On Thursday 26 May 2011, Jason Van Patten wrote: > > It is indeed true that the sun moves around the Earth, even today. > > It's just that when you consider solar and planetary motion from an > > Earth-centric frame of reference, it's much more difficult to model > > and predict the paths of bodies, and it doesn't reflect the actual > > forces that constrain the paths. It would also be easy to choose a > > frame of reference in which neither the Earth nor Sun were stationary, > > such as using the moon as the static point. This frame of reference > > is less useful from the perspective of trying to model the motion, but > > it would be a useful frame of reference to translate the paths into in > > order to aim solar collectors or antennas on a future moon base. > > > > Motion is all relative, and choosing the frame of reference from which > > to analyze things is one of the first steps in any physics problem. > > The frame of reference might change depending on what kind of analysis > > you're trying to do! > > However it is theoretically possible to establish a context from the > center of existence if you assume that such a point exists.
And every time we've made that assumption, it's been wrong wrong wrong. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
