The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Theory => Topic started by: JohnAdams1145 on January 26, 2018, 05:02:17 PM
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Tom Bishop claims to be a Zetetic, but then asserted in the FE Q&A forum that "the stars are not light-years away". Luminous intensity and parallax measurements agree with the hypothesis that stars are light-years away; they do not agree that they are little specks of dust in space that somehow glow (and there's a problem with energy too). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder
I'm sure none of the top Flat Earth people can understand most of that Wikipedia article (I know I can't), but the section on parallax is quite descriptive. Anyone can perform these calculations with the stars or even the Sun to conclude that they are pretty far away. This is the method RE people have tried with varying degrees of success about ascertaining the distance of the Sun.
What's the FE response to the cosmic distance ladder? To parallax measurements?
I found a link http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/aol/market/collaboration/solpar/ that describes how the parallax calculation is done on a round Earth; for a flat Earth, the distances are mostly the same, but you just need to not tilt the triangles.
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The best cheap tool for angles is sextant.
For now they can be found on eBay for as low as $22.
If people start buying price will slightly increase, but $30 is still affordable.
Paired with artificial horizon it can be used to even measure horizon dip.
If you don't have artificial horizon, use bowl of molasses.
Make molasses soft, but not completely liquid.
Leave it minute or two to make sure it is horizontal.
If you don't have clear horizon and want to measure sun angle above horizontal,
measure angle between sun and artificial horizon reflection, and divide by 2.
Something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-SkC3xwE7o
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Tom Bishop claims to be a Zetetic, but then asserted in the FE Q&A forum that "the stars are not light-years away". Luminous intensity and parallax measurements agree with the hypothesis that stars are light-years away; they do not agree that they are little specks of dust in space that somehow glow (and there's a problem with energy too). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder
I'm sure none of the top Flat Earth people can understand most of that Wikipedia article (I know I can't), but the section on parallax is quite descriptive. Anyone can perform these calculations with the stars or even the Sun to conclude that they are pretty far away. This is the method RE people have tried with varying degrees of success about ascertaining the distance of the Sun.
What's the FE response to the cosmic distance ladder? To parallax measurements?
I found a link http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/aol/market/collaboration/solpar/ that describes how the parallax calculation is done on a round Earth; for a flat Earth, the distances are mostly the same, but you just need to not tilt the triangles.
You answered your own question. In the second link we see that the method relies on the assumption that the earth is round.
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In the second link we see that the method relies on the assumption that the earth is round.
as i've pointed out numerous times, spectroscopy does not. you can do it in a lab. it's a pretty common lab assignment in a first-year astronomy course. probably in chemistry, too. they use spectroscopy a lot.
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Tom, you're being very dishonest here. If you actually took the time to read and understand how parallax measurements work, instead of just handwaving and sitting in ignorance, you could do the calculation yourself and would realize that the distance doesn't change much even if you assume observers on a plane.
Elementary geometry would tell you instead of taking the distance between observers as the great circle length and adjusting it to chord length (A small difference), you'd take the distance as given and use it.
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In the second link we see that the method relies on the assumption that the earth is round.
as i've pointed out numerous times, spectroscopy does not. you can do it in a lab. it's a pretty common lab assignment in a first-year astronomy course. probably in chemistry, too. they use spectroscopy a lot.
Please show us how the color of the stars tells us how far away they are.
Tom, you're being very dishonest here. If you actually took the time to read and understand how parallax measurements work, instead of just handwaving and sitting in ignorance, you could do the calculation yourself and would realize that the distance doesn't change much even if you assume observers on a plane.
The distance changes a lot if you assume that the earth is a plane, as described here (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun).
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In the second link we see that the method relies on the assumption that the earth is round.
as i've pointed out numerous times, spectroscopy does not. you can do it in a lab. it's a pretty common lab assignment in a first-year astronomy course. probably in chemistry, too. they use spectroscopy a lot.
Please show us how the color of the stars tells us how far away they are.
Tom, you're being very dishonest here. If you actually took the time to read and understand how parallax measurements work, instead of just handwaving and sitting in ignorance, you could do the calculation yourself and would realize that the distance doesn't change much even if you assume observers on a plane.
The distance changes a lot if you assume that the earth is a plane, as described here (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun).
As explained many times before do the measurements from more than 2 locations. Why do you not understand this and do the experiment?
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As explained many times before do the measurements from more than 2 locations. Why do you not understand this and do the experiment?
If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
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As explained many times before do the measurements from more than 2 locations. Why do you not understand this and do the experiment?
If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
Hang on. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. The accepted explanation of the stick experiment is that the sun is distant and the earth is therefore spherical.
You are the one making the claim that the earth is in fact flat and the sun is much closer. The burden of proof lies with you. And it's a relatively easy thing to prove.
All you have to do is take some measurements of the sun or the moon from a few cities, measure the angles, do the maths and you can triangulate to find the sun or moon's distance.
Do that and if the maths works out how you think it will then congratulations, you've won yourself a Nobel prize.
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As explained many times before do the measurements from more than 2 locations. Why do you not understand this and do the experiment?
If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
There is only one model of the earth so it is strange you are not interested in measurements to determine it. You agree that timeanddate.com is correct so what's the problem?
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Please show us how the color of the stars tells us how far away they are.
it's not the color of a star or galaxy that tells us how far away it is. it's the position of missing wavelengths in a star/galaxy spectrum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u3rRy97m9Y
Notice the dark line that appears in the rainbow (spectrum) made by the prism when the light from the projector passes through the sodium vapor. these lines always appear in the same position on the spectrum for each element in the periodic table.
when we point our telescopes at stars/galaxies and pass their light through prisms, we can make similar spectra, and we notice the same dark lines at the same positions as those of laboratory spectra. this is how we know what those things are made of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrDZpnf1SEQ
finally, we notice that for some objects, all of their spectral lines are shifted and systematically appear at lower wavelengths. for lots of reasons, we can use that systematic shift to tell us how far away the object is.
i'm happy to go into more detail on any of this, just ask.
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In the second link we see that the method relies on the assumption that the earth is round.
as i've pointed out numerous times, spectroscopy does not. you can do it in a lab. it's a pretty common lab assignment in a first-year astronomy course. probably in chemistry, too. they use spectroscopy a lot.
Please show us how the color of the stars tells us how far away they are.
Tom, you're being very dishonest here. If you actually took the time to read and understand how parallax measurements work, instead of just handwaving and sitting in ignorance, you could do the calculation yourself and would realize that the distance doesn't change much even if you assume observers on a plane.
The distance changes a lot if you assume that the earth is a plane, as described here (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun).
