Epicycles

[EternalOptimist]

Do you know what an epicycle is ? do you care ? why should you.

If you were a primitive , with no advanced instruments, you could be forgiven for imagining that the sun revolved around the earth. After all, why not. We are animals, we usually see things from our own perspective. Its a matter of survival to do so.

When we were not so primitive, and we had basic instruments, something was observed that didnt quite gel. Sometimes an object would go through the sky one way, then it would reverse and travel in the opposite direction.

Now, if everything rotates around the earth, this is impossible.

So a new idea was born. Some things in the sky rotate around other things, in epicycles, and that is why they sometimes appear to be going backwards.

Great stuff, that explains everything. But as the instruments got better, more and more anomalies were observed that didnt fit in with the epicycle idea. So a new idea was thought up. Epicycles within epicycles. That worked. Except is was getting more and more complicated. Every new observation required a whole new theory and a whole new set of epicycles.

Then someone had a different idea. If things in space revolved around other things, maybe the earth revolved around the sun. If it did, a whole set of complex theorising could be scrapped, Occam could have a clean shave and, most importantly, new observations would not result in having to go through mind-bending contortions of the existing theory in order to fit.

And that was the important bit. Observations now matched the theory. As opposed to making the theory fit every new observation.

[Troll]

This new learning amazes me, explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

[DimPrawn]

I can feel a anthropogenic climate change comparison coming on....

[EternalOptimist]

Epicycles Part II

This new learning amazes me, explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

.

This thread is obviously about man made catastrophic Global Warming.


I hope this is a fair reflection of their(the alarmist) theory:-

Carbon dioxide is a 'green house gas'. This means that due to radiative physics, and increase in the gas will cause an increase in the temperature of the planet. No one disputes that.
The increase in temperature will be small, but it will be large enough to cause other, more potent greenhouse gasses to be released, like water vapour and methane.
These secondary greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of the planet a lot.

But, just like the epicycles, an observation came along that made all this impossible and so the theories have been amended in order to fit the observations.

The latest theory from Hansen, the guy who started the ball rolling, is that the lack of warming is due to 'planetary climate inertia'. He says that his predictions of runaway warming, flooding of Manhatten and London are still accurate, they just wont happen for another two hundred years.

And from Trenberth, the planet is heating as per the models, except the heating is happening in the deep oceans, where we cannot measure it. He can not explain why this started in 1998 or what it has to do with radiative physics or carbon dioxide, but he will not give up on his conclusions.

To me, I can see a direct parallel between the evolution of the two sets of thinking and I am waiting, agog for the next convoluted and mind bending theory that comes out of the CAGW stable.

[mudskipper]

I thought this thread was about bicycles.

[nomadd]

Do you know what an epicycle is ? do you care ? why should you.

If you were a primitive , with no advanced instruments, you could be forgiven for imagining that the sun revolved around the earth. After all, why not. We are animals, we usually see things from our own perspective. Its a matter of survival to do so.

When we were not so primitive, and we had basic instruments, something was observed that didnt quite gel. Sometimes an object would go through the sky one way, then it would reverse and travel in the opposite direction.

Now, if everything rotates around the earth, this is impossible.

So a new idea was born. Some things in the sky rotate around other things, in epicycles, and that is why they sometimes appear to be going backwards.

Great stuff, that explains everything. But as the instruments got better, more and more anomalies were observed that didnt fit in with the epicycle idea. So a new idea was thought up. Epicycles within epicycles. That worked. Except is was getting more and more complicated. Every new observation required a whole new theory and a whole new set of epicycles.

Then someone had a different idea. If things in space revolved around other things, maybe the earth revolved around the sun. If it did, a whole set of complex theorising could be scrapped, Occam could have a clean shave and, most importantly, new observations would not result in having to go through mind-bending contortions of the existing theory in order to fit.

And that was the important bit. Observations now matched the theory. As opposed to making the theory fit every new observation.

Unfortunately, that's not true. The solar-centric Copernican system proved just as problematic, making predictions which were no more accurate than the existing geocentric models. Even Kepler's addition of ellipses/eccentrics proved only a partial success. The Newtonion 'clockwork universe' - whether utilising epicycles or ellipses, solar-centric or geocentric - was never going to fit the observed data. The greater conceptual leap, IMHO, was the development of 'relativistic' theories to overcome these limitations.

And to this day, the Newton-Kepler system still doesn't explain the rotational velocities of galaxies:

The galaxy rotation problem is the discrepancy between the observed galaxy rotation curves and the Newtonian-Keplerian prediction assuming a centrally-dominated mass associated with the observed luminous material. If masses of galaxies are derived solely from the luminosities and the mass-to-light ratios in the disk and core portions of spiral galaxies are assumed to be close to that of stars, the masses derived from the kinematics of the observed rotation and the law of gravity do not match.

[shaunbhoy]

I thought this thread was about bicycles.

Yeah!!! Me too......

[Doggy Styles]

Unfortunately, that's not true. The solar-centric Copernican system proved just as problematic, making predictions which were no more accurate than the existing geocentric models. Even Kepler's addition of ellipses/eccentrics proved only a partial success. The Newtonion 'clockwork universe' - whether utilising epicycles or ellipses, solar-centric or geocentric - was never going to fit the observed data. The greater conceptual leap, IMHO, was the development of 'relativistic' theories to overcome these limitations.

And to this day, the Newton-Kepler system still doesn't explain the rotational velocities of galaxies:

The galaxy rotation problem is the discrepancy between the observed galaxy rotation curves and the Newtonian-Keplerian prediction assuming a centrally-dominated mass associated with the observed luminous material. If masses of galaxies are derived solely from the luminosities and the mass-to-light ratios in the disk and core portions of spiral galaxies are assumed to be close to that of stars, the masses derived from the kinematics of the observed rotation and the law of gravity do not match.

However, it seems far more likely than the original earth-centric theory. Otherwise our space craft around the solar system wouldn't work.

[nomadd]

However, it seems far more likely than the original earth-centric theory. Otherwise our space craft around the solar system wouldn't work.

We never left earth. That moon stuff was all computer graphics.

I have a rifle, a bunker and twenty-thousand tins of beans that says so.

[EternalOptimist]

We never left earth. That moon stuff was all computer graphics.

I have a rifle, a bunker and twenty-thousand tins of bins that says so.

beans