The shape of our solar system's orbits.

[DaveC426913]

Bzzt. I'm callin' foul. Tom is changing his story.

He was clear - and repeated several times - that he was talking about the movement of the central body. Reread posts 18 and 22.

Now he's claiming he meant orbital regression? Hello?


Anyway:

Even if all post between 18 and 26 magivcally vaqnished and we are forced to grant his new claim, it's kind of silly to talk about "all orbits being a spiral" when there are far, far larger deviations from ellipses, such as the effects from other planets.

If I drew a freehand circularish curve on a piece of paper that had
- an eccentricity of several centimeters
- wandered back and forth from that path by several millimeters,
yet
increased its (average) diameter by only a few angstroms with each pass

would it be sensical to call that a spiral??

 

[Sorry!]

Bzzt. I'm callin' foul. Tom is changing his story.

He was clear - and repeated several times - that he was talking about the movement of the central body. Reread posts 18 and 22.

Now he's claiming he meant orbital regression? Hello?


Anyway:

Even if all post between 18 and 26 magivcally vaqnished and we are forced to grant his new claim, it's kind of silly to talk about "all orbits being a spiral" when there are far, far larger deviations from ellipses, such as the effects from other planets.

If I drew a freehand circularish curve on a piece of paper that had
- an eccentricity of several centimeters
- wandered back and forth from that path by several millimeters,
yet
increased its (average) diameter by only a few angstroms with each pass

would it be sensical to call that a spiral??

Oh well I only really read his first post and then the original hostility towards him so I thought I would just jump into aid him lol. Yes it is silly to call it a spiral but it's not really wrong...

 

[DaveC426913]

... but it's not really wrong...

Sure. In the same way it's not really wrong to call it a square, either.

 

[Tom Kull]

If anyone thinks 2.5 cm per year is trivial than what does that say about Hubble's law on the universe's inflation rate.

We believe that Pope Urban VIII is alive and well and lives on the internet.

 

[DaveC426913]

If anyone thinks 2.5 cm per year is trivial

when compared to the millions - and in some cases tens of millions - of kilometers of deviations due to other factors. Don't pretend I didn't make this clear.

Besides, that still isn't what you were claiming originally. Your credibility is a bit shaky, having jumped from one train to another.

There's no shame in being mistaken and being corrected. C'mon, man up. Don't make it a bad thing by being bloody-headed about it.

 

[russ_watters]

The question is answered and the thread is way off topic.

Locked.