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    Is the Newtonian Astronomy True?
    Is the Newtonian Astronomy True?
    Is the Newtonian Astronomy True?
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Is the Newtonian Astronomy True?

    By William Carpenter

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    “Is the Newtonian Theory True?” comprises a series of letters written by the author to various editors of scientific periodicals attempting to refute “Newtonian Theory” and other contemporary scientific ideas. Newtonian Theory refers to Newton's ideas of the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists view of the physical universe for three centuries. This volume looks at the ideas of Newton and other historical astronomers while trying to point out inaccuracies and weaknesses to their arguments. Contents include: “Globularity”, “Eclipses”, “Gravity”, “The Globe's Motion”, “Confession of Copernicus”, “Atmospheric Pressure”, “Light”, “Ship on the Horizon”, “The Higher Criticism”, “Moses and Geologists”, “The Torah of Moses”, “Geology”, etc. This fascinating volume will appeal to those with an interest in the developmental of modern scientific theories and alternative ideas. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherObscure Press
    Release dateJul 14, 2020
    ISBN9781528766982
    Is the Newtonian Astronomy True?

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      Is the Newtonian Astronomy True? - William Carpenter

      Is the Newtonian Astronomy True?

      GLASGOW, 15th MAY.

      SIR,—Your correspondent seems to think this a question entirely of flatness or convexity: whereas there are four sects of globists all at loggerheads:—(1) The Ptolemaists, represented by J. Gillespie, of Dumfries, who suppose the earth globe a centre for the revolution of the sun, moon, and stars; (2) The Koreshans of America, who suppose the earth a hollow globe for us to live inside; (3) The Newtonian Copernicans, who suppose the sun a centre, keeping the planets whirling in orbits by gravity; and (4) the Copernicans, who suppose the planets to whirl round the sun, without the necessity of gravity, Sir R. Phillips heading up this school. However, here are a few nuts especially for Copernican teeth:—Why are railways and canals constructed without any allowance for terrestrial convexity; and why do artists in marine views represent by a straight line the horizon, whether running east and west, or north and south ? How can all the vast continents, with convexity only imaginary, along with the oceans, stick together to make a ball something like a little schoolroom globe, able to whirl on an axis only imaginary—that is, no axis at all; and though very many million tons in weight float light as a little cork in ethereal fluid found only in Copernican brains? How can gravity, which no one can describe, or prove, toss nineteen miles in a twinkling the great oceans and continents over the sun, and yet we are not accordingly killed outright, or even conscious of any such horrible motion? Is not this pagan Aristotelian gravity only a disguised theory of heaviness, representing the moon as falling 16ft. per minute towards the earth, but somehow deflected into an orbit; also the earth as falling towards the sun, but likewise deflected? Why do astronomers differ so much as to the size of the earth and as regards distances of sun and stars? Why believe antiquated fables devised thousands of years ago by stick worshippers, such as Thales and Pythagoras, who foolishly believed the sun a god to govern all, and hence the centre of whirling worlds, instead of the true God, who has declared that the earth stands in and out the water, and is so fixed that it never can move.—I am, &c.,

      A. M‘INNES.

      [All calculations of the earth’s size, and therefore of the distances and magnitude of sun, moon and stars, depend wholly in the length of a terrestrial degree. The land and sea are first supposed to unite into a sort of ball, shaped like a turnip, orange or lemon, and then the circumference is divided into 360 parts called degrees,but not all equal,as is evident from Newton’s supposition of ellipticity. Aristotle, about 300 B.C., said that mathematicians fixed the globe’s circumference at 40,000 stadii (or 5000 of our miles). Fifty years afterwards, another Greek, Eratosthenes, first devised the plan of measurement still generally followed, that of determining by celestial observations the difference of latitude between two places on the same meridian, and then measuring the earth’s distance between them. He calculated the earth’s circumference to be 250,000 stadii (or about 32,000 of our miles). Various attempts have been made within the last three centuries to measure a degree, but with results so unsatisfactory, up to this hour, that the International Geodetic Association have lately resolved to hold a conference at Berlin during the summer to consider this much vexed question. The common method of measurement supposes the sky for the nonce a hollow globe corresponding precisely to the terrestrial one which it completely envelopes, and hence a degree as measured on the sky is believed to be the same as a terrestrial one; though again astronomers suppose the sky to be boundless space. Thus God’s challenge to Job thousands of years ago may be repeated to the modern astronomer, Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? The terrestrial base line being therefore unreliable, all calculations of terrestrial magnitude, as well as distances of sun, moon, and stars founded thereon, are as fabulous as the monkey-man of evolution, or Lord Kelvin’s third guess of past time at 4,000 million years.]

