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Then do this little experiment. Go outside on a sunny day at noon and pound a stake into the ground, so that there is no shadow. Then 8.3 minutes later pound another stake into the ground so that there is no shadow from it either and make it so that the points of the stakes that you drove in the ground meet each other. Measure the angle. If it isn't close to 2.1 degrees, I will publicly and humbly admit that I was wrong.

Will you do the same if it is close to 2.1 degrees?

Can you think of a better demonstration to prove or disprove the assertion?

That's just a clever inverse strawman! All that measures is the angular rate of the rotation of the earth. I already calculated it - about 2.1 degrees per 8.3 minutes. But the earth could still have a rotational rate even if the sun was within 21 arcseconds of where it appeared! This really isn't very honest of you. We're talking about the angular displacement between actual and apparent position of the sun for an observer on earth at a given instant, and you propose an experiment which compares the apparent position of the sun to the apparent position of the sun 8.3 minutes later?! That's a totally different issue! The question is about the difference between apparent and actual position at the same time -- not apparent position and apparent position at different times! That's a rate not an instantaneous difference between apparent and actual position!

-Jesse

That's just a clever inverse strawman! All that measures is the angular rate of the rotation of the earth. I already calculated it - about 2.1 degrees per 8.3 minutes. But the earth could still have a rotational rate even if the sun was within 21 arcseconds of where it appeared! This really isn't very honest of you. We're talking about the angular displacement between actual and apparent position of the sun for an observer on earth at a given instant, and you propose an experiment which compares the apparent position of the sun to the apparent position of the sun 8.3 minutes later?! That's a totally different issue! The question is about the difference between apparent and actual position at the same time -- not apparent position and apparent position at different times! That's a rate not an instantaneous difference between apparent and actual position!

I reposted your post so that maybe you could see your lack of logic, and I have no idea what an inverse strawman is. The light that you see from the Sun left it 8.3 minutes ago. Simply waiting 8.3 minutes and putting in a second stake is a quick and dirty way of determining where the Sun actually was when you put in the first stake. It is a very simple experiment.

If you don't believe that the angle is 2.1 degrees between the stakes, go outside tomorrow at Noon and prove me wrong : )

The question is about the difference between apparent and actual position at the same time -- not apparent position and apparent position at different times!

Jesse, read special theory of relativity. Clears up your misunderstanding. Light is not instantaneous. Your arguments seem to assume so.

Dude, this is so 1850's. Ask Huygens.