[MarkHenry]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

yes the geometry is easy. if you assume that the sun is traveling in a straight line over the equator, you can make a triangle to the equator and find at what angle the sun would shine into your well normally.
It will not be one triangle anymore but a series of triangles. In fact you can simplify it down so much , that you can assume following:

Equator = 0° latitude
Find your latitude (google earth] and you can measure how far from the equator you are. (there are conversions for ° of longitude/latitude into km)
Now assume that the sun is always shining straight down on the equator.
Also you can find at what time of day the sun is standing at it's highest point in the sky (internet), this is when the sun and you are in the same longitude. So you just need: angle at which sun shines into your well, your latitude, time when the sun is at it's highest point (when you measure the angle).

This way you have a pretty diagram:

[MarkHenry]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Otherwise you still would work with the longitude / latitude. You can find your, your assistants, and both of your distance from one another and from the equator. If you count in 1 point at the equator, you and your assistant and the sun, you have 4 points. This just results in 4 triangles. You will have 3 of 6 sides known. If you map everything out you can have the 3 angles on the ground known. Plus you know that from the equator into the sun the angle formed will be 90°.

Just form fitting triangles and take the time when the sun is in the sky into consideration. The more people you involve the more accurate your reading becomes, however the complexity (you will just have manynumbers) of the problem increases. All the best of luck to you in solving this puzzle. If you have any questions please ask me. I would love to do this myself but unfortunatelythe sky has not cleared up for days. I will post my results if i get a chance to do it.

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

yes the geometry is easy. if you assume that the sun is traveling in a straight line over the equator, you can make a triangle to the equator and find at what angle the sun would shine into your well normally.

The sun only travels in a straight line over the equator on the equinoxes, and it's overcast here today. But, I just found out that if you subtract your latitude from 90, then that tells you what angle the sun hits at noon on the equinox. So I don't have to wait until March 21 to do this.

My latitude is 36.4°, so at noon on the equinox the sun should hit my well at 53.6°. We can convert degrees latitude into miles from the equator by multiplying by 69.172, so I am 2517.9mi or 4052.2km from the equator. We now have enough information to calculate the distance to the sun using this formula.

We've got Θ, which is 53.6°, and we have the adjacent side, which is 4052.2km, and what we need to find is the opposite side, which will be the distance from the sun to the equator.

tan(Θ) = Opposite / Adjacent
tan(53.6) = Opposite / 4052.2
1.356 = Opposite / 4052.2km
Opposite = 5494.8km

So according to this, the sun is 5494.8km above the earth or about 3400 miles, not the 916km or 570 miles that my experiments showed. I have triple-checked my math here so I know it's right and you can't argue with trigonometry.

Here's what I think went wrong with our experiments. For the first experiment, we didn't use the spectrometer correctly as Runman pointed out, so that's why it may be off.

For the second experiment, we took one reading from the ground, then broke down the pyranometer, carried it up to the roof, set it back up again, and took another reading. It was later in the day when we took the second reading and now I'm thinking that reading might have been a little high. I'll find out if we can get two pyranometers so we can redo this experiment taking both readings at the same time.

Mr. Henry, I appreciate your help. It turns out that the sun must be 5500km / 3400mi away from the earth, much further than I originally thought. Of course, I'll verify the angle this coming spring equinox to be sure, and I'll ask Tom if he can get his hands on a second pyranometer.

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

tan(Θ) = Opposite / Adjacent
tan(53.6) = Opposite / 4052.2
1.356 = Opposite / 4052.2km
Opposite = 5494.8km

While I'm at it, I can also completely put to rest the whole "93 million miles" business. We'll take the above formula, using 93,000,000 as the length of the opposite side, and solve for the adjacent side to find out how far I have to be from the equator.

tan(Θ) = Opposite / Adjacent
tan(53.6) = 93,000,000mi / Adjacent
1.356 = 93,000,000mi / Adjacent
Adjacent * 1.356 = 93,000,000mi
Adjacent ≅ 67,000,000mi

So if the sun were 93 million miles away, that would mean the equator would have to be 67 million miles away from me. So there you have it. The sun could not possibly be millions of miles away.