      GLOBULARITY.

      SIR,—Mr Harpur assures us that surveys for canals and railways are made without mention of curvature, because the levels are taken by a succession of short tangents which overlap; so that, in surveyor’s slang, the backsight cancels the foresight. Now, we know that surveyors require back and foresights for uneven ground, and that their datum line must be parallel to the horizon, which is invariably level; nor have I ever seen it otherwise. Mr Harpur is challenged to prove that this cancelling allows for the fall of 8 inches per mile, increasing as the square of the distance. Nor can he prove his short tangents to be less imaginary than the globe itself, whirling on an imaginary axis, with an imaginary lurch of 23 1/2 degrees on an imaginary plane, driven along an imaginary orbit by the imaginary centripetal and centrifugal forces. Since the earth is alleged to whirl 1,000 miles an hour, how many billion tons of centrifugal force, according to mechanics, does Mr Harpur grant to pitch us off, seas and all movables, against the man in the moon? Again, if the lightning globe flashes over the sun about 19 miles every tick of the clock, how many billion tons of orbital centrifugal force will dash us, perhaps, against Neptune, whose imaginary inhabitants get only a 900th of the sun’s heat and light compared to us? Now, isn’t this sea earth ball a curiosity; nobody able to explain how all the great continents and oceans stick together to make it? Over its shape, size, distance, &c., how star-gazers squabble! Herschel will have it like an orange with two axes, but Ball with three axes, and Airy thinks it like a turnip. Herschel makes an astronomical degree 70 miles, but Airy 69, so that the globe’s circumference may be either 25,200 or 24,840 miles. Again, according to Lardner, its distance from the sun is 100 million miles to Herschel’s 95 millions, to Airy’s 92 millions, &c.; but whilst to Copernicans" the phantom’s whereabouts is uncertain, common sense knows that it exists only in Newtonian brains.—I am, &c.,

      A. M‘INNES.

      SIR,—C. H.’s supposition of the difference in levelling are surely exploded by the letter from the Manchester Ship Ganai Office denying all allowance for curvature. It seems to be forgotten that the sun’s distance is the astronomer’s unit rod of measurement, and that seeing the astrologer Copernicus started with three million miles, now swollen up to some hundred millions, why, according to Newton’s rule, we being now thirty times further away, have only a nine-hundredth of the sun’s light, heat, and gravity formerly enjoyed. Further, the speed of our lightning ball is increased from less than one foot per second to nineteen miles. Indeed, as regards distance, speed, light, heat, gravity, the whole machinery of the solar system, without leaving out the millions of twinkling globes outside, has been for 300 years getting such a tinkering as must gladden the heart of Topsy-Turvy to behold. Moreover, Brewster and Herschel, in calculating the distance of the nearest fixed star, differ by eight hundred thousand million miles; but, of course, millions of miles are as so many paltry inches to star gazers. A correspondent cites in proof of globularity the supposition of boundless space, which in turn is the usual inference from globularity; but to prove this assumption would require a boundless astronomer accordingly, without shape, centre or gravity, and bodily organs; or an astronomer of organic protoplasm, but endued with unending life, to explore creation through endless time, therefore, never to get at the evidence sought for. If our globe needs tangential force and gravity to spin it round the sun, just as does the moon to spin round us, why not the sun to spin round its vaster centre towards Hercules, whilst the sun’s centre needs another centre still more monstrous? Thus there must be an infinity of globes. Then omnipotent gravity, operating everywhere, yet nowhere to be found or seen, a universal cause without beginning, to operate on uncaused creation, itself uncaused, is hence another god, yet to be everywhere opposed by a nameless, invisible, utterly piystical rival, equally omnipotent, tangential force; lest the infinitely many globes be mutually smashed into infinite

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