The Sun Stood Still
- Thread starter bob b
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So does anyone else have comments about Joshua's Long Day?
Can anyone comment on the concurrence of two separate events in the story that were not known by science to be related until at least the 1800's?
1. meteor showers (stones from heaven) related to close passage of heavenly bodies like comets, and
2. gyroscopic precession caused by the close passage of a large heavenly body, thus potentially explaining an extended day (and night).
I should add that the existence of Earth's magnetosphere may enter into the picture as well.
Can anyone comment on the concurrence of two separate events in the story that were not known by science to be related until at least the 1800's?
1. meteor showers (stones from heaven) related to close passage of heavenly bodies like comets, and
2. gyroscopic precession caused by the close passage of a large heavenly body, thus potentially explaining an extended day (and night).
I should add that the existence of Earth's magnetosphere may enter into the picture as well.
Rolf Ernst
New member
AHarvey--Your post #106 is based on a very large premise, a premise which, when considered, is really absurd. You RUSH to assume that the pause in the earth's rotation did not also include the atmosphere of the earth. And you took so many bytes to pontificate upon the effects which would have resulted IF YOUR BASELESS PREMISE were true. Now your wishful premise is skewered in my four lines.
aharvey
New member
Well, you might be right here if you were invoking a miracle, because then of course said miracle could as easily hold the atmosphere in place relative to the earth, as well as the water and anything else you want to throw in. I already acknowledged that in the post that you so effortlessly skewered. However, if you want to explain this scientifically, then I'm afraid you still have to deal with the problem that the Earth's movements are not identical to those of objects that are drawn to it by the forces of gravity. This is not a baseless assumption; it's so well established, and fundamentally true, that I'll leave it to you to verify it for yourself. The fact that the Earth behaves in many ways like a gyroscope (which, incidentally, is not the same as it actually being a gyroscope) doesn't change the fact that if some huge object passed close enough to impact the kind of wobble implied here (and might I stress what a gigantic wobble -- and keep that concept of wobble in mind for a minute longer -- we're talking about!), and in the extraordinarily short time frame we're talking about (for perspective, the precession of the earth's axis covers 23.5 degrees and takes almost 26,000 years; you're talking, what, somewhere close to 90 degrees in a matter of a few hours? Not the clearest way to say this but I'm in a hurry), a few meteors (confined curiously enough to a single battlefield in Joshua's neighborhood) would be the LEAST of their concerns.
Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that we're talking a wobble here, not a permanent repositioning. Which means that the disruptive effects, the wobbling, of a scale never seen before or since, would not be restricted to the initial yank. The world would be topsy turvy for quite a while before the Earth settled down and reoriented its axis of rotation based on the Sun and Moon, although that doesn't seem to make it into the stories. Of course, it's not even clear the Moon would still be around after such an event, as it's very close to the Earth and quite a bit smaller; anything that affects the Earth like this is likely to have serious consequences for the moon as well!
But I hope the venting made you feel better.
aharvey
New member
Since bob is apparently unaware of what is meant by arguing from incredulity, here is a concise description: "An argument from incredulity essentially works by taking the fact that one can't believe or imagine that something is true (or false) to be a good reason for thinking it isn't true (or false)."
A typical example of arguing from incredulity would be if someone were to tell you that "uphill evolution is obviously absurd" and leave it at that (no definitions, no logical chain of reasoning, no actual supporting evidence). The clincher would be if, when pressed, they simply repeated the claim or questioned your motives or intelligence without providing the definitions, logic, or evidence. So we're left with the classic argument from incredulity: "The fact that one can't believe that uphill evolution occurs is a good reason for thinking that it doesn't occur."
Now we can use my post to illustrate how one can challenge an idea without having to resort to arguing from incredulity. While I admit I am skeptical of the idea of Joshua's long day being the result of a gigantic celestial body passing right by the earth, that was not my argument at all. My argument was that, given the considerable amount we know about the nature and the details of the relationship between the movement of the Earth and the movement of objects closely attracted to the Earth (like air and water), a sudden and dramatic change in the Earth's axis of rotation would lead to a sudden and dramatic shearing of the frictional forces that normally keep the atmosphere, oceans, etc., moving in concert with the Earth. I also pointed out that such a gigantic, temporary distortion of the normal axis of orientation would have to have additional, hard to ignore consequences as the orientation returned to normal.
See the difference? I didn't argue "this is obviously absurd." I argued that "if this were true, then there are a couple of additional predictions we could make based on our understanding of how gyroscopes and gravity work, and how the Earth and its various gravitational attendants (Moon, air, water, etc.) are known to interact." Arguing from incredulity is an attempt to avoid serious discussion, because there's no rational way to continue the discussion. One could, in contrast, counter my arguments by showing that my assumptions are wrong (e.g., that the positioning of air and water around the Earth are not dependent on friction and gravity, so that a change in the Earth's axis of rotation would automatically and simultaneously change the "axis of rotation" for the oceans and atmosphere), or by providing evidence that these predicted events actually did happen.
