I may have mentioned this a while back, but a recent conversation with my freind revealed he had put some of his papers online and put a video up explaining his theory. People are welcome to view it and come to their own conclusions.
The question is can anyone disprove his theory and/or find a fault in his math.
Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFlzzm_sE3Y approx 8 minutes
Papers here: http://www.alansthoughts.com/2.html
This seems to be relevant to what I was asking here. Somehow.
It is not his math that I find fault with. I find it hard to take seriously any scientist who has such poor spelling. Sorry.
Just throwing a quick glance at the first of his papers, it seems that all he’s doing is decomposing the angle between the normal of the ecliptic and the rotational axis of the sun (the well-known 23.5°) into one between the normal plane of the sun’s direction of motion and the ecliptic, and one between the earth’s rotational axis and the normal plane of the sun’s motion, which he’s perfectly well allowed to do, but doesn’t really yield any new insights, since those two angles always add to the familiar 23.5° (though he seems for some reason to claim otherwise).
[QUOTE=Half Man Half Wit;10674612since those two angles always add to the familiar 23.5° [/QUOTE]
…subject to precession, of course.
Basically he is describing the motion of the earth and sun relative to the center of the galaxy.
I don’t think it is a matter of right or wrong but just a matter of perspective which you decide to use as a frame of reference. Much like the earth centered solar system I suspect the galactic centered solar system adds unneeded complexity when dealing with things within the solar system.
The only catch with a sun centered system would be that the sun is a non-inertial frame of reference, so the sun centered system has a fictitious force from its moving around the galaxy. It seems to me that the force of gravity from the galaxy would more or less cancel it out and leave the sun as an almost good as inertial frame.
It seems to me the bug up his behind is definitional and not observational. He hasn’t found any new discovery. He’s redefined what the “reference plane” should be and wants to argue that because this changes the way one would define the obliquity of the ecliptic, “science is wrong” and “can’t understand it.” And all because of past scientific ignorance regarding a paradigm built around a geocentric universe.
I can see some poor guy at MIT (apparently his reference standard) listening patiently, finally patting Alan on the head figuratively and reassuring him he’s right. And off goes Mr Quixote to announce his new “discovery” to the world: if you define a different reference plane the obliquity of the angle to it changes.
I think a reference plane which ignores the sun’s motion around the galaxy and stays fundamentally heliocentric is the clearest one for describing our particular solar system. If we start redefining reference planes relative to the galaxy center, why not relative to our galaxy’s motion in the local group…and on and on…but I’d pat him on the head and let him go on his way creating posters also, rather than tie up hours arguing why his new definition is not a new discovery.
I did a quick and dirty sketch of what I think he’s doing:
In I.), we have the situation as most astronomers would regard it: The blue line represents the ecliptic, i.e. the plane that contains both the centres of the sun and the earth, or the plane on which the earth orbits the sun; the red line is the rotational axis of the earth; α is the axial tilt of 23.5°.
In II.), the black line is the plane perpendicular to the sun’s movement (represented by the black arrow) that goes through its centre, what he calls his ‘reference plane’, the blue line again the ecliptic, and the red line again earth’s rotational axis; β is the angle between the ecliptic and the reference plane (what he calls the Zale angle), and γ is what he calls the ‘tip angle’, as he describes it: “The TA is formed by the north-south axis of the earth and a line through the center of the earth in a direction that the earth is moving which is parallel to the direction the sun is moving.” Now, with a little bit of geometry, it is rather easy to see that for the triangle formed by the reference plane, the rotational axis of the earth, and the normal of the ecliptic (black line), we get: α + (90° - β) + (90° - γ) = 180°, which simplifies to α = β + γ, so there’s not really anything new in what he’s doing.
He is a graduate of MIT and has many conversations regarding this with the faculty there. That is why it is mentioned as it is.
If it was acknowledged that 2 angles add up to 25.5 degrees it would not be anything new but nowhere else can you find that information. If it was already known you’d think you could find that information elsewhere. Instead the scientific standard is maintained that the earth maintains exactly the same plane with the center of the sun as we travel through the galaxy.
Every scientist will readily acknowledge that those two angles, as defined, add up to the axial tilt of the Earth; however, that doesn’t lead to anything other than a slightly clunkier description of the mechanics of our solar system, and hence, it’s not a particularly useful way of looking at it.
You can – what your friend is doing is essentially a Galilean transformation, which are coordinate transformations between different inertial frames of reference in a non-relativistic case, i.e. rotations of the coordinate system’s axes and translations of its origin, basically. When you’re describing physical systems, there are generally coordinate systems in which the equations take on a particularly easy form, so you’ll naturally prefer those; the rotation chosen in this case obscures the angle of the axial tilt somewhat, due to the normal of the ecliptic not being parallel to one of the coordinate system’s axes any more, but its value nevertheless remains the same – generally, physics stay the same under Galilean transformations (in the non-relativistic limit, at least).
It’s somewhat unclear to me what you’re saying here – nobody’s claiming that the obliquity will remain at 23.5° for all eternity, instead, values vary somewhat over time between 22.1° and 24.5°, mainly due to reality not being quite as simple as just the Earth orbiting the sun; there’s the moon, the other planets, and who knows what else. But there’s no new physics to be obtained from simply shifting (or rather, rotating) the coordinates.
