Yeah, they laughed at Gallileo too...

ElDiablo wrote:

beejewel wrote:All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

The last requiem of a failed argument is to state that you'll be right in the future.

Yeah, that's like a good "Neener neener, boo boo.", isn't it?

All bullshit goes through three stages too. First it is ridiculed. Second the bar opens. Third, it's ridiculed some more.

Ooooh, I bet you SteveBee is positively wetting himself in anticipation of the "violent opposition" part

beejewel wrote:All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

Whereas nonsense only manages to get to the first stage.

beejewel wrote:Don't worry, for most of you guys it won't make any difference which way the planets rotate, just enjoy your cold ale and get on with whatever you are doing. If anyone here is really concerned about which way the planets rotate, just send me a PM, I would be happy to explain why it matters.

Why can't you explain it in this thread?

Perhaps more interesting to me is the notion of someone being 'guilty of an assumption'. Can one be imprisoned for this? I need to know.

beejewel wrote:Don't worry, for most of you guys it won't make any difference which way the planets rotate, just enjoy your cold ale and get on with whatever you are doing. If anyone here is really concerned about which way the planets rotate, just send me a PM, I would be happy to explain why it matters.

I don't drink, and am doing nothing.... but I am absolutely intrigued to know which way the planet rotates! I'm not really a PM type person though considering it's a public forum, so perhaps you'd be kind enough to enlighten me here?

Let a function f(s) be defined, where s is the arc length parameter. Let (x1, y1, z1) be the coordinates of the point corresponding to s=s1 along the function curve. Likewise, let (x2, y2, z2) be the coordinates of the point corresponding to s=s2. The function f(s) describes a closed path, if for distinct s1 and s2, we have (x1, y1, z1) = (x2, y2, z2).

That's how a closed path is defined. This definition also applies to other parameterisations.

Planetary orbits are known to possess this property. I have yet to see data that says otherwise.

Plus, what bizarre spacetime metric is this individual using?

Spearthrower wrote:

beejewel wrote:Don't worry, for most of you guys it won't make any difference which way the planets rotate, just enjoy your cold ale and get on with whatever you are doing. If anyone here is really concerned about which way the planets rotate, just send me a PM, I would be happy to explain why it matters.

I don't drink, and am doing nothing.... but I am absolutely intrigued to know which way the planet rotates! I'm not really a PM type person though considering it's a public forum, so perhaps you'd be kind enough to enlighten me here?

It rotates towards the future if I'm not mistaken.

Spearthrower wrote:

beejewel wrote:Don't worry, for most of you guys it won't make any difference which way the planets rotate, just enjoy your cold ale and get on with whatever you are doing. If anyone here is really concerned about which way the planets rotate, just send me a PM, I would be happy to explain why it matters.

I don't drink, ...

*reaches for ban hammer*

I’m a bit late to this party, and since I don’t drink, I’ll have a cool root beer please.

Perhaps you’re all being way too hard on the OP. Why not let him link to his published peer-reviewed works and then all of you can take a fresh look at them.

I enjoy the bit where the op says something to the effect that different instants in time, have different "potentials."

And where he appears to say that since an apple falling from a branch (of an Earth tree, I assume), moves in a direction that most people would refer to as "down" (again requiring the assumption of Earth surface reference points, and human observers in a non-special location, not themselves hanging upside down, or prevented from knowing their own position relative to the Earth's core)...

that because he has arbitrarily declared that "down" is a lower temporal "potential" than up...

and (apparently) that the Present has lower temporal "potential" than the past (not completely clear on this bit)...not sure why this matters, since the idea of potential kind of fades away here...

that since we see the other planets when we look UP, (at least when they are on this side of Earth, relatively speaking), that therefor those planets are temporarily in our past.

I THINK he's saying that because terrestrial apples fall towards the center of the Earth, and all apples that do fall, start from a position he calls "up" ... that therefore "up" is always in the PAST.

AND, since when we look "up" to see the other planets (sometimes), that therefore those planets are ALSO in our past, because they are "up."

And therefore we don't need all that dark matter after all, which is great, because I hear dark matter is REAAAAAALLLY expensive.

