Re: Hawking and distance of stars

m...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Because triangulation cannot be achieved. Let me illustrate this in
> simple terms. Supposing you had a monitor on top of your computer that
> measures vertically, specified in light years, 10.5 light years long.
> Say that you can create a triangle on your computer, and with a cursor
> stretch the top up the triangle as long as you want to. Then, as you
> proceed to stretch the triangle upwards, you notice the higher you go
> the straighter the lines become. Not long thereafter, even before your
> triangle leaves the earth's atmosphere, you begin noticing that both
> verticle lines of the triangle appear to be straight. You then take a
> compass or a triangle and try to determine the angle. You find out
> that you can't do it. The lines appear to be straight vertically.

You CAN NOT be serious. No one is this dumb. What you're saying is
that the resolution of the monitor is insufficient to determine the
angle. So what? Do you think that's how these angles are measured?
With a monitor and a protractor?

Let's say I use an actual instrument to measure all angles to an
accuracy of 1 milli-arc-second (that's 1/1000 of 1/3600th of a degree).
My base distance is the diameter of Earth's orbit or about 93 million
miles times 2 (186 million miles or about 300 billion meters). Now
let's say my star is 100 light years away. My angle on each side will
be about 33 milli-arc-seconds for a total difference of 66
milli-arc-seconds. My instrument is accurate to 1 milli-arc-second so
tell me why I can't measure those 66 milli-arc-seconds with my
instrument? That's like saying I have a tape measure marked off in 1
inch segments but I can't use it to measure something 5 1/2 feet long.

>>From the Wikipedia article you failed to read:

"The final Hipparcos Catalogue (120,000 stars with 1 milliarcsec level
astrometry) and the final Tycho Catalogue (more than one million stars
with 20-30 milliarcsec astrometry and two-colour photometry) were
completed in August 1996. The catalogues were published by ESA in June
1997."

Lee Jay

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hawking and distance of stars
    ... >> stretch the top up the triangle as long as you want to. ... >> compass or a triangle and try to determine the angle. ... > that the resolution of the monitor is insufficient to determine the ... ATTEMPTS at measurements? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • we obey the forthcoming capitalism
    ... She'd rather hesitate then than monitor with Ralph's little expectation. ... He might date once, turn thus, then effect for the pit on to the triangle. ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: Preview problem
    ... > not the main monitor. ... Click the triangle next to root and the sixth item in the list that is ... imageDefaultDisplay. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
  • image quality problem
    ... I've been attempting to draw a simple equilateral ... triangle with 10 tick marks on each side. ... to draw one that looks fine on a monitor, ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.drawing)
  • Re: irreducible polynomial in integrand
    ... AB and BC of a reqular pentagon. ... triangle whose apex angle is 108 degrees and whose other angles are ... degrees and apex angle 108 degrees. ... has base angles 36degrees and apex angle 108 degrees. ...
    (sci.math)