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To: Zero Sum; LeGrande; mrjesse; Fichori; TXnMA
This is true, of course. But the Sun is in the same place that it was 8.5 minutes ago, which is where we see it. This is because the apparent motion is due not to the Sun revolving around us, but to our rotation, and these are not relative.

I wish you guys would use something other than the solar system as an example because we do have some Freepers that would take the above statement literally, e.g. that the universe moves around the sun and space/time is fixed.

The sun is not stationary in the universe. Indeed, nothing is.

Our solar system is orbiting the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 486,000 miles per hour. And on top of that, space/time itself is expanding.

The Newtonian physics being described here should be seen as local with respect to the universe.

Or to put it another way, coordinates for non-inertial frames are usually transformed to inertial frames when speaking of the cosmos in order to avoid fictitious forces which are nevertheless handy when dealing with physics on earth.

756 posted on 06/14/2009 8:38:22 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl; mrjesse
“I wish you guys would use something other than the solar system as an example because we do have some Freepers that would take the above statement literally, e.g. that the universe moves around the sun and space/time is fixed.

The sun is not stationary in the universe. Indeed, nothing is.”
[excerpt]
The Sun's transverse velocity as observed from any object in our solar system is very small.

For the sake of simplification, we refer to it as stationary and disregard the minimal effects of barycentric wobble...

“And on top of that, space/time itself is expanding.” [excerpt]
You know I'm gonna ask you do demonstrate that claim ;-)


760 posted on 06/14/2009 12:23:08 PM PDT by Fichori
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To: Alamo-Girl
Our solar system is orbiting the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 486,000 miles per hour. And on top of that, space/time itself is expanding.

To the extent that these might affect the apparent motion of the Sun as viewed from the Earth at all, the effect is negligible compared to the apparent motion of the Sun due to the Earth's rotation. For the purposes of our thought experiment, we can consider the Sun to be stationary WRT an inertial frame.

766 posted on 06/14/2009 6:53:24 PM PDT by Zero Sum
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