Celebrating Equinox
« on: March 18, 2019, 02:04:19 AM »
Well, just a few day until we celebrate the spring equinox as we do every year.

I like to start with three important observations for this day (everything I say holds approximately true for days around it). Firstly, everybody on earth experiences 12 hour day-light time, please check it out wherever you live. Secondly, for everybody the sun rises exactly in the east and settles exactly in the west whether you live in northern Canada or southern Australia. Thirdly, people who are living anywhere on the equator, i.e on a circle centered on the north pole with a radius of about 11 thousand miles, the sun rises in the morning vertically upwards in the east, crosses the sky in a straight line being exactly over head at high noon and going straight back down in the west. So much for what is completely verifiable and has been observed for thousands of human generations.

A first conclusion we can draw, adhering to FE thinking, goes along the following lines :  For every minute of the day there is somebody on the equator for whom it is high-noon with the sun overhead. Therefore the sun must be traveling at this time of the year exactly above the equator, i.e. on a circle centered above the north pole with a radius again of 11 thousand miles.

But now some problems arise and they are begging for explanations for those of curious mind.

Imagine that you are one of those people living on the equator and it is high-noon with the sun over head. You observed the sun rose some 6 hours earlier directly in the east. But where was the sun 6 hour earlier according to FET ? Well, in the previous 6 hours the sun had traveled a quarter along its circle and was above a point which from your point of view is exactly in the north-east meaning 45 degree off from your own observation.

Not only that, the point above which the sun was 6 hours earlier is some 15,500 miles away from you ( just some trigonometry needed to get that number) and the sun - according to FET - some 3000 miles above the surface of the earth which makes the angle between the horizontal and a line to the sun some 11.3 degrees at time of sun rise. 

Finally, at sun rise the distance between you and the sun was 15,500 miles horizontally and 3000 miles upwards for a total distance 15800 miles at distance which shrinks to 3000 miles 6 hours later at high-noon. Shouldn't the sun's diameter appear to be over 5 times smaller at sun rise than at noon ?

Lastly, looking now at the situation at sun-set. Again, for the elevation above the horizontal and size of sun observation and FET show the same discrepancy. Same for the 45 degree mismatch in direction with one difference. When you look east in the morning at sun rise FET says the sun is actually 45 degrees off to your left, while when you look at the sun setting in the evening FET puts it 45 degrees to your right ( North-West ).

Before closing a short comment on refraction : of course, it does exist and luckily for those of us who wear glasses or contact lenses that part of science is very well established (Snell's law). Fraction for light coming from the sun through vacuum (index of refraction 1.0000) into the atmosphere ( 1.0003 ) and falling into your eyes make the sun appear a tiny bit higher than it actually is. The effect though is totally negligible even when it is at its largest, namely at sun rise and sun set, not even coming close to 11.3 degrees. Furthermore, because the atmospheric layer is as flat as the surface of the earth underneath, there is no - meaning none - side wise refraction. If you see the sun exactly in the east it is exactly in the east. I bet my glasses, the camera of my cell phone, the rear-facing camera of my car, and my microscope on it.   

Re: Celebrating Equinox
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2019, 02:39:07 PM »
Thank you for clarifying how the equinox works, this explanation is also easily justified from outside of the earth when you are in space, but here is a question you might find tickles the brain. If we stood in the very center of the earth and could see through the earth to look at the sun during this equinox what would you see?

Re: Celebrating Equinox
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2019, 03:06:50 PM »
According to RET at any given point in time exactly half of the earth receives sun light, the other half is in the dark like a ball a bit away from a light source. Our atmosphere washes things out a little bit though during the time of dawn and dusk. If you are at the center of the round, transparent earth you can see the sun all day long provided you slowly turn around to compensate for the rotation of earth around its axis.

I am not an expert on FET and I am not sure which point inside earth you would address as the center.  Apart from that, the discussion of night time under FET seems to me very fuzzy. If the sun moves about on its circle some 3000 miles above earth shouldn't you see it 24 hours a day. And if not, who installed the mechanism which blocks out the sun for us at night time and directs it, like the head lights of a car, only to certain parts of the flat disk. With a telescope I can see a lot of details on the sun's surface but nothing like that.