Editing 2898: Orbital Argument
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | In this comic, | + | {{incomplete|Created by a LIGHT WAVE-EARTH BARYCENTER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} |
+ | In this comic, the person in the middle is using the {{w|Argument to moderation|middle ground fallacy}} to try to make a compromise between the two characters. | ||
− | Cueball appears to be asserting a {{w|geocentric}} viewpoint, whilst Megan adheres to a {{w|heliocentric}} one, | + | [[Cueball]] appears to be asserting a {{w|geocentric}} viewpoint, whilst [[Megan]] adheres to a {{w|heliocentric}} one, an argument that has actually long been settled in the latter's favor. [[White Hat]], however, considers it {{wiktionary|politic#Adjective|politic}} to 'split the difference' and declares his intention to compromise with a 'middle' option, to try to uncritically please both parties. (Though it's probable that he may instead just equally annoy them both!) |
− | + | By one way of looking at it, it happens that he is also correct. Because two bodies exert equal but opposite gravitational forces on each other (although there is no gravitational force only bended space-time), each orbits around the average location of the other, and therefore they both orbit a common center. This {{w|Barycenter (astronomy)|barycenter}} is located somewhere between the two bodies, with the two bodies' distances from the barycenter being approximately inversely proportional to their masses. Earth does not orbit the center of the stationary Sun as described by the heliocentric model. However, the Earth-Sun barycenter is only slightly different from the Sun's own true center, still well within the Sun. It is around this which the Sun wobbles, in contrast to the way the Earth rotates around this unequally proportioned midpoint. | |
− | + | The equivalent Jupiter-Sun barycenter, meanwhile, is located just ''above'' the 'surface' of the Sun due to the masses involved being not as different (but still significantly so), and the much greater distance between them. As each of the planets and the Sun are simultaneously orbiting/'being orbited' (and every planet also measurably pulls on every other, etc, even discounting every smaller and/or more distant body in the universe), the combined solar-system's barycenter is a less simply-defined point (that being more likely to be within the Sun, at any given point of time), which can often be considered to more simply average out to "<each planet> orbits the Sun" for most purposes, and Cueball is therefore ''least'' correct, and it would be a false solution to give his worldview an equivalence of validity. | |
− | + | That White Hat has worded his compromise solution in a way that (arguably) encompasses the deeper truth of the barycentric viewpoint is not treated as justifying his mediating approach. It is clearly understood (by someone who seems to understand the complexities, e.g. a {{w|Randall Munroe#NASA|NASA physicist}}) that White Hat's 'successful' conclusion is just accidental. Which is vexatious. | |
− | + | The title text extends the principle of the comic's astronomical viewpoint down to the correspondingly opposing 'quantum world'. For various well-studied reasons, light is often described ''either'' as particles ''or'' as waves. White Hat's approach would be to give both viewpoints equal credit and suggest a compromising middle-ground explanation. In this case, also, he would have the {{w|Wave–particle duality|correct answer}} but, in the continuing view of an increasingly exasperated witness to his chronic {{w|False balance|"half-and-half"ism}}, not through actually correct reasoning. | |
− | + | A similar example of the middle ground fallacy was used in [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition]], although in that case the person offering the compromise solution was not portrayed as getting the right answer by accident. | |
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==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
+ | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
:[From left to right, Cueball, White Hat and Megan standing. Cueball and Megan are arguing. Cueball is raising a finger while Megan's arms are outstretched. White Hat stands between them, both hands out in an equivocal gesture.] | :[From left to right, Cueball, White Hat and Megan standing. Cueball and Megan are arguing. Cueball is raising a finger while Megan's arms are outstretched. White Hat stands between them, both hands out in an equivocal gesture.] | ||
:Cueball: The sun orbits the earth! | :Cueball: The sun orbits the earth! | ||
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[[Category:Astronomy]] | [[Category:Astronomy]] | ||
[[Category:Physics]] | [[Category:Physics]] | ||
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