On Monday, January 5, 2015 6:10:43 PM UTC-8, John H. wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jan 2015 07:48:20 -0800 (PST), Tim
wrote:

Gerald, it's all amazing isn't it?

And also amazing is that, according to some, it's all a random
occurrence from a big explosion.

Wow.

The words 'average' and 'constant' come into play at this juncture for the 'average' 24 hour day substitutes for 'constant' rotation at 15 degrees per hour or once in 24 hours. For instance, the average flow of a liquid through a pipe is the same thing as the constant flow of liquid through the same pipe however the timekeeping system uses 'average' as a starting point.

When accurate clocks started to emerge in the 17th century it was already known that with each sweep of the Sun across the observer's meridian, the total length of the day regardless of hemispheres varies from noon to noon. As each day corresponds to another rotation, a certain value was attached to each day to equalize it to a 24 hour average -

"Draw a Meridian line upon a floor and then hang two plummets, each by a small thread or wire, directly over the said Meridian, at the distance of some 2 feet or more one from the other, as the smallness of the thread will admit. When the middle of the Sun (the Eye being placed so, as to bring both the threads into one line) appears to be in the same line exactly you are then immediately to set the Watch, not precisely to the hour of 12 but by so much less, as is the Equation of the day by the Table." Huygens

http://adcs.home.xs4all.nl/Huygens/06/kort-E.html

So what readers have is one 24 hour day following the next 24 hour day, Monday turning into Tuesday,Tuesday into Wednesday and so on with the fact that each day corresponds to one rotation. The average 24 hour day then substitutes for the notion that the Earth's rotation is constant at a rate of 1 Degree per 4 minutes, 15 Degrees per hour and a rotation of the planet's 24901 circumference in 24 hours including the February 29th rotation.

Most people when they wake up at dawn understand that the Sun rising and setting within each 24 hour period represents a rotation of our home planet while few people go into greater detail to comprehend the Lat/Long system overlaid on the geometry and geography of the Earth and tied to each rotation in 24 hours . Nobody goes into the details of planetary dynamics where the system which differentiates the rotation of the Earth 365 1/4 times per annual circuit from human timekeeping which formats the natural observation into the 365 day/366 day calendar framework.

We exist in an era where it is fashionable to say that the Earth turns 366 1/4 times within the confines of an orbital circuit thereby destroying the elegant reasoning which links timekeeping to the great planetary cycles of daily rotation and orbital motion -

"During one orbit around the Sun, the Earth rotates about its own axis 366.26 times" Main 'Earth' page, Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth

Effectively people are prepared to believe that days and rotations fall out of step across an annual circuit which should be unthinkable for reasonable people let alone those involved in navigation and a familiarity with the Lat/Long system. How mistakes were made to give rise to a monstrous reasoning is second to understanding how the timekeeping system framework was constructed from observations of the Earth's motion and the parent observation that there are 1461 rotations within 4 orbital circuits which breaks down to 365 1/4 rotations per orbital circuit.

It is a question of relevance at this stage, how people value their own intellectual capabilities at the most basic level where they know that when they wake up to a new day they are also waking up to another rotation and they never,ever fall out of step.

The quite understand the silence regarding this awful notion that there are 366 1/4 rotations inside an orbital circumference when,in fact, there are 365 1/4 with the latter correct value drawn from the parent observation of the additional February 29th rotation and what it represents in dynamical terms.

About 20 years ago anyone who picked up a textbook would have read that the Earth doesn't turn once in 24 hours but in 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds -

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/JennyChen.shtml

The idea was that the extra 3 minutes 56 seconds to 24 hours accumulates over an orbital period and that generates the extra rotation than 24 hour days -

"During one orbit around the Sun, the Earth rotates about its own axis 366.26 times" Wikipedia main 'Earth' article

Like all catastrophic events where considerable damage and chaos ensues, the consequences are brutal including the inability to react to this situation where the emergence of the Lat/Long system in tandem with the 24 hour system keeps days and rotations in sync.

Today they even have created a new fiction conjured out of thin air in order to create a division between timekeeping and the rotation of the Earth where they now reject the 'solar vs sidereal' fiction and introduce a non cyclical and non astronomical assertion -

"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds.." NASA

I hope reader here enjoyed the brief tour through to the historical and astronomical origins of timekeeping even in an era where men no longer believe that 24 hour days and rotations keep in step. Astronomy today is basically rudderless - an exercise in voodoo and bluffing created by academics and for academics while basic facts and enjoyable principles are ignored and even despised.

There was a mention in this thread about burning at the stake for believing the Earth goes around the Sun referring to the Catholic Church and the events surrounding the Galileo affair. The real problem and valid objection of the Pope was how to prove the Earth turns using the same system which predicts astronomical events in that he believed it couldn't be done, at least according to a closer inspection of the issues separating Galileo and the Pope -

"Here lurked the danger of serious misunderstanding. Maffeo Barberini, while he was a Cardinal, had counselled Galileo to treat Copernicanism as a hypothesis, not as a confirmed truth. But 'hypothesis' meant two very different things. On the one hand, astronomers were assumed to deal only with hypotheses, i.e. accounts of the observed motions of the stars and planets that were not claimed to be true. Astronomical theories were mere instruments for calculation and prediction, a view that is often called 'instrumentalism'.. On the other hand, a hypothesis could also be understood as a theory that was not yet proved but was open to eventual confirmation. This was a 'realist' position. Galileo thought that Copernicanism was true, and presented it as a hypothesis, i.e. as a provisional idea that was potentially physically true, and he discussed the pros and cons, leaving the issue undecided. This did not correspond to the instrumentalist view of Copernicanism that was held by Maffeo Barberini and others. They thought that Copernicus' system was a purely instrumental device, and Maffeo Barberini was convinced that it could never be proved. This ambiguity pervaded the whole Galileo Affair."

http://www.unav.es/cryf/english/newlightistanbul.html

The parent observation of timekeeping where it meshes with planetary dynamics is with the leap day rotation and the 1461 rotations which fit inside 4 orbital circumferences. This fact goes in two separate directions - for interpretative astronomy where the Earth's motions and solar system structure is being researched and proved it reduces to 365 1/4 rotations per orbital circuit while for predictive astronomy where astronomical events are determined within the calendar framework the parent 1461 rotations are formatted in a 365/366 rotation scaffolding.

Sure,people can believe that Church doctrine was dependent on the Earth at the center of the Universe however a closer look at the issue reveals that the objections were quite valid. Only with 21st century tools can the issue be untangled and resolved but it can't be if contemporaries believe the Earth rotates 366 1/4 times inside one orbital circuit.

The Lat/Long system plays a crucial role in extracting humanity from an era mired in voodoo and bluff including the fuss over a 'leap second' -

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-0...r-year/6002002