New efforts!

[LaughingAlex]

The vortex is wrong, by that logic then Saturn wouldn't have rings, but a little vortex of debris slowly falling into it's atmosphere.  It'd look more like a fireball or a comet than a planet with rings.  I'm even reading a bit proving whats wrong with the whole idea.  Here, a link written by an actual astronomer.  http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html

Firstly the definition of a vortex is incorrectly used in this video.  What the creator of the video is describing is a HELIX.  Vortexes particles affect one another, in a Helix the particles don't physically touch one another.  The other problem is that the planets don't trail behind the sun.  The suns sphere of gravity does enable them to move as a single unit, so to speak.  The person debunking the video then goes into other videos as well as the mistakes in the degrees and whatnot.  Much of the evidence even can be seen from making observations from the ground, such as when one planet is ahead of the sun and say ours is behind the sun.

The guy ends on a note about the universe: how things are and how things should be don't always overlap.

Here are some examples;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110323-coldest-star-discovered-cup-coffee-brown-dwarf-hawaii-space-science/  This was debunked by.....

..... http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/04/nasa-finds-coldest-star-ever-as-chilly-as-the-arctic/

:P

[pinballdave]

Yes I read the Helix documents, but the video does open your mind to the fact that the solar system is not a merry-go-round, but really more like a merry-go-round hoisted up by its axis by an invisible crane. The video impressed me with the consideration of the movement of Sol.

[Aggelakis]

Did you earn a college degree in Film Studies? I did. 4.0.

Semi-relevant but ultimately an appeal to authority logical fallacy. Getting a degree in ABC topic doesn't mean you know more than someone else, it just means you went to a school for X months/years and got a piece of paper saying you went to school for ABC topic. I have never taken a college class and I can talk authoritatively on several topics. Does that make my knowledge/experience any less valid than someone who went to college and got a piece of paper on XYZ topic? No.

You mean Kane.

You mean it is or it's.

You mean it is or it's.

Completely irrelevant and damaging to your attempt at discourse because now people just think you're being a dick.

Don't be a dick.

[Mistress Urd]

At this point, I think folks need to go have a cup of coffee in pocket D and just relax. It will happen when it happens.

/stalker hide

[Soul Resonance]

Good ol' irrelevant arguments on Internet grammar and degree duels..great,  >:( :roll:. Help us, oh great..whoever can talk give a good pep-talk with some facts cleverly weaved in  8)

[Sinistar]

So, what was everyone's Origin of choice for their characters? Science? Tech? Magic? Mutation? Natural?

[MM3squints]

At this point, I think folks need to go have a cup of coffee in pocket D and just relax. It will happen when it happens.

/stalker hide

Is it weird this is the only de-motivational poster I can find when typing in Pocket d?

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=farm3.static.flickr.com%2F2397%2F2146715133_04c5579331_o.jpg

[parabola]

I enjoyed the force awakens. It was pretty much what I'd hoped it would be. And I got a really shitty chemistry degree so I know whereth I speak :).

In other news, where the pancaking pancake is my pancaking game?!

[ricodah]

So, what was everyone's Origin of choice for their characters? Science? Tech? Magic? Mutation? Natural?

Mutant and Natural.  Had the locations of all their vendors memorized for each zone.  I always wanted devs to make at least one power pool unique to each origin.  It would have made choosing a little less rand... Ummm, you were just trying to change the subject. 

[brothermutant]

At this point, I think folks need to go have a cup of coffee in pocket D and just relax. It will happen when it happens.

/stalker hide

You forgot to PLACATE. MuuuaaaaHHHAAHAHAHAHAH!

[Arcana]

Yes I read the Helix documents, but the video does open your mind to the fact that the solar system is not a merry-go-round, but really more like a merry-go-round hoisted up by its axis by an invisible crane. The video impressed me with the consideration of the movement of Sol.

Then you need to read the Bad Astronomy article again.  The video's biggest problem is a problem a lot of people have: it first conflates two different things (helices and vortices), then amplifies that misunderstanding by attributing the properties of one to the other, and ends up with stating something totally false.  The solar system isn't being "hoisted" up by its axis.  That implies that the Sun itself is being pulled through space and the planets are being pulled by it.  That's totally false.  In reality, *all* the planets and the Sun are moving in the same direction in the galactic plane, with the orbital motion superimposed on it.

