indeed, when NOAA talks about predicting solar eclipse paths, it specifically documents the process of applying coordinate transformations to eclipse predictions so that they are useful for every coordinate on Earth.  It's obvious that Tom's objection to astronomy is feeble, but he will never, ever concede a point.

EDIT: According to NASA, they use ephemerides and currently observed locations and velocity of the sun and moon. Plug them into numerical solutions of the 3-body problem and can thusly predict eclipses for 100s of years with a minute accuracy.  Literally no mention of Saros cycles, only mentions of the solutions to 3-body problems that Tom ostriches about.  Not only are they able to use this process to predict eclipse paths of totality with incredible accuracy, super accurate maps of the earth and moon are used to predict paths within 100m's of accuracy as well so that observers can observe exotic effects that only occur along the edge of the eclipse path.  None of this depends on Saros cycles, all of it depends on things Tom claims do not exist.

The 3-Body Problem has never been solved. I disagree with that. The numerical simulations are very limited in what they can do.

If you are not going to actually address arguments and instead resort to attempted attacks on character, then you should not bother to debate.

I'm not attacking his character, I'm sure he's lovely to his mother.
What I'm questioning is his credentials to weigh in on the Cavendish experiment or any other topic.
What are HIS credentials to do so?
Look at his website and all the crazy things he claims - an example I was looking at early was another one about Stephen Hawking being "replaced" years ago. Is this someone we are supposed to be taking seriously?
You repeatedly do this, Tom. You just cherry pick quotes or articles from anyone who you think backs up your views. Some of those articles you clearly don't understand yourself and this one is from someone who sounds seriously mentally ill.

Where have you proven him wrong on anything he has ever said? You have not shown or demonstrated anything. You are committing fallacies by relating one thing with another. I don't really care about whatever water cooler discussions he has.

In fact, I care more about people who make arguments without evidence than Miles Mathis who does try to provide a level of evidence. In his articles he does try and provide some level of evidence. What are you complaining about? You and others tend to go around thinking and claiming things on this website without providing any evidence at all. Due to that, if Miles Mathis were make a post in the Alternative Science board about some kind of topic, I would pay more attention to it than one of your posts.

If you believe that an idea is incorrect, it is your obligation to show that it is incorrect. It is also your responsibility to back up any idea or argument you have with evidence.

Here you are posting on a website where people believe that the earth is flat. Even Mathis has his limits. Mathis won't touch the subject. Why are you more credible than he is?

[QED]

"Sergey N. Arteha is hardly a freshman physics student. Take a look at his biography."

I understand that he is not a freshman physics student. I am simply saying that he argues points which can easily be refuted by freshman physics students. You believe his arguments, and so this indicates, apparently, that you do not understand freshman physics. So why should anyone believe your claims/evaluations regarding physics?

This is not a good position to champion, Thomas. At some point, Sergey fell off the rail and started spouting nonsense. Do not follow if you wish to maintain credibility.

"Here is an article:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2012/oct/08/einstein-nobel-prize-relativity"

Your article definitely has merit. There is a debate among historians regarding anti-Semitic treatments with Einstein. Nevertheless, I maintain that this article supports my claim: for whatever reason, Einstein was never a contender for the Nobel Prize for relativity. Be it anti-Semiticism or whatever. Part of this may indeed be anti-Semiticism (I would bet), and part of this is history/context. At this time, Quantum Mechanics was an explosive field. Hence, the contribution Einstein made to it was weighted more heavily.

In my opinion, his evidence for Brownian motion was the most exceptional. He demonstrated, using macroscopic data, that atoms exist! This may seem trivial to us today. But let me tell you, it was not trivial then. He basically answered a gigantic long-standing problem almost as an aside comment to other published works that same year. He was a genius, and gave us a rare gift.

I would give anything to experience his thought process for a day or two.

[Tom Bishop]

"Sergey N. Arteha is hardly a freshman physics student. Take a look at his biography."

I understand that he is not a freshman physics student. I am simply saying that he argues points which can easily be refuted by freshman physics students. You believe his arguments, and so this indicates, apparently, that you do not understand freshman physics. So why should anyone believe your claims/evaluations regarding physics?

This is not a good position to champion, Thomas. At some point, Sergey fell off the rail and started spouting nonsense. Do not follow if you wish to maintain credibility.

