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To: LeGrande; mrjesse; Fichori; TXnMA
LOL Watch the animation again, you will notice that the sender releases the ball directly at the recipient in both cases. You will also notice that the recipient catches the ball directly behind the sender, 180 degrees away, in both frames of reference.

No kidding. The thrower is aiming at the target, not leading him. What you wrote in post 716 is incorrect:

Well it so happens that if Pluto is stationary you will need to lead it by 102 degrees if you are shooting that missile from a rotating Earth.
I missed this the first time, but this is also incorrect:
You seem to understand that if Pluto was orbiting a stationary earth you would need to lead it by 102 degrees to hit it with a missile traveling at the speed of light.
The reason being that you would need to lead the image of Pluto by TWICE as much (i.e. 204 degrees) in order to account for Pluto's motion both during the time that it took the light from Pluto to reach Earth and during the time that it will take your Light-Attained Speedy Extraterrestrial Rocket, or "LASER"... :)

...to reach Pluto.

However, this is different than the case of a stationary Pluto and a rotating frame. If you wanted to hit Pluto in this case you would aim at its image just as you would if you were aiming at a stationary Pluto from a non-rotating, inertial frame. Why? Because as viewed from your non-inertial, rotating frame, the light's path appears to curve (watch the animation with the ball again, from the perspective of the thrower): The light that Pluto emitted 102 degrees ago also curves around 102 degrees to meet you, and your "LASER"...

...will curve around to meet Pluto 102 degrees later. If you were to fire something travelling slower than the speed of light, you would STILL aim at the image, but your projectile would simply take longer to hit its target, and at a different angle displacement. Again, this is all because rotating frames are non-inertial.

Did you even watch the animation?

Of course... what do you think I was discussing in my post when I pointed out that the thrower is not leading the target? Did you bother to read the rest of my post, and did you understand what I wrote? More importantly, did you bother to read the explanation of the animation at the link you provided, and do you understand the difference between an inertial frame and a non-inertial one? Do you understand that the animation shows the juxtaposition of a throw and catch as seen by a spinning thrower in a non-inertial frame and as seen by a stationary catcher in an inertial one? Do you understand that the animation does NOT show a throw and catch as seen by a non-spinning thrower in an inertial frame and as seen by an orbiting (and spinning!) catcher in a non-inertial frame? Do you understand that in this case the non-spinning thrower would have to lead the orbiting catcher by releasing the ball when he is BEHIND her in order to compensate for the catcher's motion, and that he will catch the ball when he is IN FRONT of her, as opposed to the other way around as in the animation? Do you understand that in this case the thrower would observe the ball following a linear trajectory while the catcher would observe the ball following a curved trajectory, as opposed to the other way around as in the animation? Do you see the difference?

745 posted on 06/13/2009 8:53:42 PM PDT by Zero Sum
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To: Zero Sum; mrjesse; Fichori; TXnMA
You have come to this discussion a little late and I don't want to get bogged down in Galilean inertial frames.

The initial statement that I made was that an objects apparent position is not identical to its actual position at any given instant in time, primarily due to the speed of light. In other words when we see the Sun we see where it was apx 8 and a half minutes ago.

Do you agree or disagree with that statement?

MrJesse is quit adamant that the actual position is the same as the apparent position, except for a little parallax that I taught him about.

746 posted on 06/13/2009 10:15:12 PM PDT by LeGrande (I once heard a smart man say that you canÂ’t reason someone out of something that they didnÂ’t reaso)
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