Consider this.  Pretend you have a mechanical model of the Solar System, with the sun in the middle and the planets moving around it.  And suppose that you dropped it out of an airplane.  As it fell to the ground, would you say that the Sun was being pulled to the ground and it was pulling the planets down with it?  No, of course not.  All of them are falling together, all of them pulled downward by gravity.

Now imagine you put this model in an ice rink, and give it a shove.  As the planets continue to spin around the Sun, they would make - relative to an observer standing still - corkscrew motions around the Sun as the Sun itself basically moved in a straight line across the ice.  Would you say that it was the Sun moving across the ice, and it was somehow pulling the planets along with it?  Once again: no.  You shoved the whole model across the ice, and everything gained some forward motion across the ice.  The corkscrew motion is just the sum of that shove forward and the circular motion of the model, added together.

The gravitational forces by the Milky Way accelerate *every* object into orbit around the galactic center.  That's the Sun, the Earth, the moon, you and me.  Superimposed on that is the moon's orbit around the Earth, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun.  The summation of all of that are a bunch of superimposed ellipses dictated by gravity (or the local geodesics of spacetime, technically).

Why is this even important?  There's actually something fundamentally important going on, and it has to do with how Science works again.  The current Heliocentric model does *not* make the claim that the Sun is motionless or the Sun is the center of the universe.  It *used* to say that.  The fact that the Sun moves around the galaxy and the planets make helical motions in their orbits around the Milky Way** doesn't *disprove* the Heliocentric model.  We already did that long ago when we discovered galactic motion.  So why do we still use it, and teach it?  Because that model is a *model* - a way to think about how orbits work and how gravity works and how planetary motion works.  We now know that the Heliocentric model is not *totally* correct because we know the Sun isn't the center of the universe.  *But*, its still a useful model because in the frame of reference of the Sun it still makes reasonably accurate predictions.

Remember when I said that Science doesn't work by declaring everything before is false, and this new thing is now true?  Here again, the Geocentric model was proven false because the Earth isn't the center of the universe.  But the reason we don't use it for astronomy is because it makes incorrect predictions.  Before the invention of the telescope, the errors in the Heliocentric model were almost too small to see.  And we still use the Geocentric model when that's still true.  Don't believe me?  Tell me what model airlines use to book flights: the geocentric one or the heliocentric one?

The heliocentric model is far more accurate: Keplerian orbital predictions are dead accurate for almost everything in the Solar System.  In fact, when you modify the heliocentric model with General Relativity, its for all intents and purposes dead accurate.  Its the model we use for spaceflight.  We know the Sun isn't in the center of the universe, but we concede that whenever we do something that's based on the Sun's frame of reference like spaceflight in the Solar System, it still works.  The "real" model of the universe presumes galactic motion, but even that "correct" model makes the statement that for objects within orbit around the Sun and within a reasonable distance, the Heliocentric model will agree with it precisely.  Even when we discoverd Heliocentricity was wrong, we didn't just throw the model away completely because it was still useful: it had to be because it makes good predictions, which is why we created it in the first place.  Just as we never completely threw away the geocentric model, because on Earth it still makes good predictions.  United Airlines doesn't have to factor in the motion of the Virgo Supercluster in your trip to Tahiti.

Here's the punch line.  Science is not about making "revolutionary" pronouncements like the one the video maker is trying to make.  Science is about understanding the universe, by making testable predictions about the parts of the universe we don't already understand.  So even if I correct all of the errors the video maker makes confusing a helix and a spiral, what have you got?  What testable prediction does that "model" make that we don't already know through either observation or the predictions of general relativity, or the heliocentric solar system model, or anything else?  "The Solar System is life" is not a testable prediction.  Its new-age mumbo jumbo.  Give me something.  Tell me what the planetary motion will do today, tomorrow, or a million years from now that your model predicts and our current models fail to predict.  Tell me the Solar System is going to die of old age and fall apart in a thousand years, or will get married and have kids, or spawn children, or eat a bad comet and barf up Neptune.  Tell me your model is useful to the understanding of the universe by playing the game of Science by its rules: make a prediction, bet on it, and win.  Over and over and over, until you prove to people that your system works, because it breaks the house.

Otherwise, you aren't doing Science.  You're doing science fiction pretending to be Science.  At best.

[Arcana]

Plus, no matter how persuasive the narrative, no matter how eloquent the language, and no matter how pretty the video, don't fall for this, ever:

Life looks like spirals
The Solar System moves in spirals
Therefore, the Solar System is Life.