Tom, the experiment on the wiki is junk. I wish you'd put more effort into understanding the science that you love to trash and discredit. First, not enough precision is reported; parallax measurements require extremely precise techniques, down to fractions of a degree. You give figures measured to the nearest ten. Second, you cannot use only two points if you dispute the curvature of the Earth, since you're assuming the normal vectors are parallel, when this is in dispute; you'll find if you make multiple simultaneous measurements, there is no way to simply move the Sun close to the Earth to solve the constraints. The only explanation is that the normal vectors are not parallel; making a few more adjustments, you find the stars very far away and the Sun is also very far away.
I'll do the math later; right now I'm busy, but if anyone wants some Sun/Moon angle data here is a calculator:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
Of course, with random sampling, you can verify that the calculated data line up with actual observations. Then from the calculated data you can do all of the nice parallax measurements.
Also, I suppose I erred in making this argument; I just realized that this requires that the distances between the observation points be known. However, FE believers don't agree with measured distances on the Earth.
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As explained many times before do the measurements from more than 2 locations. Why do you not understand this and do the experiment?
If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
Hang on. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim.
Yes. He claims that if a certain experiment is performed, it will give a certain result. His claim, his burden.
There is only one model of the earth so it is strange you are not interested in measurements to determine it. You agree that timeanddate.com is correct so what's the problem?
If you are so gung ho on this experiment, then perform it.
I don't know what your fascination with timeanddate.com is. We have discussed that calculator thoroughly here.
Tom, the experiment on the wiki is junk. I wish you'd put more effort into understanding the science that you love to trash and discredit. First, not enough precision is reported; parallax measurements require extremely precise techniques, down to fractions of a degree. You give figures measured to the nearest ten.
The wiki shows that we can use the same data that computed the sun to be millions of miles away, to be thousands of miles away. The data used is the same.
Second, you cannot use only two points if you dispute the curvature of the Earth, since you're assuming the normal vectors are parallel, when this is in dispute; you'll find if you make multiple simultaneous measurements, there is no way to simply move the Sun close to the Earth to solve the constraints.
If this is your claim, it is your burden.
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Please show us how the color of the stars tells us how far away they are.
it's not the color of a star or galaxy that tells us how far away it is. it's the position of missing wavelengths in a star/galaxy spectrum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u3rRy97m9Y
Notice the dark line that appears in the rainbow (spectrum) made by the prism when the light from the projector passes through the sodium vapor. these lines always appear in the same position on the spectrum for each element in the periodic table.
when we point our telescopes at stars/galaxies and pass their light through prisms, we can make similar spectra, and we notice the same dark lines at the same positions as those of laboratory spectra. this is how we know what those things are made of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrDZpnf1SEQ
finally, we notice that for some objects, all of their spectral lines are shifted and systematically appear at lower wavelengths. for lots of reasons, we can use that systematic shift to tell us how far away the object is.
i'm happy to go into more detail on any of this, just ask.
What controlled experiment backs up that assumption?
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What controlled experiment backs up that assumption?
can you be more specific? what assumption are you referring to?
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What controlled experiment backs up that assumption?
can you be more specific? what assumption are you referring to?
The assumption that shift in spectrum = lightyears away.
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What controlled experiment backs up that assumption?
can you be more specific? what assumption are you referring to?
The assumption that shift in spectrum = lightyears away.
oh word, i see what you mean now. legit question. we obviously can't run a tape measure out to a galaxy and check to see if we got the right answer. btw just to clarify, the shifted spectral lines do not themselves give you distance. they give you the velocity, and the velocity tells you something about the distance.
the first bit (that shifted spectral lines are a function of the velocity of the object) is verified every time a police officer writes a speeding ticket.
the second bit is more complicated, but the short version is basically this: we took spectroscopic measurements of basically every galaxy we could see and plotted the results. for example, hubble noted that fainter galaxies had systematically higher redshifts. then we compared that shit with other distance measurements and made a model.
these other distance measurements include way more than just parallax btw. the most common thing to do is find objects whose intrinsic brightness you know and record how bright it appears. this tells you how far away it is.
this one is particularly rad; they use light "echos" from supernovae to work out a distance geometrically: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005ASPC..343..452S
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done. All over the world there are equatorial sundials erected in steel, stone, concrete, and wood. These demonstrate the azimuth angle to the sun at not merely three cities but hundreds of cities, perhaps thousands, each at different latitudes.
Representing Steel is this stern piece from the socialistic era, at the Hungarian Geographic Museum in Érd, Hungary
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Equatorial_sundial.jpg)
Representing Stone is this five foot diameter granite specimen (http://sundials.org/index.php/component/sundials/oneDial/447) in Bloomington, MN, USA:
(http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/c58a3f4b-d8fa-4a80-affd-af36538d54ee.jpg)
Representing Concrete is the Larkin Memorial Sundial (http://sundials.org/index.php/component/sundials/oneDial/505) in Claremont, CA, USA. I particularly like this one for its inclusion of the analemma in the gnomon:
(http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/03dc046c-abfa-4482-af4d-82bd382311e9.jpg)
Representing Wood is the Equatorial sundial at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah (http://blog.adonline.id.au/blue-mountains-botanic-gardens/) in New South Wales, Australia:
(https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bb2966_a3d6a32c43c6490f9bfe57fdc31f61bb.jpg/v1/fill/w_1216,h_630,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/bb2966_a3d6a32c43c6490f9bfe57fdc31f61bb.jpg)
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
Again, timeanddate.com gives you data you can use. You agree it is correct for you location.
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The wiki shows that we can use the same data that computed the sun to be millions of miles away, to be thousands of miles away. The data used is the same.
Yes, that is another possible explanation - distant sun means pretty much parallel rays so for the shadows to be different the surface must be curved.
It is possible that IF the sun is much closer then the same effect could be seen on a flat surface, but the article your own Wiki links to concludes:
We conclude that the flat earth/near sun model does not work.
You are the one claiming that the alternative interpretation of the data is the correct one - contrary to basically everyone else in science.
So prove it. You can take some observations, do some triangulation.
You keep dodging this because at some level you know would happen.
And it's bit rich pretending to talk knowledgeably about shadows and how to interpret data from experiments on them when you have claimed that if I raise my hand above my head then because a distant lamp appears below my hand level the photons from that lamp are angled up towards it.
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
Again, timeanddate.com gives you data you can use. You agree it is correct for you location.
SunCalc.org also gives data.
TimeAndDate gives Sun altitude angle with one decimal, SunCalc with two decimals.
Both are correct for Clemmons, NC and for Belgrade, Serbia.
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Looks like inquisitive needs volunteers for "his" experiment.
Sun can be star or not, it is still "up there" (celestial body).
We can select two points to measure its height (h) above the ground.
If you need third point, find one at same longitude.
Here's the data, check everything out, be Zetetic (investigative), calculate yourself.
Correct my errors:
Using New Castle, PA, USA and Clemmons, NC, USA.
