h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

With the earth spinning on its axis whilst travelling around the Sun, if you were standing on the surface of Earth which was travelling 'Eastwards' at some point in the day it would also be travelling 'westwards'.


;^)#

What you mean to say is that from some perspective on the earth you would be traveling westwards.

Well, yes sort of - trying to point which way the earth was travelling in its orbit would basically involve a great deal of arm spinning.


;^)#

It doesn'y really matter which way the Earths going becuse the more the Universe expands the mre space its got around it. So if it is going anywhere its probably going to be quite lonely when it gets there. Oh well, we'll all be dead by then anyway !

No point on the Earth's surface ever travels westwards. Think about it

I don't think he ment 'westward', rather westward direction if you pointed you arm in that direction and drew a line out into space from that point.

That would depend on the earths speed whilst travelling through its orbit relative to the speed at which the person standing on its surface was spinning 'eastward', not to mention the 'direction' of the orbit - now wouldn't it?


;^)#

I didn't say anyplace was moving westward. I said from a *perspective* it would *appear*... etc.

Say a person was standing in the US, and a person in Australia could look straight through the earth -and- see that US person moving. It would appear to them as if the person was moving westward. Think about it.

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No it wouldn't because they would also be moving westwards and so would not know any difference.

But they would be travelling in opposite directions & if asked to point west they would point in opposite directions. Its all relative, of course.


;^)#

Exactly.

If only Richard Feynman was still here.
What has always amazed me about Kepler, Brahe and all the rest is that they had never even seen a photograph of the earth from space. In modern times we've seen all manner of drawings and CGI showing us all these little spheres spinning round each other and it's very easy to think spatially in terms of these things. For people who had to develop their own visualisations of this they all did very well. Relatively (within the solar system) the sun goes round. Within the galaxy, it goes round too. Christ knows what it does relative to other galaxies. Roughly speaking, if you're standing somewhere nice and dark at midnight and you look towards the easternmost edge of the galactic disc you're looking in the direction in which we're heading around the galactic centre (about which we rotate every two hundred billion years)

The cover story of Time magazine ("Up From The Apes: Remarkable New Evidence Is Filling In The Story Of How We Became Human", AUGUST 23, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 8) is a good article that addresses the missing link issue. You can find it at http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,29513,00.html

....And our Galaxy is only one of millions and billions in this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding in all of the directions it can whizz.....

Is Winpig a Python fan, by any chance?

Don't know if Winpig is. I am. Every time the question "what is the speed of light in miles per hour?" came up on the quiz machine in the pub I'd be stuck between converting it from 299,792,500 m/s or 12 million miles a minute, though it's closer to 11 and a half million.
What's the next line? "Each beastly little hornet, each... ?"
"Fiddle dee dum, fiddle dee dee, ... ?"
"Does 'e talk? Does 'e talk?" "Of course I can talk, I'm... ?"
"Arrrr. It is my firm opinion that those sheep..... ?"

OK so I karnt spell. No need to muck the aflikted.
You wanna duel in python quotes? I got two hardback volumes of complete scripts so think on that as you munch your crunchy frogs. "I unclog my nose in your general direction"

(In outragous French accent)
Your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of elderberries!

I'd still like to know how you patent genes. (e.g. various biotech companies mapping the human genome, and sticking their flags in the best bits)

To me, that sounds like a discovery, rather than an invention.

Tim

's easy - really expensive lawyers.


;^)#

*writes down* ... "Check the movie place for Python movies!"

I've been wanting to do that for a while now, but I keep getting distracted... I'm guessing that since they did have Trainspotting, they might have those, too... at least... I'm hoping.

Hmmm.. trainspotting... Where's that thread of Fen's?