A topic for the "Is It Science" section, obviously.
I thought I'd seen every mistake geocentrists can make, but there's a new one that's been getting a bit of traction on the internet lately. I hereby dub it the Headwind Blunder.
It takes just as long to travel 100 miles by air due east of Oslo, Norway (traveling at a set air speed) as it does to travel 100 miles by air due west, at the same air speed and altitude, if it is a calm day without wind. And, what is more, that is the same length of time it takes to travel 100 miles due east or due west of Quito, Ecuador on a wind-free day, given the same altitude and air speed!
How is that possible?
The earth is not rotating at all.
And consider the following:
We are told that he earth is moving very fast but that we do not feel the motion. If that was true, it would mean that the air is moving at the same speed as the part of the Earth that it is next to. Thus, the air at Quito, Ecuador is moving twice as fast as the air at Oslo, Norway.
But if the air at Quito is moving twice as fast as the air at Oslo, that would create the following problems that are not supported by reality:
An airplane that took off from Oslo on a clear day, heading west, would be going into a headwind of about 834.9 km/hr (= about 519 mph). Thus, it would need to travel at least the speed of a fast passenger jetliner to make even a few miles of headway. But if it took off heading east, it would hardly need to be using its jets to travel an expected distance for the time it was airborne.
Can you all spot the mistake? Answer in my next post ...
Holy crap! That took a pretty dense person to write that. Air "moving as fast as the part of the Earth it's next to" is almost by definition not moving 519 mph relative to the part of the Earth it's next to. Eek!
An airplane that took off from Oslo on a clear day, heading west, would be going into a headwind of about 834.9 km/hr (= about 519 mph). Thus, it would need to travel at least the speed of a fast passenger jetliner to make even a few miles of headway.
In a sense, that would be true relative to a fixed, external to the Earth reference point (considering only the Earth's rotations speed, and I'm assuming his numbers are correct). Fortunately, it's relative to an Earth bound reference point he needs to be moving, and the Earth's surface is moving 519 mph east (relative to that same fixed, external to the Earth reference point).
Yup, Minnemooseus gets the cigar. The geocentrist is, up to a point, perfectly right. The pilot is heading into a 500 mph headwind, and therefore does, in fact, stay in the same place. So far, so good. But meanwhile Oslo is headed east at 500 mph.
To put it another way, the geocentrist's attempt to model what would happen if the Earth was rotating is vitiated by overlooking one crucial factor ... the rotation of the Earth.
I struggled with this for a while because a helicopter can hover over a fixed point on earth without requiring any lateral movement - even at the equator - and inuitively that's wrong.
I think the trick is to understand that because of friction between the earth and the earth's atmosphere, the air is itself spinning at the same speed as earth, so everything including the helicopter is travelling at the same speed even when apparently stationary in the air.
Once outside the earth's atmosphere an object would need its own lateral movement to 'hover' above a fixed point on earth. I assume satellites achieve geostationary orbit by using gravity effects from earth sun and moon and maybe a kick now and then from its own power?
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
We are told that he earth is moving very fast but that we do not feel the motion. If that was true, it would mean that the air is moving at the same speed as the part of the Earth that it is next to. Thus, the air at Quito, Ecuador is moving twice as fast as the air at Oslo, Norway.
But if the air at Quito is moving twice as fast as the air at Oslo, that would create the following problems that are not supported by reality:
And I suppose he has no explanation for the wind patterns on the earth ... or the bands on Jupiter ...
I'm guessing they don't look quite so smart in zero gravity.
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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