Both at longitude 80.3 degrees west.
(For example, your third point could be Miami, FL, USA. Find data and calculate.)
New Castle at 554.5 km from Clemmons (d), 4546.5 km from Equator (En).
New Castle Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 49.42 degrees (T1).
Clemmons at 3992 km from Equator (Ec).
Clemmons Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 54.40 degrees (T2).
For flat ground we have our measurement as follows:
From triangle New Castle - Clemmons - Sun : Sun height 3949 km.
h = d * tan(T1) * tan(T2) / (tan(T2) - tan(T1))
From right triangle New Castle - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5308 km.
h = En * tan(T1)
From right triangle Clemmons - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5494 km.
h = Ec * tan(T2)
~ 0 ~
Using formula from https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun), we have:
b = 554.5 km
theta1 = 90 - 54.4 = 35.6 degrees
theta2 = 49.42 degrees
b = h ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) )
h = b / ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) ) = 554.5 / (1.167 - 0.716) = 554.5 / 0.451
Sun height h = 1229.49 km.
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I should also point out that we can easily prove that the stars are much farther than the few thousand miles Tom puts them at. This is stupidly easy to see with a rudimentary knowledge of the Doppler effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_Doppler_effect One can easily see that the red-shifted galaxies must be moving away from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Now one might say, well speed is not the same thing as position. And I would respond that galaxies moving away from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light take only a few seconds to move many tens of thousands of miles; so if I weren't right a second ago, now I'm right.
Of course, Tom still hasn't taken my suggestion and at the very least tried to understand basic science. This is why he doesn't understand why his parallax experiment is junk (hint: your angle measurements are taken with respect to different reference normals -- since we don't know whether they are parallel or not, you need to take them at a lot of locations).
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I should also point out that we can easily prove that the stars are much farther than the few thousand miles Tom puts them at. This is stupidly easy to see with a rudimentary knowledge of the Doppler effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_Doppler_effect One can easily see that the red-shifted galaxies must be moving away from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Now one might say, well speed is not the same thing as position. And I would respond that galaxies moving away from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light take only a few seconds to move many tens of thousands of miles; so if I weren't right a second ago, now I'm right.
Of course, Tom still hasn't taken my suggestion and at the very least tried to understand basic science. This is why he doesn't understand why his parallax experiment is junk (hint: your angle measurements are taken with respect to different reference normals -- since we don't know whether they are parallel or not, you need to take them at a lot of locations).
Such proof could be "blurred" in the eyes of less educated readers.
Simple stuff explainable to everyone is better.
For example, lunar parallax can show distance to the Moon to be 380 000 km.
Sextant could be as low as $22 on eBay, and it is best affordable way to measure angles.
Cheapest models can measure angles with accuracy within 0.2 arcminute.
Find dark place without light pollution. Mark your latitude.
Wait till Moon is about 15 degrees before highest point (a bit to the left from due south).
Find star at its path, few degrees away, and measure angle to the Moon (not to the horizon).
(Hold sextant almost horizontally to align it with line connecting Moon and selected star.)
Wait EXACTLY two hours, for the Moon to move 30 degrees.
If you are at latitude of 45 degrees, it will actually be your movement by about 2350 km.
If you are at Equator, your movement will be about 3325 km.
(Or you can say sky moved for that much. In both cases it is relative movement between the two.)
Measure the angle between Moon and selected star and calculate difference.
If they are at same distance, angle will stay the same.
But if star is much farther than Moon, you will have change of the angle between them.
From latitude of 45 degrees you will have change of about 21 arcminutes (0.35 degrees).
Distance to the moon will be 2350 / tan(0.35) = 2350 / 0.006 = 384 695 km.
Ofcourse, it could be a bit more or less, because we could make an error in our readings.
If we measure 20 arcminutes we get distance to Moon of 404 000 km.
If we measure 22 arcminutes we get distance to Moon of 367 000 km.
But it would still be pretty far.
And it will show how much farther is the selected star.
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This is how to understand sextant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrrooquT6VI
NOTE: For error correction part, you have to adjust index arm to zero including micrometer.
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The wiki shows that we can use the same data that computed the sun to be millions of miles away, to be thousands of miles away. The data used is the same.
Yes, that is another possible explanation - distant sun means pretty much parallel rays so for the shadows to be different the surface must be curved.
It is possible that IF the sun is much closer then the same effect could be seen on a flat surface, but the article your own Wiki links to concludes:
We conclude that the flat earth/near sun model does not work.
You are the one claiming that the alternative interpretation of the data is the correct one - contrary to basically everyone else in science.
So prove it. You can take some observations, do some triangulation.
You keep dodging this because at some level you know would happen.
And it's bit rich pretending to talk knowledgeably about shadows and how to interpret data from experiments on them when you have claimed that if I raise my hand above my head then because a distant lamp appears below my hand level the photons from that lamp are angled up towards it.
Our wiki article on the sun's height specifically addresses that quote.
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
Again, timeanddate.com gives you data you can use. You agree it is correct for you location.
SunCalc.org also gives data.
TimeAndDate gives Sun altitude angle with one decimal, SunCalc with two decimals.
Both are correct for Clemmons, NC and for Belgrade, Serbia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks like inquisitive needs volunteers for "his" experiment.
Sun can be star or not, it is still "up there" (celestial body).
We can select two points to measure its height (h) above the ground.
If you need third point, find one at same longitude.
Here's the data, check everything out, be Zetetic (investigative), calculate yourself.
Correct my errors:
Using New Castle, PA, USA and Clemmons, NC, USA.
Both at longitude 80.3 degrees west.
(For example, your third point could be Miami, FL, USA. Find data and calculate.)
New Castle at 554.5 km from Clemmons (d), 4546.5 km from Equator (En).
New Castle Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 49.42 degrees (T1).
Clemmons at 3992 km from Equator (Ec).
Clemmons Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 54.40 degrees (T2).
For flat ground we have our measurement as follows:
From triangle New Castle - Clemmons - Sun : Sun height 3949 km.
h = d * tan(T1) * tan(T2) / (tan(T2) - tan(T1))
From right triangle New Castle - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5308 km.
h = En * tan(T1)
From right triangle Clemmons - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5494 km.
h = Ec * tan(T2)
~ 0 ~
Using formula from https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun), we have:
b = 554.5 km
theta1 = 90 - 54.4 = 35.6 degrees
theta2 = 49.42 degrees
b = h ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) )
h = b / ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) ) = 554.5 / (1.167 - 0.716) = 554.5 / 0.451
Sun height h = 1229.49 km.
That's nice, but thought experiments from some online calculators are not experiments.
