Re: Hey Mr. Hyde!
From: Evenbit (nbaker2328_at_charter.net)
Date: 03/23/04
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Date: 23 Mar 2004 04:09:28 -0800
"Beth" <BethStone21@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com> wrote in message news:<uTF7c.1139$Jd1.689@newsfep3-gui.server.ntli.net>...
> gravity of the Sun is miniscule by the time it reaches Earth
If this was true then there would be no ocean tides.
> everywhere (our Moon and Charon exhibit this stuff with their
> companion "planet" but not all planets and moons do this, so the
> reason why some _do_ and some _don't_ is, indeed, still a "mystery"
> open to speculation and hypothesis :)...it's not particularly "odd"
> that Pluto and Charon do it...because, well, our very own Earth and
> Moon do exactly the same thing...
>
Not at all! On Earth, the entire planet has a chance to view the moon
on a 24-hour cycle -- it is not limited to viewing by one hemisphere
only. On Pluto, only one hemisphere faces Charon...just like one
hemisphere of Charon faces Pluto. So, indeed, this is particularly
unique.
> In fact, for the asteroids, the scientists did, at first, try to give
> them names...hence, one of the biggest asteroids is called "Eros" -
Well, numbered as 433 with dimensions as 33 x 13 x 13 kilometers, Eros
doesn't seem like one of the biggest when compared to the top four:
1 Ceres 960 x 932
2 Pallas 570 x 525 x 482
3 Juno 240
4 Vesta 530
or even number 45, Eugenia, at 226km
or number 216, Kleopatra, at 217 x 94
There is a table at
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/asteroidfact.html
Also note that "Ceres comprises over one-third the 2.3 x 10^21 kg
estimated total mass of all the asteroids."
Although Eros does happen to be close to the Earth and we landed a
scientific craft there which sent back tonnes upon tonnes of data.
> Ummm, also, are you showing off in giving the Sun a _female_ gender
> rather than the traditional male gender (with Moon being Earth's
> "sister" and feminine :) or just going with the "mother and children"
> metaphor? Because, in fact, that's a "cultural" thing and the Sun is
> considered _feminine_ by the more ancient civilisations that, well,
Just going with the "mother and children" metaphor... although it
isn't a very good one because it might convey an image of a pregnant
Sun popping out baby planets now and then. ;-)
> objects orbit (_WHY_ there's this "plane" and _WHY_ all the objects
> mostly stay strictly within it is one of the great mysteries of
> astronomy that they are still trying to find answers to...the basic
> "best guess" at the moment is that it has something to do with the way
> the solar system itself formed...that the "stuff" which eventually
> gathered together into planets and that was all collected like a kind
> of "ring" around the Sun...and it stayed in that "ring" formation even
> when all the stuff gathered together into the planets or
> whatever...still doesn't explain _why_ the stuff was gathered like
> that...but then, when you look at the "rings" of Saturn or Uranus,
> there's also the question: "ummm, why is it all in a 'ring' like that
> and not equally distributed all around as a 'shell' or 'sphere' around
> the planet?"...it's quite possible that the reason for that is
> entirely the reason for why it also seems to happen for the Sun
This is easy to explain: Fill a large sink basin with water. Then
open the drain and swirl your hand in the water around the drain until
you create a whirlpool. Notice that all the water rotates around the
drain in the same direction -- not in a billion different directions
so that you have a billion different whirlpools branching out in
tree-like fashion... but a SINGAL whirlpool! Same thing with solar
systems... a sort-of cohesion effect of orbiting bodies to drag
one-another along in the same direction of revolution. This is not
only controlled by gravity, but also much affected by magnetism.
Recent discoveries point to magnetism being responsible for much of
the multiple-armed, disk-shape look of galaxies.