Seriously:

The Solar System moves in spirals
My toilet water moves in spirals
Therefore, the universe is being flushed down the drain.

The planets move in a helix
The Miracle Staircase is shaped like a helix
Therefore, the Solar System has a three dollar cover charge.

The planets spin around the Sun
The tango spins a partner around
Therefore, Saturn will be on next season's Dancing with the Stars.

This eventually leads to the infamous:

A ham sandwich is better than nothing
Nothing is better than eternal happiness
therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

No matter how good the video is of the ham sandwich, don't fall for it.

[darkgob]

A ham sandwich is better than nothing
Nothing is better than eternal happiness
therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

No matter how good the video is of the ham sandwich, don't fall for it.

Where does the chicken sandwich figure into this?

[pinballdave]

Then you need to read the Bad Astronomy article again.  The video's biggest problem is a problem a lot of people have: it first conflates two different things (helices and vortices), then amplifies that misunderstanding by attributing the properties of one to the other, and ends up with stating something totally false.  The solar system isn't being "hoisted" up by its axis.  That implies that the Sun itself is being pulled through space and the planets are being pulled by it.  That's totally false.  In reality, *all* the planets and the Sun are moving in the same direction in the galactic plane, with the orbital motion superimposed on it.

<snip>
The gravitational forces by the Milky Way accelerate *every* object into orbit around the galactic center.  That's the Sun, the Earth, the moon, you and me.  Superimposed on that is the moon's orbit around the Earth, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun.  The summation of all of that are a bunch of superimposed ellipses dictated by gravity (or the local geodesics of spacetime, technically).

<snip>

IMHO, there is a lot of verbiage to insist that science is precise, and I do not dispute that. I did say the merry-go-round, the whole she-bang, was being pulled in the direction of the polar axis of the solar system which compares in appearance if not precise detailed language in my opinion to "The gravitational forces by the Milky Way accelerate *every* object into orbit around the galactic center.  That's the Sun, the Earth, the moon, you and me.  Superimposed on that is the moon's orbit around the Earth, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun."

The other point I would emphasize was the video reminded me to the effect of the motion of the sun, even in an inferior vortex model. Another reminder is that in ~365.25 days the earth may be in the same relative position to the sun on the solar orbital plane, but it is nowhere near the point in space that it was a year ago.

I recall a  science project in 6th grade when our teacher demonstrated how solar diagrams are only rough generalizations by placing at scale objects representing the diameters of the planets, in at scale distances from the sun at the center. You can surmise the 'model' was quite large compared to a page in a book.

[pinballdave]

Plus, no matter how persuasive the narrative, no matter how eloquent the language, and no matter how pretty the video, don't fall for this, ever:

Life looks like spirals
The Solar System moves in spirals
Therefore, the Solar System is Life.

Seriously:

The Solar System moves in spirals
My toilet water moves in spirals
Therefore, the universe is being flushed down the drain.

The planets move in a helix
The Miracle Staircase is shaped like a helix
Therefore, the Solar System has a three dollar cover charge.

The planets spin around the Sun
The tango spins a partner around
Therefore, Saturn will be on next season's Dancing with the Stars.

This eventually leads to the infamous:

A ham sandwich is better than nothing
Nothing is better than eternal happiness
therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

No matter how good the video is of the ham sandwich, don't fall for it.

Life looks like helix in DNA,
therefore galactic Helix is life on a grander scale.
The universe is a simulation being operated by advanced aliens (thank you History channel)

[ivanhedgehog]

Where does the chicken sandwich figure into this?

was it an african chicken or a european chicken?

[MM3squints]

So with potential $330 ish million dollars up for grabs after taxes (federal not including state), who thinks CoX will comeback in less than a month from tonight xD

[Shibboleth]

So, what was everyone's Origin of choice for their characters? Science? Tech? Magic? Mutation? Natural?

Mutant and Magic were more common than others but I had all represented.

[Shibboleth]

So with potential $330 ish million dollars up for grabs after taxes (federal not including state), who thinks CoX will comeback in less than a month from tonight xD

It was $429 million on cash payout yesterday. Certainly its pushing $500 million tonight.

[Zerohour]

So, what was everyone's Origin of choice for their characters? Science? Tech? Magic? Mutation? Natural?

more often than not I went with Mutation, I always liked the ideas of my characters' backstories involving a sudden awakening of their powers due to some kind of event or stressful situation