Well, my main assumption was that the relevant physical properties worked the same way then as now. As far as the 90 degrees estimate, yeah, that was just tossed out (hmm, did I try to make it appear otherwise?), but surely it would be possible to bracket the possibilities. If the Sun stopped for an entire day, and the Earth's rotation speed was unchanged, as has been stressed here, then the Sun would have to have been pretty much directly overhead, right? Otherwise, there may not have been a sunset, but the Sun certainly would be hopping all over the sky (think about what happens in the Arctic Circle). But to keep the sun even more or less directly overhead the site of the battle would require that the site itself would have to temporarily become the "North Pole," or be very close to it. So, if you know the latitude of the battle site (which I don't), and the time of year of the battle (which I don't), you could replace my rhetorical number with an actual calculated value. If you don't know the time of year, you could still bracket the possibilities using solstice values.Originally posted by bob b
I wonder where the assumptions (90degrees, etc) were pulled out of. A dark place?
For example, let's say the battle happened at 30 degrees latitude (e.g., in the middle of modern Israel) on the day of the summer solstice. Then the axis would have to shift from 90 degrees to 30 degrees, a change of "only" 60 degrees. And if you really do want to keep the earth rotating around this new pole, the change would have to happen at just the right time of day, otherwise the battle site could just as easily be plunged into 24 hours of darkness, or have a really long day in which the Sun races up and down all over the sky. And even if you get your 60 degree axis shift, and at just the right time of day, you will still not have "stopped the Sun;" for a rotating earth, this could ONLY happen at the "North Pole" IF the "North Pole" was pointing directly towards the Sun, and at best a battle site at 30 degrees latitude will be 7.5 degrees away from pointing directly towards the Sun. Now you might claim that when the Bible said the Sun stopped it didn't mean that it actually stopped, but that it only looked like it stopped to people who weren't really paying attention, after all they were in a battle to the death. Well, that's fine, but my point here is that the further away the axis is from being truly perpendicular towards the sun, the more the sun will "hop around the sky." And the more you move the axis to approximate a stopped sun, the greater the magnitude of the earth-air-water effects I've mentioned earlier. Likewise, the greater the length of time to displace the axis of rotation, the less devastating the side effects, but the more time for people to have noticed something BIG happening (and I'm also guessing that this can set some limits on the size, speed, and trajectory of the passing object that was the supposed cause of all this in the first place!). It's an interesting set of tradeoffs. Perhaps someone who is so motivated and mathematically adept could identify the least absurd set of conditions possible.
Rolf Ernst
New member
Aharvey--do you really believe you can divorce the terrestrial globe from the sea of atmosphere in which it swims? If so, the velocity of the earth's surface as it rotates would lead to some unbelievable winds. Isn't the circumference of the earth 26,000 miles? Divide that by 24 hours and you have the factor of velocity, a shade over 1000mph. Factor that into your thinking. Also, though I have not checked the Bible text recently, it seems that I remember it saying that the earth "slowed" in its going down; and that is certainly not the sudden stop that you have posited.
Physics according to Bob
Physics according to Bob
From Bob:
Bob’s premise in this thread has been that the near miss of (some unidentified planet?) could cause a precession of the earth’s axis that could account for Joshua’s long day, and not necessarily involve a slowing of the rotation of the earth. I presume Bob is trying to avoid the globally catastrophic effects that stopping the rotation would entail.
Bob starts with:
Bob also failed to mention that the sun was not the only thing that stayed up. In fact the sun was commanded to stay over ONE place and the moon, with a completely differed set of orbital considerations, was charged with staying over ANOTHER place at the same time. This hardly sounds like some silly simplistic tilt of the earth’s axis.
When Stratnerd asked for evidence of the magnitude of the results of Bob’s tilt change, Bob retreats to the safety of:
Jukia expressed some concern about Bob’s claim of gyroscopic precession. Bob’s recommendation to Jukia:
Aharvey posted some very pertinent comments from the very site that Bob referred Ninevah to. Note this statement from that site:
Bob was prophetic is describing himself when early in this thread he declared:
Physics according to Bob
From Bob:
Yeah, I do. Let me insert my comments in the context of the ideas already expressed in this thread.
Bob’s premise in this thread has been that the near miss of (some unidentified planet?) could cause a precession of the earth’s axis that could account for Joshua’s long day, and not necessarily involve a slowing of the rotation of the earth. I presume Bob is trying to avoid the globally catastrophic effects that stopping the rotation would entail.
Bob starts with:
In fielding objections to his idea of the precession of the earth’s axis, Bob says:
Let me respond first to some of these statements from Bob.
