Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, March 25. 2012

Things we take for granted


Approaching death, rising taxes. The Sun.


I would say that if you can understand every detail of the Wiki piece on old Mr. Sun, your basic, math-free science is in fairly good shape.


I did not know that the sun, with its Solar System, orbits about the center of the Milky Way galaxy at approximately 251 km/second. We are racing around our galaxy which is, in turn, racing through space at somewhere between 100 and 600 km/second.


And yet we do not feel the speed.


South Carolina photo by our pal Capt. Tom Francis

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 13:55 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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Do we not feel the speed or because it is always there & constant we do not notice the feeling?
#1 Rick 9911 on 2012-03-25 14:11 (Reply)
No one ever notices speed, they notice acceleration. When your speed is constant, as Einstein said, you can't ever tell whether you're still and non-accelerating things are moving past you, or vice versa. In other words, constant speed is the same thing as motionlessness. (Though it will often matter very much whether other things are moving in relation to you, especially if they're close.)
#1.1 Texan99 (Link) on 2012-03-26 16:04 (Reply)
There is nothing to feel. We get used to the idea of "feeling" speed because of wind and friction, and secondarily, the visual effects of nearby objects whizzing pas us. Speed is otherwise only movement relative to some other object. The Milky Way is itself moving relative to other galaxies at even faster speeds than that spin.
#2 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2012-03-25 16:14 (Reply)
That is one glorious photo image, Barrister. Thanks...

Marianne
#3 Marianne Matthews on 2012-03-25 16:17 (Reply)
Thank you - I took that last year in the early Fall.

TB - hint, hint...
#3.1 Tom Francis on 2012-03-25 16:25 (Reply)
The Earth revolves at 9,000 mph.

Earth orbits the Sun at 19 miles per second.

The Solar System moves 1,000,000 miles per day orbiting the galactic hub at 14,000 mph.

The leading of the observable universe is expanding at the speed of light or 186,000 miles per second.

The relationship between our galaxy and others seems to indicate that movement between galaxies exceeds the speed of light.

And the speed limits on highways are 65 to 70 mph. Doesn't seem fair does it?
#4 Tom Francis on 2012-03-25 16:24 (Reply)
-- @ 9k mph dawn-to-dawn would be about two and a quarter hours. 24 time zones, 24 hours, 24k circumference, 1000 mph at the Equator. Oddly, 24k miles is also about the distance from Earth to Moon.

--knowing TF, i suspect a typo. However, i place this in a second paragraph, so i could have a first one to shoot off my mouth in

:-)
#4.1 buddy larsen on 2012-03-26 10:58 (Reply)
Nope - you're right - I didn't catch it on editing. It's slightly over 1,000 mph. I have no idea where that 9K came from.

Well done.
#4.1.1 Tom Francis on 2012-03-26 16:49 (Reply)
--well, what Dame Fortune borrowed from your editing focus, she invested in your camera focus!
#4.1.1.1 buddy larsen on 2012-03-26 19:53 (Reply)
As I recall, Earth's trip around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way takes about 250 million years, give or take an eon.

Better use the bathroom before we leave.
Oh, better pack some sandwiches.
#5 PacRim Jim (Link) on 2012-03-25 17:44 (Reply)
Everything was going swimmingly until you mentioned all of this motion business. Now I'm feeling rather unwell. Please stop the universe I'd like to get off, thank you.
#6 Jephnol (Link) on 2012-03-25 20:02 (Reply)
Longitude and Latitude have replaced 19th century-ish Meridian and Parallel. Too bad --L & L have to be word-memorized, where M & P don't, as upon the easily-conjured sphere image, the meridians are instantly visualized against the parallel lines.

This may account for equatorial people enjoying hunting and fishing over industrializing --see, they're already going a thousand miles an hour and regardless of what they either do or leave undone, they will never go any faster, they are mack's doubt (sometimes spelled 'maxed out').

Between Equator and Pole, however, are the Temperate Zones (at the halfway point, people are spinning at a mere 500 miles mph), full of people who 'know' they could be going faster if only they tried harder. Ergo, skyscrapers and such.
#7 buddy larsen on 2012-03-26 11:27 (Reply)

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