Jim, List,
Whoops!
The Sun revolves around the center of our galaxy
at about 220 km/sec which suggests a period of
about 240,000,000 years. That's the current estimate,
although the range of calculated values runs from
225 million years to 250, so the Sun has made 20
orbits so far. Oddly, it's a retrograde (backwards) orbit.
What isn't known is the ECCENTRICITY of that orbit.
If it's reasonably eccentric, has the Sun plunged down
through the Galactic Core region 20 times? The Core
is incredibly crowded with stars and dust and molecular
clouds and weird sh-..., er, stuff of every kind. It's really
crowded in that neighborhood. Look at a picture of a
spiral galaxy and you'll see what I mean.
The prospect of that particular joyride is a little daunting,
at least to me. Every time I read that some geologist or
other has detected a 250 million year periodicity in major
change on Earth (like orogeny), it bothers me.
Now, you know that eight-year-old is going to ask the next
question, "What does the Galaxy go around?" The answer is
the barycenter of the Local Group, which is itself in orbit
around the barycenter of the Virgo Supercluster, which is
itself heading a some good speed toward the Great Attractor,
about which we know little... or maybe nothing, except it
must be a whopper.
If he's the eight-year-old I think he is, he will then ask,
"Does the Universe go around anything?" Sheesh. In 1949,
Kurt Gödel published an exact and perfect alternative solution
of Einstein's equations in which the Universe rotates (but
doesn't have an axis). It also has a number of other truly
spooky properties that give me a headache.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_metric
Since then, others have published other exact and perfect
solutions of Einstein's equations all of which show rotation.
None of these solutions are testable, at least not so far.
But you can cut off the eight-year-old with "The universe
is everything there is, so there's nothing else for it to go
around."
Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Wooddell" <nf11...@npgcable.com>
To: "Meteorite-List" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2012 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Quickie
It was science week at an elementary school.
A third grade teacher was teaching the young kids in his class about
the solar system. He came in early one day and moved all the desks to
the side of the classroom on each wall. He proceeded to set up the
sun and planets using various sized styrofoam balls on stands that
represented our sun, planets and moons. It took several hours to set
up and filled the center of the class room.
Later that morning, after the children arrived, he walked around
explaining the orbits, and how things worked.
Afterwards the children could ask questions.
One young girl asked how the moon went around the earth. So he
grabbed the moon and showed her how it went around the earth.
Another young student asked how the earth went around the sun. So
with the help of the young girl the asked the first question, he show
the earth going around the sun at the same time the moon was going
around the earth! It took some coordination!
One of the brighter students then asked the question....if all these
planets go around the sun, then what does the sun go around?? The
teacher looked around the room, paused and said, "Good Question"!
Are we having fun yet?
Cheers!
Jim
Jim Wooddell
http://k7wfr.us
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