You are claiming that a Theoretical Physicist with a PhD and who is Deputy Chief of the Department of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science does not understand freshman physics?

[Rama Set]

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

This is absolutely correct, but Tom will never concede it.  Indeed, when NOAA talks about predicting solar eclipse paths, it specifically documents the process of applying coordinate transformations to eclipse predictions so that they are useful for every coordinate on Earth.  It's obvious that Tom's objection to astronomy is feeble, but he will never, ever concede a point.

EDIT: According to NASA, they use ephemerides and currently observed locations and velocity of the sun and moon. Plug them into numerical solutions of the 3-body problem and can thusly predict eclipses for 100s of years with a minute accuracy.  Literally no mention of Saros cycles, only mentions of the solutions to 3-body problems that Tom ostriches about.  Not only are they able to use this process to predict eclipse paths of totality with incredible accuracy, super accurate maps of the earth and moon are used to predict paths within 100m's of accuracy as well so that observers can observe exotic effects that only occur along the edge of the eclipse path.  None of this depends on Saros cycles, all of it depends on things Tom claims do not exist.

The 3-Body problem has never been solved. I disagree with that. The numerical simulations are very limited in what they can do.

At this point your opinion means little.  You have been pointed to multiple sources indicating that numerical solutions have been produced and are used, in practice to create, extremely accurate simulations.  Nasa cites it as the basis for their eclipse prediction using supercomputers, scientists refer to working solar system simulations that use numerical solutions. All you have pointed out is a paper produced by a high school competition.  I post this not for you, but for all the other readers who might consider taking you seriously.

"Sergey N. Arteha is hardly a freshman physics student. Take a look at his biography."

I understand that he is not a freshman physics student. I am simply saying that he argues points which can easily be refuted by freshman physics students. You believe his arguments, and so this indicates, apparently, that you do not understand freshman physics. So why should anyone believe your claims/evaluations regarding physics?

This is not a good position to champion, Thomas. At some point, Sergey fell off the rail and started spouting nonsense. Do not follow if you wish to maintain credibility.

You are claiming that a Theoretical Physicist with a PhD and who is Deputy Chief of the Department of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science does not understand freshman physics?

Hey look!  Tom attributing a position to someone that they haven't claimed!  So dishonest...

[Tom Bishop]

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

This is absolutely correct, but Tom will never concede it.  Indeed, when NOAA talks about predicting solar eclipse paths, it specifically documents the process of applying coordinate transformations to eclipse predictions so that they are useful for every coordinate on Earth.  It's obvious that Tom's objection to astronomy is feeble, but he will never, ever concede a point.

EDIT: According to NASA, they use ephemerides and currently observed locations and velocity of the sun and moon. Plug them into numerical solutions of the 3-body problem and can thusly predict eclipses for 100s of years with a minute accuracy.  Literally no mention of Saros cycles, only mentions of the solutions to 3-body problems that Tom ostriches about.  Not only are they able to use this process to predict eclipse paths of totality with incredible accuracy, super accurate maps of the earth and moon are used to predict paths within 100m's of accuracy as well so that observers can observe exotic effects that only occur along the edge of the eclipse path.  None of this depends on Saros cycles, all of it depends on things Tom claims do not exist.

The 3-Body problem has never been solved. I disagree with that. The numerical simulations are very limited in what they can do.

At this point your opinion means little.  You have been pointed to multiple sources indicating that numerical solutions have been produced and are used, in practice to create, extremely accurate simulations.  Nasa cites it as the basis for their eclipse prediction using supercomputers, scientists refer to working solar system simulations that use numerical solutions. All you have pointed out is a paper produced by a high school competition.  I post this not for you, but for all the other readers who might consider taking you seriously

Feel free to point out on NASA's Eclipse Website where they are using a Three Body Problem solution, like I demonstrated how they are using the Saros Cycle solution.

Demonstrate rather than assert.

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html

[QED]

"Sergey N. Arteha is hardly a freshman physics student. Take a look at his biography."

I understand that he is not a freshman physics student. I am simply saying that he argues points which can easily be refuted by freshman physics students. You believe his arguments, and so this indicates, apparently, that you do not understand freshman physics. So why should anyone believe your claims/evaluations regarding physics?

