[ExI] Fwd: a fantasy of spin

[William Flynn Wallace]

Subject: a fantasy of spin


"Yes, your Holiness, I will try to explain my ideas through two stories:

Suppose a lord wanted to know, for no apparent reason, what the geometric
center of Italy is.  The problem is that on the North, NorthEast and NorthWest
the borders are uncertain, and do we include Sardinia and Sicily etc?  No.
So choosing which borders to use is entirely arbitrary.  We calculate
several different centers based on different borders. Best to pick one that
is near a big city (preferably near the lord if that is possible).

Now consider the solar system.  Your Holiness has declared that the Earth
is the center.  Then the planets and their motions are determined.  The
problem is that the geometry to do that is enormously complicated.  If, by
pure arbitrariness, we consider the Sun to be the center, then the geometry
is far easier.  Conversion from that to the Earth-centered geometry can be
done.

So the Sun being the center is just an arbitrary way of thinking to make
the geometry easier.  No one is saying, like in the case of the center of
Italy, that one version is true and the others false.  Earth as the center
is perfectly valid, as you have ruled."

Now what if we could go back in time and present Galileo these stories to
tell to the Pope?  Might they have worked to save him?  Who knows?  bill w
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