> So, yeah, with astronomy, you _can't_ be quite as "pedantic" about
> everything as with other sciences...you also have to realise that
> pretty much _everything_ is "theory"...some is _highly likely_
> "theory" but has never actually been completely _proved_ to rigourous,
> unambiguous scientific standards that would not be tolerated in any
> other science...the reason, of course, is pretty obvious...you can't
> just "jet off" to some distant star and go "take a look" at it
> directly to see if you were right...the distances are far too absurdly
> massive...even the closest stars take _years_ to get to and that's
> travelling at _lightspeed_ (as fast as you're ever able to go ;), a
Actually, we _have_ "jetted off" to most of the planets to prove and
disprove our assumptions about them. And you _do not_ have to travel
at lightspeed to reach our Sun (which is a STAR after all, is it not?)
to check on the accuracy of our spectrometers. Therefore, we can say
we have some FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE within a reasonable degree of
certainty. Astronomy is UNDOUBTEDLY more of a SCIENCE than say
Astrology which is based on absolutely NO FACTS AT ALL!
> to ______ ;)...the light from our very own Sun travels that fast and
> is always 8 minutes "late" arriving here, so to speak...
>
Funny, it always seems to arrive "right on time" on this side of the
world!
> "borrowing" them as they pass by...exchanging electrons like this
> isn't too much of a surprise because causing this to happen in one
> long chain is the usual way that we create electricity in metallic
> wires...all the electrons _slowly_ move around the "circuit" and the
> "wave" energy they create powers all our appliances...yes, you heard
> me correct there because there's another one of those "common
> misconceptions" for you...the actual "charges" moving around an
> electric circuit do NOT go "at the speed of light"...they actually
> move quite slowly in comparison...what goes "at the speed of light" is
> the _energy_ of that motion...the best way to explain is to consider
> throwing a stone into a pool of water...the _wave_ on the water - the
> energy - ripples quickly from where the stone broke the water to the
> edges of the pool...that happens fairly quickly...but the actually
> water doesn't move along with the ripples...it just moves up and down
> a little...despite the awful way most school textbooks about this are
> written, electricity is similar...the "charges" don't necessarily move
> very quickly but the kind of "wave" of energy they create is
> instanteous...well, roughly near "lightspeed", which is as close to
> "instanteous" as you're going to get in the physical non-quantum
> universe...this is also why AC - alternating current - works...the
> charges there actually just "jiggle" back and forth...that's what's
> actually "alternating" in the current...but the _energy_ of that
> "jiggling" goes round the circuit and moves at "lightspeed" and all
> that other stuff...the point to note, though, is that the "jiggling
> electrons" aren't actually the "electricity", so to speak...the thing
> that actually powers it all - that you pay your electricity company
> for - is that energy "wave"...no, the electrons can't be charged for
> because, well, they already exist inside the wires of the appliance
> you've bought...that's what a "conductor" is...it's a material with
> the necessary "sea of electron charges" ready to be pushed and pulled
> about by the "energy wave" that the generator people kindly make and
> charge you for...in short, when you hear the sound of someone's voice
> then the air that impacts on your eardrum _isn't_ going to be the air
> that was set to vibrate by the other person's voice box...nope, the
> air doesn't actually move too much...after all, when someone talks -
> unless they are right next to you, whispering sweet nothings into your
> ear that you can literally feel the "breeze" against your ear -
> there's no massive wind flying at you at the speed of sound - consider
> how strong just a 100mph wind would be to have bash into you and then
> be very thankful it doesn't work that way or you'd have to face a
> tornado that could rip you apart with every conservation you had ;) -
> but, instead, the "wave energy" of the initial air vibration is
> "passed along" in the air and that's what you're actually
> hearing...school textbooks on the matter of electricity so often
> neglect to explain that it works this way that it's amazing - even
Perhaps that is the case in Europe...
Here in the good ole U.S. or A., however, we have higher academic
goals -- as evidenced in our textbooks:
"Consider a line of billiard balls laid out as shown in Figure 2.6. A
ball coming from the right hits the end ball and almost
instantaneously another shoots out from the opposite end. It is not
the same ball, but since they are all alike, the result is as though
the first ball had traveled down the line in almost zero time.
"Apply our billiard-ball analogy to a table lamp. An electron enters
the conductor at the wall plug and repels other electrons already in
the wire. They, in turn, repel their neighbors, and so on. This
repulsion travels at nearly the speed of light. At the lamp, it
forces an electron into the bulb, which repels another into the return
line to the plug."
- Fundamentals of Circuit Analysis: with Applications to
Electronics, James Fisk, 1987, Macmillan Publishing Company
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