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I should also point out that we can easily prove that the stars are much farther than the few thousand miles Tom puts them at. This is stupidly easy to see with a rudimentary knowledge of the Doppler effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_Doppler_effect One can easily see that the red-shifted galaxies must be moving away from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Now one might say, well speed is not the same thing as position. And I would respond that galaxies moving away from us at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light take only a few seconds to move many tens of thousands of miles; so if I weren't right a second ago, now I'm right.
Of course, Tom still hasn't taken my suggestion and at the very least tried to understand basic science. This is why he doesn't understand why his parallax experiment is junk (hint: your angle measurements are taken with respect to different reference normals -- since we don't know whether they are parallel or not, you need to take them at a lot of locations).
We know about that. You are going to have to prove that a certain color spectrum in a star can only mean that something is moving through space towards us at incredible speeds. Are there any controlled experiments on the stars you can refer to that specifically proves the theory of the Relativistic Doppler Effect (as opposed to the Doppler Effect) ?
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
Again, timeanddate.com gives you data you can use. You agree it is correct for you location.
SunCalc.org also gives data.
TimeAndDate gives Sun altitude angle with one decimal, SunCalc with two decimals.
Both are correct for Clemmons, NC and for Belgrade, Serbia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks like inquisitive needs volunteers for "his" experiment.
Sun can be star or not, it is still "up there" (celestial body).
We can select two points to measure its height (h) above the ground.
If you need third point, find one at same longitude.
Here's the data, check everything out, be Zetetic (investigative), calculate yourself.
Correct my errors:
Using New Castle, PA, USA and Clemmons, NC, USA.
Both at longitude 80.3 degrees west.
(For example, your third point could be Miami, FL, USA. Find data and calculate.)
New Castle at 554.5 km from Clemmons (d), 4546.5 km from Equator (En).
New Castle Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 49.42 degrees (T1).
Clemmons at 3992 km from Equator (Ec).
Clemmons Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 54.40 degrees (T2).
For flat ground we have our measurement as follows:
From triangle New Castle - Clemmons - Sun : Sun height 3949 km.
h = d * tan(T1) * tan(T2) / (tan(T2) - tan(T1))
From right triangle New Castle - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5308 km.
h = En * tan(T1)
From right triangle Clemmons - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5494 km.
h = Ec * tan(T2)
~ 0 ~
Using formula from https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun), we have:
b = 554.5 km
theta1 = 90 - 54.4 = 35.6 degrees
theta2 = 49.42 degrees
b = h ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) )
h = b / ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) ) = 554.5 / (1.167 - 0.716) = 554.5 / 0.451
Sun height h = 1229.49 km.
That's nice, but thought experiments from some online calculators are not experiments.
You have the data, please use it to determine the shape of the earth.
Unless you have a specific proposal for an experiment to determine the shape of the earth.
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You have the data, please use it to determine the shape of the earth.
Unless you have a specific proposal for an experiment to determine the shape of the earth.
How long have you been posting on this forum? You should know enough that your thought experiments aren't good enough evidence here.
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We know about that. You are going to have to prove that a certain color spectrum in a star can only mean that something is moving through space towards us at incredible speeds. Are there any controlled experiments on the stars you can refer to that specifically proves the theory of the Relativistic Doppler Effect (as opposed to the Doppler Effect) ?
again, it's not about color. it's about the position of missing wavelengths. also they aren't moving toward us; they're moving away.
also the effect of velocity on the position of absorption lines is well-documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ives%E2%80%93Stilwell_experiment
and i explained several other methods of verifying these predictions: looking at objects whose brightness you know and measuring how bright it appears; plotting velocity against brightness; comparing it to other distance measurements you know are well-calibrated; et cetera.
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You have the data, please use it to determine the shape of the earth.
Unless you have a specific proposal for an experiment to determine the shape of the earth.
How long have you been posting on this forum? You should know enough that your thought experiments aren't good enough evidence here.
Yet you refuse to give details of how you would verify the shape of the earth.
Measuring angles and distances and then doing the maths is not a 'thought' experiment.
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
What? It is embodied in the durable materials from which these monuments are constructed! They memorialize the angles to the equinox sun.
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Here are some references to experiments that confirmed predictions of special relativity pertaining to the relativistic Doppler effect:
The relativistic Doppler effect has “classical” and due to dilation of moving clock – “relativistic” components.
Transverse Doppler effect is purely relativistic effect and is in accordance with dilation of moving clock.
The Ives - Stilwell experiment tested the contribution of relativistic time dilation and was the first quantitative confirmation of time dilation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ives%E2%80%93Stilwell_experiment
Transverse Doppler Effect has also been confirmed by Mossbauer rotor experiment in centrifuge. In these experiments either absorber rotates around the source of radiation or vice versa.
Among notable experiments there are the following:
Kuendig, Hay at All, Champeney and Moon.
Hay H J, Schiffer J P, Cranshaw T E and Egelstaff P A 1960 Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 165-6
Kuendig, W. (1963). MEASUREMENT OF THE TRANSVERSE DOPPLER EFFECT IN AN ACCELERATED SYSTEM. Physical Review (U.S.) Superseded in Part by Phys. Rev.
In Champeney and Moon (1963) experiment a source and an absorber were placed on the opposite sides of the rim.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0370-1328/77/2/318/meta
Quite recently – Kholmetskii, Missevitch, Yarman https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1503/1503.05853.pdf
Related polemical articles:
Essen J 1964 Nature 202 787
Jennison R C 1964 Nature 203 395-6
E. Zanchini "Correct Interpretation of two experiments on the Transverse Doppler Shift". Phys. Scr. 86 (2012)
Essen L Bearing on the recent experiments on the special and general theories of relativity No 4934 Nature, May 23 1964
Essen L A time dilatation experiment based on the Mossbauer effect. Proc. Phys. Soc.vol.86 1965
Source: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/366957/are-there-experiments-that-measure-relativistic-doppler-effect/366974
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Actually, I asked for a controlled experiment showing that it happens in the stars. Here is the doppler shift effect in light:
(http://a-levelphysicstutor.com/images/waves/dopp-redshift02.jpg)
Since we can't put the stars in a laboratory to study their nature, how do we know that the natural color of the stars is always white and never simply slightly blue or red?
The stars can appear to be slightly red, orange, yellow, blue, among other colors. How can you show that it is not because they are naturally so?
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With respect, the level of ignorance in that post is pretty spectacular.
The way this works is that certain elements have distinctive "signatures".
The Doppler effect shifts those signatures which shows they are moving, just as the pitch of a siren indicates that an emergency vehicle is moving and whether it's higher or lower than its pitch at rest indicates whether it is moving towards you or away.
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Actually, I asked for a controlled experiment showing that it happens in the stars. Here is the doppler shift effect in light:
(http://a-levelphysicstutor.com/images/waves/dopp-redshift02.jpg)
Since we can't put the stars in a laboratory to study their nature, how do we know that the natural color of the stars is always white and never simply slightly blue or red?
