Occam's Razor and Aesop's Contributions

[Guest guest]

> But of course I can offer you the math, and a simple version of it, easy

> to understand.

 

To measure the distance to an object, one can use trigonometry.

 

S

/ \

/ \

/ \

A-------B

 

Lets assume that 'S' is the sun and 'A' and 'B' are 1-meter telescopes on

the earth. 'A' measures the angle between the light rays that it receives

from 'B' and from 'S'. Similarly 'B' measures the angle between 'A' and 'S'.

 

'A' must be able to see 'B' (otherwise it could not measure the angle

accurately enough), and since the earth is a globe, the distance between 'A'

and 'B' cannot be larger than 100 miles or so (otherwise they would not see

each other).

 

Now one calculate the distance to the sun:

It is <distance between A and B> divided by <angle at S (in radians)>.

Where <angle at S> is PI - <angle at A> - <angle at B>

 

With a 1-meter telescope the error when measuring angles is about one

millionth radian due to Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. (That is for

example 1 mm in 1 km distance).

 

Now assume that the calculated angle at S is 1 millionth radian with an

uncertainty of 1 millionth radian, and that the distance between A and B is

100 miles. This gives a distance to the sun between 50 million miles and

infinit. Sorry but I don't call this "measurement of the distance to the

sun".

 

Please note that I assumed perfectly manufactured telescopes. I also ignored

the disturbing influence of the atmosphere. And I assumed that the light

rays don't make curves in the space (Einstein has shown that this is not

true in the presence of the sun).