This is just the type of nonsense answer someone who is ignorant of real physics would give. When a child pokes a spinning top, there is a force being applied perpendicular to the axis of rotation at a distance from the center of mass of the top (in other words, a torque). I challenge Bob to show how the near approach of another planet would likewise apply such a torque on the rotating earth. When one planet approaches another, its gravitational influence is radially symmetric. Assuming the planets are essentially spherical, the net gravitational influence one has on the other acts as though it were through the center of mass. Result – no torque, and no precession. If Bob disputes this, I challenge him to use Euler’s equations to prove his contention. (The brilliant mathematician Euler, in the late 1700s and after he was blind, started with Newton’s laws and developed the classical set of equations still used today in computing gyroscopic precession.)
Pure scientific hogwash, just like you might expect from some retired operations analyst engineer with an immense ego who thinks he is also an authority on physics. Bob, in case you slept though freshman physics, angular momentum is a vector, not just a rotation speed. That means it has a defined direction, and if you change that direction (which is what precession is), you are changing the angular momentum just as much as if you alter the rotation speed. This is not just a whim of physics, because if you change the direction of the axis of rotation, the resulting effects can be just as important as the angular speed (the rotation velocity). It matters little whether you slow the earth or tilt it - the momentum (another vector) of the everything on the earth is going to resist the change. Tidal waves of unheard of height, earthquakes that defy the Richter scale, hurricanes with near supersonics winds, just a few of the minor effects of tilting the earth enough to keep the sun above the horizon for a day in the biblical lands.
Bob also failed to mention that the sun was not the only thing that stayed up. In fact the sun was commanded to stay over ONE place and the moon, with a completely differed set of orbital considerations, was charged with staying over ANOTHER place at the same time. This hardly sounds like some silly simplistic tilt of the earth’s axis.
When Stratnerd asked for evidence of the magnitude of the results of Bob’s tilt change, Bob retreats to the safety of:
As far as the “relatively simple physics”, Bob is partially right, the physics of gyroscopic motions have been documented for over 2 centuries. Planetary astronomers have long since modeled planetary interactions, geologists have studied the structure of the earth, some climatologists make their living analyzing the effects of the earth’s rotation and its effects on coriolis forces and such. But naturally Bob could easily find the magical answers that confound the results of all of these studies if he just had his handy-dandy simulation tools available.
Those chips are sometimes called cow chips, Bob. That are smelly, dirty, and don’t qualify as good science. I can appreciate what Bob implied when he said:
You see, if I am standing and not kneeling and find myself in deep doo doo, I look at Bob kneeling next to me and see that the doo doo is clear over his head. He needs to come up for air.
Jukia expressed some concern about Bob’s claim of gyroscopic precession. Bob’s recommendation to Jukia:
This is good advice – for Bob himself. Until he understands basic physics concepts like vectors I don’t think much of anything he expounds on in physics is going to be very reliable.
Aharvey posted some very pertinent comments from the very site that Bob referred Ninevah to. Note this statement from that site:
Bob, is that site wrong? Do you have a naturalistic explanation that no one else has thought of (an explanation that at least pretends to be in line with physical laws)?
Bob was prophetic is describing himself when early in this thread he declared:
In response to Bob’s opening salvo:
I concur with Stratnerd. In fact, “people who ARE well acquainted with physics DO think that the Joshua story is an obvious fairytale”, IF you must explain it as the result of naturalist processes, as Bob has pathetically tried to do in this thread.
aharvey
New member
Although ThePhy did a superior job, as always, at illustrating the silliness of bob's original ideas, I did want to respond to these comments, as I make some of the same points in classes that I teach. Namely, the atmosphere and oceans that sit on top of the Earth (why? due to gravity) do tend to move in concert with the Earth as it rotates; if they didn't, we would be contending with some mighty severe winds and waves, as Rolf Ernst observes. However, you are still overlooking that the air and water moves with the Earth largely because of gravity and friction (excuse the oversimplification, ThePhy!), and they have a considerable momentum of their own that is independent of the Earth. What do you think would happen if we could instantly stop the rotation of the earth? Would the air and water instantly stop too? Well, actually, I guess that is the point of contention; you do seem to think that they would! But why would you think that? The gravity is pulling these things towards the center of the Earth, not to a particular location on the Earth's surface. If frictional forces were that strong, wouldn't they prevent any of the global atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns that we see? Certainly these relatively leisurely movements would be no match for a frictional (or any other) force strong enough to hold atmosphere and ocean in place during a sudden planetary stop.
You might read up on the Coriolis effect too. This effect wouldn't be possible in a world where air and water movements tracked Earth's rotational movements in the manner you seem to be envisioning.
You might also want to check your Bible. To produce the effect that's described there in the timeframe indicated would requires some astonishingly rapid, astonishingly massive events, nothing short of a miracle.
Bump - Bob is trying this once again - look here.