The stars can appear to be slightly red, orange, yellow, blue, among other colors. How can you show that it is not because they are naturally so?
You asked for experiments that show that Doppler effect can show that stars are light years away. These do that. Are you claiming that the photons in stars are different than photons elsewhere?
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Actually, I asked for a controlled experiment showing that it happens in the stars. Here is the doppler shift effect in light:
(http://a-levelphysicstutor.com/images/waves/dopp-redshift02.jpg)
Since we can't put the stars in a laboratory to study their nature, how do we know that the natural color of the stars is always white and never simply slightly blue or red?
The stars can appear to be slightly red, orange, yellow, blue, among other colors. How can you show that it is not because they are naturally so?
to clarify again, it's not that we look at the star/galaxy and say "it looks red and not white, so it must be moving away from us." it's about the position of the absorption lines on the spectrum when we pass the light from that object through a prism. check out the first video i posted again. that dark line that shows up will always appear on the same place in the spectrum. if you pass light from any object through a prism, and you see that dark line, then you know the light passed through some sodium.
that said, i think the question you're getting at is something like "how do we know that those shifted absorption lines have anything to do with velocity? how do we know they aren't just a natural feature of the stars?"
the answer to that question is: laboratory experiments. shitloads of them. we've carefully measured the absorption features of all the elements. we've carefully measured the effects of velocity and doppler shifts (see rama's post and/or the sitwell experiments i posted). we did all of this in laboratory settings and simply compared these empirical results to the light we get from stars/galaxies.
i suppose you could argue that stars/galaxies are not made of atoms/elements, but that's pure solipsism.
on a side note, your questions about star color are really good ones. it's a different matter, but it's a fascinating one.
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If you are claiming that a specific observation that favors your model of the earth will be seen if some specific experiment is performed simultaneously from three different location on earth, it is your responsibility to organize that experiment. Why would you expect me to do your work for you? Are you funding me?
It has been done.
If this study has been done, where is it?
Again, timeanddate.com gives you data you can use. You agree it is correct for you location.
SunCalc.org also gives data.
TimeAndDate gives Sun altitude angle with one decimal, SunCalc with two decimals.
Both are correct for Clemmons, NC and for Belgrade, Serbia.
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Looks like inquisitive needs volunteers for "his" experiment.
Sun can be star or not, it is still "up there" (celestial body).
We can select two points to measure its height (h) above the ground.
If you need third point, find one at same longitude.
Here's the data, check everything out, be Zetetic (investigative), calculate yourself.
Correct my errors:
Using New Castle, PA, USA and Clemmons, NC, USA.
Both at longitude 80.3 degrees west.
(For example, your third point could be Miami, FL, USA. Find data and calculate.)
New Castle at 554.5 km from Clemmons (d), 4546.5 km from Equator (En).
New Castle Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 49.42 degrees (T1).
Clemmons at 3992 km from Equator (Ec).
Clemmons Equinox (Mar 21) solar noon Sun altitude: 54.40 degrees (T2).
For flat ground we have our measurement as follows:
From triangle New Castle - Clemmons - Sun : Sun height 3949 km.
h = d * tan(T1) * tan(T2) / (tan(T2) - tan(T1))
From right triangle New Castle - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5308 km.
h = En * tan(T1)
From right triangle Clemmons - Equator - Sun : Sun height 5494 km.
h = Ec * tan(T2)
~ 0 ~
Using formula from https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun (https://wiki.tfes.org/Distance_to_the_Sun), we have:
b = 554.5 km
theta1 = 90 - 54.4 = 35.6 degrees
theta2 = 49.42 degrees
b = h ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) )
h = b / ( tan(theta2) - tan(theta1) ) = 554.5 / (1.167 - 0.716) = 554.5 / 0.451
Sun height h = 1229.49 km.
That's nice, but thought experiments from some online calculators are not experiments.
Procedure used to verify those online calculators, using real life data, I already described in two posts here:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8574.0 (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8574.0).
You are free to dispute the accuracy of those calculators with as many data as you want.
Bear in mind that virtually anyone can test data that any of us provide, you or me the same.
You are also free to dispute any formula that I used.
They are simple, if they are wrong it is easy to show them wrong.
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controlled experiment
so i promise i'll stop pestering this thread after this post, but i have one more genuine confusion.
you make this request for "controlled experiments" multiple times in this thread; but, your "notes on empiricism" does not at all make clear that this is the only path to knowledge.
some quotes:
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
...
[We are] concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation.
...
Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.
...
What we see and experience of the world is the extent of our total knowledge. In order for an alternative explanation to have merit, it must be observed or experienced, and it is hard to argue against that.
you're clearly trying to imply in this thread that we cannot learn anything about stars since we cannot bring them to earth. but your own standard for an empirical statement does not include this ridiculous criterion.
so i guess what i'm asking is: is a "controlled" experiment the only path to knowledge? why do the observations we've all presented in this thread not count as "empirical evidence from observation and experiment?"
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controlled experiment
so i promise i'll stop pestering this thread after this post, but i have one more genuine confusion.
you make this request for "controlled experiments" multiple times in this thread; but, your "notes on empiricism" does not at all make clear that this is the only path to knowledge.
some quotes:
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
...
[We are] concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation.
...
Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.
...
What we see and experience of the world is the extent of our total knowledge. In order for an alternative explanation to have merit, it must be observed or experienced, and it is hard to argue against that.
you're clearly trying to imply in this thread that we cannot learn anything about stars since we cannot bring them to earth. but your own standard for an empirical statement does not include this ridiculous criterion.
so i guess what i'm asking is: is a "controlled" experiment the only path to knowledge? why do the observations we've all presented in this thread not count as "empirical evidence from observation and experiment?"
Well, you didn't observe that stars that are moving towards you are blue and that stars that are moving away from you are red. A controlled experiment with the stars would provide that observation.
Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
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controlled experiment
so i promise i'll stop pestering this thread after this post, but i have one more genuine confusion.
you make this request for "controlled experiments" multiple times in this thread; but, your "notes on empiricism" does not at all make clear that this is the only path to knowledge.
some quotes:
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
...
[We are] concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation.
...
Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.
...
What we see and experience of the world is the extent of our total knowledge. In order for an alternative explanation to have merit, it must be observed or experienced, and it is hard to argue against that.
you're clearly trying to imply in this thread that we cannot learn anything about stars since we cannot bring them to earth. but your own standard for an empirical statement does not include this ridiculous criterion.
so i guess what i'm asking is: is a "controlled" experiment the only path to knowledge? why do the observations we've all presented in this thread not count as "empirical evidence from observation and experiment?"
Well, you didn't observe that stars that are moving towards you are blue and that stars that are moving away from you are red. A controlled experiment with the stars would provide that observation.
Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Please provide the detail of a controlled experiment.
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Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Why do you keep ignoring what people are trying to explain to you?
If you know the pitch of an emergency vehicle siren at rest and you hear one where the pitch is higher than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle is moving towards you. If the pitch is lower than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle of moving away from you.
Doppler shift is proven every time a moving object which is making a sound goes past you, the reasons for it are well known.
That is basically what is going on here. Scientists are NOT saying "Hey, that star looks a bit red, it must be moving away from us".
What they are doing is doing spectroscopy and noticing that the absorption lines - the positions of which are known, analogous to the pitch of the siren at rest - are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. That shows Doppler shift and that shows movement.
The science between all this is well understood and proven.
You not understanding it, as you have repeatedly shown you don't, is not a counter argument.
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Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Why do you keep ignoring what people are trying to explain to you?
If you know the pitch of an emergency vehicle siren at rest and you hear one where the pitch is higher than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle is moving towards you. If the pitch is lower than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle of moving away from you.
Doppler shift is proven every time a moving object which is making a sound goes past you, the reasons for it are well known.
That is basically what is going on here. Scientists are NOT saying "Hey, that star looks a bit red, it must be moving away from us".
What they are doing is doing spectroscopy and noticing that the absorption lines - the positions of which are known, analogous to the pitch of the siren at rest - are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. That shows Doppler shift and that shows movement.
The science between all this is well understood and proven.
You not understanding it, as you have repeatedly shown you don't, is not a counter argument.
If you were to hear a single high pitch sound, it is not possible from that alone to know whether it is a doppler effect or simply a high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Hearing a whole variety of sounds, without knowledge of their ranges, and that is assuming that there are ranges, does not tell us whether it is normal for all of those sounds to be that way, or whether it is one sound that is put under different conditions.
Similarly, since the stars cannot be put under controlled conditions, any "normal" cannot be determined.
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Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Why do you keep ignoring what people are trying to explain to you?
If you know the pitch of an emergency vehicle siren at rest and you hear one where the pitch is higher than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle is moving towards you. If the pitch is lower than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle of moving away from you.
Doppler shift is proven every time a moving object which is making a sound goes past you, the reasons for it are well known.
That is basically what is going on here. Scientists are NOT saying "Hey, that star looks a bit red, it must be moving away from us".
What they are doing is doing spectroscopy and noticing that the absorption lines - the positions of which are known, analogous to the pitch of the siren at rest - are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. That shows Doppler shift and that shows movement.
The science between all this is well understood and proven.
You not understanding it, as you have repeatedly shown you don't, is not a counter argument.
If you hear a high pitch sound it is not possiblr to know whether it is a doppler effect or simply a high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Since the stars cannot be put under controlled conditions, any "normal" cannot be determined.
So you question science? Why not join an appropriate forum to question this and then come back and tell us what they all say.
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So you question science? Why not join an appropriate forum to question this and then come back and tell us what they all say.
This is the appropriate forum, and it is your responsibility to make your defense.
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If you were to hear a single high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Correct. So the question is do we know what the "sound" is at rest?
And the answer is yes. Because scientists are not just saying "hey, this star looks a bit red". They are doing spectroscopy and looking at absorption lines which match the signature of certain elements. The lines of various elements are known to be always at the same part of the spectrum when at rest. If you see that same pattern of lines shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then either:
1) The source of that light is moving and it's Doppler shift or
2) The pattern is from some new element whose signature exactly matches that of a known element but the new element's signature is slightly shifted. It's an element we have never observed before.
1 is the only reasonable explanation.
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If you were to hear a single high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Correct. So the question is do we know what the "sound" is at rest?
And the answer is yes. Because scientists are not just saying "hey, this star looks a bit red". They are doing spectroscopy and looking at absorption lines which match the signature of certain elements. The lines of various elements are known to be always at the same part of the spectrum when at rest. If you see that same pattern of lines shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then either:
1) The source of that light is moving and it's Doppler shift or
2) The pattern is from some new element whose signature exactly matches that of a known element but the new element's signature is slightly shifted. It's an element we have never observed before.
1 is the only reasonable explanation.
I do think it is a simple matter of whether the star is blue or red, just like the doppler shift of sound is a simple mater of the pitch is high or low, and believe that you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. I will come back to this later.
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Well, you didn't observe that stars that are moving towards you are blue and that stars that are moving away from you are red.
you're still hung up on two key misunderstandings. 1) we're not observing the color of stars and galaxies; we're observing missing wavelengths of light in a spectrum. 2) this isn't a theory of starlight, it's empirically how light and matter work in general, as measured in careful laboratory experiments.
these points are key for two reasons: 1) this measuring the missing wavelengths in laboratories is how we know the baseline, and 2) these observations are meaningful so long as stars and galaxies are made of elements, and denying that they are made of elements would be absurdly rationalist.
If you were to hear a single high pitch sound, it is not possible from that alone to know whether it is a doppler effect or simply a high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Hearing a whole variety of sounds, without knowledge of their ranges, and that is assuming that there are ranges, does not tell us whether it is normal for all of those sounds to be that way, or whether it is one sound that is put under different conditions.
the first bit is totally correct, but the second bit is not. no one is assuming anything. the baseline has been verified in laboratory experiments (see: the sodium video), and relativistic doppler effects have, too (see: ives-sitwell).
let's explore the siren analogy. suppose garyetta is a scientist who wants to better understand emergency sirens; but, for whatever reason, she's never allowed to touch one. she can never bring a siren in her lab and take it apart. she can only record the siren sounds as she's out and about in the city or whatever.
so garyetta does some experiments on the materials she thinks sirens are probably made of, and she makes a discovery: every kind of material (wood, metals, ceramics, alloys, plastics, etc.), no matter how you make sound with it, is always missing certain frequencies of sound depending on the material. for example, she strikes a brass bell, makes a spectrogram of the sound, and notices that some wavelengths are always missing. crucially, each kind of material has its own unique missing wavelengths.
now she goes outside and makes spectrograms of the siren noises she hears. she can look at her spectrogram and determine exactly what kind of material the siren uses to make its sound.
you can see how the rest goes from here. she notices that sometimes all the missing wavelengths are systematically shifted up or down the spectrum. so she goes and learns about doppler effects and studies them in her lab and works out the relationship between velocity and the systematic shifts in the lines.
finally, she can record the siren noises and know exactly how they're moving relative to her just by looking at the positions of the missing wavelengths on her spectrogram. she doesn't have to know the intrinsic "loudness" of the sirens, just as astronomers don't need to know the intrinsic color of the stars. she's using a different metric altogether. you think this is nonsense just because she never brought a siren into her lab?
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I do think it is a simple matter of whether the star is blue or red, just like the doppler shift of sound is a simple mater of the pitch is high or low, and believe that you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. I will come back to this later.