This is not a good position to champion, Thomas. At some point, Sergey fell off the rail and started spouting nonsense. Do not follow if you wish to maintain credibility.

You are claiming that a Theoretical Physicist with a PhD and who is Deputy Chief of the Department of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science does not understand freshman physics?

This is what we call in the business: the fallacy of appeal to authority.

You see, I hold a PhD in physics too, and sustain a rather lucrative position in the US public sector. The RAS defines multiple degrees of membership. Not all of them equal, and not all of them recognized across the globe as reputable. This is Russia we are talking about here. There are no checks and balances, and everyone else besides them knows this.

Thomas, you are slipping.

I do not claim that this person misunderstands freshman physics. Again, I am stating that YOU do not understand it, and he is fooling you with easily disprovable claims.

[Tom Bishop]

"Sergey N. Arteha is hardly a freshman physics student. Take a look at his biography."

I understand that he is not a freshman physics student. I am simply saying that he argues points which can easily be refuted by freshman physics students. You believe his arguments, and so this indicates, apparently, that you do not understand freshman physics. So why should anyone believe your claims/evaluations regarding physics?

This is not a good position to champion, Thomas. At some point, Sergey fell off the rail and started spouting nonsense. Do not follow if you wish to maintain credibility.

You are claiming that a Theoretical Physicist with a PhD and who is Deputy Chief of the Department of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science does not understand freshman physics?

This is what we call in the business: the fallacy of appeal to authority.

You see, I hold a PhD in physics too, and sustain a rather lucrative position in the US public sector. The RAS defines multiple degrees of membership. Not all of them equal, and not all of them recognized across the globe as reputable. This is Russia we are talking about here. There are no checks and balances, and everyone else besides them knows this.

Thomas, you are slipping.

I do not claim that this person misunderstands freshman physics. Again, I am stating that YOU do not understand it, and he is fooling you with easily disprovable claims.

What are you even talking about? You posted one of his sections and accused him of misunderstanding physics, and that even a freshman could see through it. Now you are claiming that he wrote a fake book to fool people?

You are making no sense at all.

[QED]

You can't predict where to observe the eclipse from, nor the extent to which you will see the eclipse, without applying some globe geometry. Can you?

This is absolutely correct, but Tom will never concede it.  Indeed, when NOAA talks about predicting solar eclipse paths, it specifically documents the process of applying coordinate transformations to eclipse predictions so that they are useful for every coordinate on Earth.  It's obvious that Tom's objection to astronomy is feeble, but he will never, ever concede a point.

EDIT: According to NASA, they use ephemerides and currently observed locations and velocity of the sun and moon. Plug them into numerical solutions of the 3-body problem and can thusly predict eclipses for 100s of years with a minute accuracy.  Literally no mention of Saros cycles, only mentions of the solutions to 3-body problems that Tom ostriches about.  Not only are they able to use this process to predict eclipse paths of totality with incredible accuracy, super accurate maps of the earth and moon are used to predict paths within 100m's of accuracy as well so that observers can observe exotic effects that only occur along the edge of the eclipse path.  None of this depends on Saros cycles, all of it depends on things Tom claims do not exist.

The 3-Body problem has never been solved. I disagree with that. The numerical simulations are very limited in what they can do.

At this point your opinion means little.  You have been pointed to multiple sources indicating that numerical solutions have been produced and are used, in practice to create, extremely accurate simulations.  Nasa cites it as the basis for their eclipse prediction using supercomputers, scientists refer to working solar system simulations that use numerical solutions. All you have pointed out is a paper produced by a high school competition.  I post this not for you, but for all the other readers who might consider taking you seriously

Feel free to point out on NASA's Eclipse Website where they are using a Three Body Problem solution, like I demonstrated how they are using the Saros Cycle solution.

Demonstrate rather than assert.

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html

The three body problem is indeed not solvable analytically...yet. We may need new mathematics to do so. It may be that we never find this...

Numerically, the three-body problem is trivial. We just make computers do it. They cannot provide a closed-form solution; a perfect mathematical solution. But that is okay, they can render numerical estimates that are demonstrably so close that we would never notice. Check this out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_simulation

We are well beyond three-body. We simulate millions of bodies!