A Total Eclipse of the Brain

The next lunar eclipse for North American eyes will be on April 4, 2015.

The lunar eclipse that recently happened on April 14, 2014 had been predicted by scientists for, like, ever, and Wikipedia has a schedule of the next, what, millennial of lunar eclipses that are predicted to happen.

When I was younger I used to pay attention to astronomical events far more closely than what I do toady, mostly because I was a nerd who never got laid. I would spend summer nights out on a blanket looking at the stars and tracking the motion of the planets. I knew all the dates of predicted phenomena days in advance and would hope for good weather. Always in August I would go out and watch the Perseid Meteor Shower and drink Coca Cola all night long on a green blanket that smelled slightly funny, because we kept it in the basement and only ever took it out to lie in the grass.

So, I was kind of shocked when I turned on the TV the other day and saw people talking about the lunar eclipse, because I assumed only virgins and Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about astronomy.

Here’s what some idiot-asshole at World Net Daily had to write about it (I was going to be nice and properly cite the author, but there's no byline):

Barack Obama quite recently, expressing his frustration that Republican members of Congress won’t give him what he wants, threatened arbitrary executive action, promising that he has a “pen and phone.”

But there are “flashing red warning lights” in the heavens that should command peoples’ attention right now, because the one behind those warnings, God, had “more than a pen and a phone in his hand,” according to the author of “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs.”

Pastor Mark Biltz, whose book is creating a tidal wave of interest right now with the first of four lunar eclipses expected to become visible early Tuesday, was speaking to Breaking Israel News.

“I believe that the blood moons have great historic and prophetic significance just as they did following 1948 and 1967. In the book of Joel it mentions three times about the sun and the moon going dark and in context it also mentions Divine wrath against all countries that want to divide or part the land of Israel,” he said.

“I believe the moons are like flashing red warning lights at a heavenly intersection saying to Israel as well as the nations they will be crossing heavenly red lines and if they do, they will understand as Pharaoh did on Passover night 3,500 years ago that the Creator backs up what He says.

“Like Pharaoh the leaders and pundits of today will realize when it comes to crossing the red lines of the Creator of the universe he has more than a pen and a phone in his hand.” 

Oh god I need a shower...

Ugggh. The stupid will not come off. Damn you Dove with Cucumber Extract, why won't you wash away the stupid.

See, if you can predict an astronomical event in advance, then it cannot be a warning, because that would suggest determinism. Punishing people for a pre-determined outcome is not only baffling but would be utterly sadistic. Under this theology, humanity is literally built to spill. That's fucking sick.

Secondly, there are about two lunar eclipses each year. Only one is typically visible depending where in the world you are located. But still that is a lot of eclipses. Which means there are either a lot of warnings or else it's a lot of bullshit.

Guess where my money's at.

Here's what lunar eclipses actually tell us instead of this crazy Jesus hates President Obama bullshit.

If you hold up a coin that is one inch in diameter (about the size of a quarter) it needs to be 108 inches away from your eye to exactly block out the sun. Don't try this as it will be super painful, or worse you might go blind trying it (well actually I don't give a fuck about your well being; I'm just avoiding any liability). Instead do this with the moon. It turns out that the moon and the sun are often the same size (have the same angular size, obviously.) That's why solar eclipses can be spectacular.

Due to this phenomenon, you can measure the distance of the Earth to the Moon and the diameter of the Moon during a lunar eclipse. Without doing any measuring, we know that the distance from the Earth to the Moon is 108 times the Moon's diameter.

To find the diameter of the Moon all you need is a handy-dandy stop watch. On April 4, 2015, camp out on the beach, and after your boyfriend gets done blowing you, measure the time it takes the Moon to enter the Earth's shadow. Then measure the time it takes for the Moon to emerge from the Earth's shadow.

The entrance time is 2.5 times shorter than the total time of the eclipse; therefore the diameter of the Moon is 2.5 times smaller than the Earth.

AB = CE; therefore DB = 108*DE

Aristarchus of Samos who died around 230 BCE knew the diameter of the Earth and calculate the size and distance of the Moon using this method.

It is pathetic for me to type this, but it's 2014: Lunar eclipses are not divine signs to warn a sinful people. Grow the fuck up.


UPDATE:


I decided to make a scale model of the Lunar Eclipse:

Obviously Click to Embiggen  

Here is a cropped version:

Liam '14

Newton After Einstein

Einstein did not disprove Newtonian Physics, rather he improved them. It is simplistic to think of Quantum Mechanics as a revolutionary force that disproved three hundred years of thought.  I have in the past indulged myself in this myth because of the glorious rush of the revolutionary feeling and the joy that concepts are not fixed and definite. It is as easy to say everyone in the past was wrong about practically everything, as it is easy to say that the past was far better than today.

To say Newton has been disproved or wrong is an error. For one thing in Newton's Principia he never claims to understand what gravity is or how it works.  He shows the mathematical principals behind gravity. Since he never claims to understand what gravity is there is nothing to disprove.  Einstein was only able to improve the equations, and through quantum mechanics physicists have been able to begin to understand what gravity is and how it works.

Einstein's Field Equation states:






This formula solved Mercury's seemingly erratic trajectory, and changed forever the way humans understand the universe. On a solar eclipse we can see light from stars bends around the sun. Newton's theory doesn't give us that possibility.
   
In his Principia, Newton states:



Through a long series of equations involving scalar curvature and tensors, and other calculus based jargon Newton's formula exists in the Einstein Field Equation. I don't fully understand what the entirety of the mathematics; so showing the full math would be useless, but you can look it up for yourself.

The main practical problem with Newton's Theory is that it is not truly universal. In fact Newton's Laws can still be used today, for ordinary earth bound applications. However, the lack of universality does not make his work untrue, and thus it does not mean that the Quantum Mechanics revolution disproved Newton. Newton's universe is only a stock image or a subset of a greater universe.

A bit of the defrocking of Newton comes from the Historical concept of Newton the man. How history came to define Newton as a rationalist, the father of calculus, and a brilliant scientist is wrapped up in the French Revolution.   The man Isaac Newton was born 1643 and died in 1727.  He was an alchemist and an empiricist, and his Christian theology was centered around disproving the great scourge of Spinozaism (or that is my sense from reading the Clarke-Leibniz letters.) During the French Revolution Newton's biography was scrubbed clean of all things non-rational. During this time he transformed into something more French and more Post-Enlightenment-Era appropriate: a deist, a naturalist, and a rationalist. The somewhat modern invention of Newton created by the Sorbonne placed Newton on a pedestal.  No longer is Newton a fallible man but a romanticized scientist.

After Einstein came along this once inescapable force, was turned on its head.  Time and space are one phenomenon which can be bent by matter via gravity.  It must have seemed so alien compared to "shit falls to the ground when dropped." And with Einstein, another god was seemingly disproved. But once again these two theories are not contradictory, but fit together.

It will be interesting to see in one hundred years how Newton is viewed.  It will be more interesting to see how Einstein is view in light of String Theory and other advancements Einstein only could have wished to theorize. With the discovery of the Higgs-boson it would appear we have pushed the era of Einstein to its outer limits. (Well science still needs to find the graviton.) It will be interesting to see whether another god falls to the history of time or if humanity has finally accepted a constantly changing universe. It doesn't look good for Einstein, as his name is synonymous with genius, and people have already forgotten that Einstein did not stand alone (Heisenberg, Bohr, David Hilbert).


As a child I had a mantra:

All ideas are simply waiting to be proven false.

Now as a man I realize that all concepts which appear true are awaiting a deeper nuance.



Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me