You know what this means? This means that you think you know more about spectral analysis than all of us, even though your lack of understanding of mainstream physics has been demonstrated elsewhere (see the rockets don't work in space thread). You're completely wrong.
Well, Tom, if you're just going to assert that without actually trying to understand the science, then I encourage everyone here just to give up. Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it true; this is not how scientists figure out stuff is blue-shifted. I don't know what else to say. We can't debate someone who relies on proof by completely unfounded assertion.
This will be the third time that I encourage you to take an AP Physics test. In this case, it is AP Physics 2, as you clearly don't even have a modicum of understanding of what absorption lines are and how we know what they are. As I said before, there's no shame in not understanding what absorption lines are and why they happen, but just plainly saying that the spectral analysis is based on the color of the star is just like saying doctors heal patients by giving them garlic -- no matter how much you assert it, it's not true, and demonstrably not so.
I deeply encourage you to throw out all of your preconceptions of the world and at least just try to understand physics on a basic level, starting with AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2, which are introductory algebra-based physics (no calculus involved!). Otherwise you can sit here and spout as much wrong science as you want, and everyone who knows physics on a basic level can laugh at you. Now I will explain the absorption lines, even though you should've done this research before coming here and ignorantly and stubbornly asserting demonstrably wrong stuff. This is in addition to your completely ignoring the parallax argument, which completely eviscerated your assertions; you, however, have refused to address the issue of multiple measurements after the calculations have been done for you. You should easily note that you are unable to perform any complex calculations because you don't have a deep understanding of physics. I'm a new subscriber to the idea of the "credit score" in the debates, although in modified form. I think you should see who's putting up all of the mathematical calculations and who's just tossing them out with a few words of pseudoscientific drivel.
Now for the useless explanation, as the education issue is far deeper than this one misconception in physics:
To understand absorption lines, you must first understand what a potential field is. A potential field arises from an object (for electric potential, an electric charge, for gravitational potential, a massive object) that exerts forces over a distance on other objects. I'll use a static electric potential field for the sake of explanation because it involves units you've heard of before.
Let's call E(x) the value of the potential field (in J / C = V) at the 3D point x. Then for a small test charge q (that exists at a single point), the amount of work that the electric force does on q from point x_1 to point x_2 is approximately q(E(x_1) - E(x_2)). So if the voltage between the hot and neutral pins in my wall outlet is 156 V, then for every coulomb (1 amp x 1 second) of charge that flows through the device I've plugged in, I get 156 joules of energy. For every electron I pass through that potential difference, the device gets 156 eV. By the way, potential functions exist only for conservative force fields, where the curl is 0, since the work is the line integral of the force field on a given path and the potential difference should be path-independent.
Now that you hopefully understand potential fields, it's easy to see that each atom nucleus also generates an electric potential field. Therefore, the electrons around the nucleus and the nucleus have potential energy between them (potential energy exists only in systems of objects). Of course, this is where the "small test charge" assumption fails a bit, as the other electrons mess around with the potential field (since they're charged particles), and the whole thing becomes super-hard to calculate. Fortunately, hydrogen only has one electron. Now, energy is quantized at these scales; an electron can only be in one of several energy levels (i.e. places in the potential field; see http://astro.unl.edu/naap/hydrogen/transitions.html for hydrogen). Bohr explained this with quantized angular momentum as a result of the requirement of the orbit size to be a multiple of the electron's de Broglie wavelength, but that's been superseded by quantum mechanics. You can calculate these energy levels with Rydberg's formula or just look them up. Only incoming radiation with quantized energy (photons) that corresponds exactly to a difference in energy levels can be absorbed (apply conservation of energy + quantization of energy) or emitted. Because stars emit mostly black-body radiation, the surfaces of the stars will absorb the frequencies of light corresponding to the energy level differences (E = hf). These energy level differences, then, create "gaps" in the normal black-body spectrum that are seen as black lines on the spectrum. These are called absorption lines. We can also support this explanation of absorption lines with experiments showing that the emission lines (using high voltage to excite the atoms) of hydrogen fall right on where the absorption lines are... do you see how nice physics is when you're right?
Since these "gaps" depend only on the elemental composition of the stars (i.e. hydrogen, unless you want to deny that to patch up your hypothesis), we know exactly where they must be on the spectrum. If they're shifted back, we can conclude that Doppler shifting is responsible. So, no, your junk idea of not knowing what the starting pitch of the sound is can be thrown where it belongs: the garbage.
(https://www.buzzle.com/images/diagrams/hydrogen-spectrum.jpg)
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The red shift and blue shift of a substance's spectral lines isn't something that only happens with high velocities. It also happens in chemistry. Look into Bathochromic Shift and Hyposchromatic Shift. The spectral lines of a substance can shift left or right along the color spectrum for a variety of chemical reasons.
http://photonicswiki.org/index.php?title=Changes_in_Absorption_Spectra
Terminology for absorption shifts
Bathochromic, Hypsochromic, Hyperchromic, Hypochromic shifts summarized
Changes in chemical structure or the environment lead to changes in the absorption spectrum of molecules and materials. There are several terms that are commonly used to describe these shifts, that you will see in the literature, and with which you should be familiar.
Bathochromic: a shift of a band to lower energy or longer wavelength (often called a red shift).
Hypsochromic: a shift of a band to higher energy or shorter wavelength (often called a blue shift).
Hyperchromic: an increase in the molar absorptivity.
Hypochromic: an decrease in the molar absorptivity.
Solvatochromism
Negative and positive solvatochromism
If as substance shifts to a lower energy state with a longer wavelength, it is referred to as a Bathochromic shift or (also called) red shift. The color will move more toward the red. Conversely, something that moves to higher energy will be referred to as a hypsochromic shift. If there is an increase in the absorptivity or cause the spectrum to become more intense, it will be referred to as a hyperchromic shift. But a decrease is referred to as a hypochromic shift. There is a variety of factors that can cause these changes. One of the factors is found in a process known as solvatochromism. This explains why certain molecules can, in a profound way, look very different in terms of their color depending on whether the molecules are in a polar or non-polar solvent.
Solvatochromism is the property of a molecule changing its color as a function of the solvent polarity. But it is actually more complex than that. It can be related to the solvent polarizability as well. Basically it is the change in the color of a material, or change in the spectrum, as a function of the dielectric properties of the solvent. The dielectric properties of the solvent have polarizability and polarity built into them. Therefore, if molecules go from a less polar solvent to a more polar solvent and a red shift or a bathochromic shift occurs, then the substance is referred to as being positively solvatochromic. Conversely if you put molecules into a more polar solvent and a blue shift occurs, i.e. higher energy, the molecules are referred to as being negatively solvatochromic.