It's a LOT like the brilliant discussions we used to have in collage, right after everyone smoked hashish and took some sort of stimulant. Really takes me back.

At least I am not being told to imagine the planets resting upon a foam rubber mattress. No one ever seems capable of explaining astrophysics without resorting to the foam rubber mattress. It's like TemperPedic is sponsoring the entire scientific enterprise.

And if someone can dispense with dark matter, I will be glad to treat that person to ice cream. Researchers hurriedly spelunking after their dark matter detectors would be a welcome image.

beejewel wrote:All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

Or it's just bollocks all the time.

Actually, most Truth is recognized as such in short order. The only reason anyone takes note of the times when something bizarre or absurd sounding turns out to be correct after all, is because it's RARE that this happens.

I think it would be better if the beer comments would stay away and the counter-productive passive aggressive comments would too.

I am looking forward to some answers re. some of the questions below. All quotes are OP's unless otherwise indicated.

If we assume (and I shall show later why this assumption is wrong) that the planets move in closed orbits, there ought to be two solutions for velocity, one positive and the other negative. i.e. it is equally valid to say the planets move forwards as it is to say that the planets move backwards (providing the orbit is closed).

Can you explain what it means for planets to move backwards? Do you just mean the opposite way around a central unit (a sun)?

campermon wrote:As to 'velocity' and 'speed' - I have no idea what point you are making.

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1 ... d-Velocity

Velocity = speed + direction, as it is usually put.

Fortunately thanks to the arrow of time planets do not travel in closed orbits, instead they travel along helical paths, which means there is absolutely no ambiguity about the direction of travel. Think about this for a moment and you will realise which direction planets move. Kepler had a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but failed.

What is the arrow of time?

With the exception of Mercury and Mars, all the outer planets are moving backwards with increasing velocities.

Does that include Venus? What about asteroids/comets that cross into the orbits of the inner planets; do they go 'backwards' too or how does it work?

The first step to understand is how the passage of time has direction, and how the arrow of time (past to future) points in the direction of lower potential. How do we know this is true?

We know it, because "an apple falling off a branch never fails to arrive in it's own future".

I personally find it quite amazing that such a simple statement can hold such an important truth, but think carefully about it and you will agree that your past is straight up and your future is straight down, at least when standing at rest on earth.

That makes ground potential the present, right?

How do we know which direction is up and down in space? On Earth it is easy, down = towards the center of mass. If we switch to the solar system, down would be towards the sun. For galaxies, down towards the black hole (presumably) in the center.

I don't understand the sentence in italic.

So looking up, in the direction of higher potential, we see that the planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn are all in our past and that we are temporally ahead of them. It is also known that the radius between us and the planets is increasing slightly, which means the planets are not exhibiting closed orbital motion, rather they are tracing out a helical path.

Since we will be traveling to Mars in the near future (say, within 5 decades) and have already sent multiple robots there, are they in the past?

When we communicate with our robots (e.g. send them driving commands) and get a reply, how do they send information forwards in time to us? How do we sent it backwards?

This helical spiral is not twisted in the direction Kepler assumed, instead it is twisted in the opposite direction, which means the planets are not moving slower with increasing radius, they are moving backwards faster with increasing radius, which makes a lot more sense to the rational mind.

If the planets are spiraling away from us, does that mean that we should expect to see redshift? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

If we don't observe that, is that evidence against your model?

Maybe you don't quite understand what I mean by backwards, I am not suggesting that the planetary motions are any different to what is being observed, that would be like claiming the Earth is flat, what I have effectively proven above is that the temporal line between the observer and the revolving body is increasing in length, and not decreasing as Kepler's law suggests.

What is the temporal line?

In Keplers scenario where the planets move forward, the temporal line will become shorter, meaning the planet will spiral inwards and eventually hit you in the head.

I don't know how the two statements marked in bold are consistent. Are you claiming that the plants are moving in another way than is generally agreed or not? As far as I know, in the standard model, plants are not expected to decrease their distances to the sun. The Moon is moving away from Earth however, but it is a tiny effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_dis ... tronomy%29