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Tom, I don't appreciate your pretending to be knowledgeable on this subject and then spouting utter garbage. As I've said before, you should really take an AP Physics test to see how well you do, as an exercise in personal reflection. Why you won't do this is beyond me. You first argued that scientists didn't use the absorption spectra, instead looking at the color of the stars. After I demonstrated this to be patently false, you now argue that the shift could be due to other things, giving an almost completely irrelevant phenomenon to support your hypothesis. You're on a Gish Gallop here; your second completely-imagined hypothesis (where's the Zetetic empirical evidence???? you definitely just made this one up) also makes absolutely no physical sense.
Pasting a wiki article that you don't even understand does not count as refuting the argument I've made. It also shows your ignorance on the subject. You affect a working and sophisticated understanding of the physics involved while simultaneously making the most fundamental of mistakes. You clearly didn't take any time to read my post or understand it, so why should I even bother responding to you? Oh wait... there are a lot of other people who might actually be misled by your machinations. Can you at least, for once, stop pretending to know all sorts of science and focus in on what you know best? I don't go around these forums talking about my "expertise" in navigation or star-reading... I don't even talk about rocket science beyond the fact that they work in space. Yet you feel like you know so much about physics that you can just paste some random wiki article that appears (to you at least) to support your hypothesis? It's irrelevant.
1. You're entirely clueless on what bathochromic and hypsochromic shifts are, beyond the cursory understanding that they involve shifts in absorption spectra. Let me help you out with this one: they involve shifts of the absorption spectra of molecules under chemical change. Are you going to be so ignorant as to suggest that different stars are made of things significantly different than H2 molecules (or just H atoms depending on where in the star you are)?
2. Molecules don't even exist beyond the surface layers of the stars... it's too hot. Even at the surface layers, pretty much all complex molecules have decomposed into elemental molecules because it's so hot.
3. Spectrum shifts caused by molecular changes would not leave the spectrum gaps in their original spacing. Effectively, the chemical changes change the potential function (which varies with time with multiple electrons) within the atom, as the electrons move to different orbitals depending on the change in chemical structure. Doppler shift would leave the spacing intact.
4. You're literally talking about chemical changes in the hellishly hot atmosphere of a star, in which most chemicals can't even exist.
5. You probably didn't even know that the wiki article you were on referred to chemical changes.
6. Hydrogen doesn't exhibit bathochromic or hypsochromic shifts when it's on its own... the emission spectra have been measured in labs everywhere and it's exactly the same.
Tom, maybe instead of just immediately trying to cough up proof that we're wrong based on a deeply flawed understanding of physics, at least ask for an explanation of things that you don't quite understand. It's fine to not understand some of the arguments being made; I'll admit firsthand that I don't for anything that involves cartography or stars or navigation, and I'm fairly geometrically impaired. How much would you laugh at me if I decided to put up 1 or 2 sentence "refutations" of something I was clueless on?
It's really rich that people like Pete Svarrior try to tell me and other Round Earth people that we have a lot of misconceptions of Flat Earth (and why shouldn't we? By your own admissions, the resources on it are much more limited than those for Round Earth), while you don't even understand the very basics of physics. And then you attempt to dismiss it all as wrong... what happened to the empirical basis of Zeteticism?
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Followed your link, Tom. That was interesting, thank you. I did wonder why you suggest that the behavior of molecules in a solvent is at all applicable to stars? Anyway, I then did some more reading. Wikipedia has this relevant point:
Bathochromic shift is a phenomenon seen in molecular spectra, not atomic spectra
That means the mechanisms you suggest as substitute explanations of spectral shift are not applicable here, as we are talking about atomic spectra.
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Followed your link, Tom. That was interesting, thank you. I did wonder why you suggest that the behavior of molecules in a solvent is at all applicable to stars? Anyway, I then did some more reading. Wikipedia has this relevant point:
Bathochromic shift is a phenomenon seen in molecular spectra, not atomic spectra
That means the mechanisms you suggest as substitute explanations of spectral shift are not applicable here, as we are talking about atomic spectra.
Eh. We can't assert that we're talking about atomic spectra unless we ascertain that stars are pretty much only made up of elemental molecules and free-floating atoms (which they are). After all, the measured spectra "could be" a result of molecular spectra if we knew that stars contained such complex molecules capable of such things... Of course, I've pointed out in my previous post that this hypothesis is trash.
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Your current fundamental misunderstanding is that you think atoms and molecules are the same thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathochromic_shift
Bathochromic shift is a phenomenon seen in molecular spectra, not atomic spectra;
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dudes it actually doesn't matter if there are molecules in the photosphere or not (there are). y'all are focusing on the wrong details.
The red shift and blue shift of a substance's spectral lines isn't something that only happens with high velocities. It also happens in chemistry. Look into Bathochromic Shift and Hyposchromatic Shift. The spectral lines of a substance can shift left or right along the color spectrum for a variety of chemical reasons.
that's kinda neat tbh. it doesn't do anything to negate the usefulness of absorption lines, though. if you shine light through a gas of atoms and molecules, the molecular absorption lines exist alongside the atomic lines. even if there are molecules in stars with these chemically shifted absorption lines (there are), these effects won't affect the atomic lines, and your own lit says that these effects only happen for molecules.
also your literature indicates that these effects only occur under a very specific set of circumstances involving chemicals suspended in solvents. but we already know that those solvents are not present in stars. that's the cool thing about spectra; we can know what the sun is made of by looking at the absorption lines. every element (and molecule) has a unique set.
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So you question science? Why not join an appropriate forum to question this and then come back and tell us what they all say.
This is the appropriate forum, and it is your responsibility to make your defense.
Defense of what, anything you say without any proof? It is for you to fully explain your claims. In particular with detais of recent experiments, if these are not available then they are just your thoughts.
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If you were to hear a single high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Correct. So the question is do we know what the "sound" is at rest?
And the answer is yes. Because scientists are not just saying "hey, this star looks a bit red". They are doing spectroscopy and looking at absorption lines which match the signature of certain elements. The lines of various elements are known to be always at the same part of the spectrum when at rest. If you see that same pattern of lines shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then either:
1) The source of that light is moving and it's Doppler shift or
2) The pattern is from some new element whose signature exactly matches that of a known element but the new element's signature is slightly shifted. It's an element we have never observed before.
1 is the only reasonable explanation.
I do think it is a simple matter of whether the star is blue or red, just like the doppler shift of sound is a simple mater of the pitch is high or low, and believe that you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. I will come back to this later.
Tom, one thing I would like to point out is that we don't have to do this on far away stars and galaxies. We can detect the doppler shift caused by the Sun's rotation. (one side is moving towards us, the other away) From your comments, it is pretty clear you don't understand this concept. I don't fault you for trying to engage, it is appreciated, but you may want to do some reading first.