Also, if we take 93 million miles as the opposite side and 2517.9 as the adjacent side and the solve for the angle, we get this:

tan(Θ) = Opposite / Adjacent
tan(Θ) = 93,000,000 / 2517.9
tan(Θ) = 36935.5
tan-1(36935.5) = 89.998°

I had to take the angle out to three decimal places to keep it from rounding to 90°. So if I am 2517.9 miles from the equator and the sun were 93 million miles away, then at noon on the equinox, the sun should be very nearly directly overhead, but it isn't, and it's not even close.

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[MarkHenry]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

soulnds like a more reasonable answer, however it was really very much simplified.

I am happy that you have tried to approach it mathematically.

[H. Montague Worthington]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Heh, heh, Pastor Billy-Reuben!! You sure silenced those stupid liberals with your solid math and reasoning ability!!

It's absurd on the face of it to think that God would put the sun 93 million miles from the Earth. God created Earth, and then he created the sun in order to illuminate Earth. Why would He put it 93 million miles away from the object He was intending to illuminate? That doesn't even make any SENSE!!

Just goes to show you how stupid the liberals can be. They fall hook line and sinker for absurd lies, blasphemy, illogical fantasies, and crazy superstitions from people like Al Gore, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein. They'll believe ANYTHING that supports their cynical, destructive worldview of Death.

[MarkHenry]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

The pastor did a great job trying to find the distance to the sun using the geocentrical method, and honestly... its mathematically true if the world where like that. This is a sort of approach which can open people's eyes.


Pastor 1
(for trying do do this mathematically, i have great respect for you.)

You others 0
(for not trying it out yourself! Where in the bible does it state you are not allowed to disprove the unbelievers with their own science?)


The Bibles praises your Pastor for you follow it! Here some quotes:

“For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” Philippians 2:3-4


Furthemore for those of you who never learned math profoundly, hear what the Bible says about math:

"So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn." John 21:11

Don't be afraid of large numbers, learn them understand them, accept them, numbers where made by god and numbers can be as large as they want to be, for god has not provided us with an "Upper limit" for numbers.

"And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”" Isaiah 29:12
Learn math so if someone presents it to you you can understand it.

[quests]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Wikipedia is Satan's den! Learn the truth here:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Wikipedia

http://www.conservapedia.com/Example...s_in_Wikipedia

Or even here:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Sun

[GOD=life]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

http://www.conservapedia.com/Sun

Report it to them then.

They have had many problems with vandals trying to inject lieberal propaganda on their site.

[quests]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

I am sorry to hear that, I thought it was a trusted site.

I got a question to Pastor Billy Reuben: How much of a difference would even a 0.5 mistake in the angle would be? When talking about hundreds or even thousands of miles, such a mistake would lead to absurd results i assume, wouldn't it? Or how did you prevent such a mistake from happening when trying to determine the exact angle?

[xander_us2]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Yes. If the sun were a nuclear reaction, it would have to be further away. Since it is made from coal, 500 miles is about right.

Complete nonsense....

So if I was to drive from the north of scotland to London, that is the distance between the earth and the sun?

I sense the devil in you sir, for no man could be so foolish unless touched by satan

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

I got a question to Pastor Billy Reuben: How much of a difference would even a 0.5 mistake in the angle would be? When talking about hundreds or even thousands of miles, such a mistake would lead to absurd results i assume, wouldn't it?

A mistake of 0.5 degrees in the angle would make a difference of about 100km in the result, or about a 1 1/2% difference. That's still in the same ballpark. You can plug the numbers into the trigonometric formula yourself.

Or how did you prevent such a mistake from happening when trying to determine the exact angle?

I used my GPS's determination of my latitude and the fact that 90-degrees latitude is equal to the degree of the sun on the noon of the equinox. I'll have to wait until March 21 if I want to measure it myself.

Complete nonsense....

So if I was to drive from the north of scotland to London, that is the distance between the earth and the sun?

This is a fast-moving thread. Please read the whole thing before making pointless, redundant replies to old posts.

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[xander_us2]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

I am currently playing catch up.

[MarkHenry]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

xander_us2 please keep this topic focused and smart. Don't shout your ideas, try to argue with mathematical formulas. If us atheists just shout around, we are no better than the opposite party, in fact we are even worse because we consider ourself smart, but cannot argue on the level of an adult. Try bringing in math into the talk, because it is impossible to argue against established mathematical rules. I'm currently trying to simplify down some math about calculations for the distance to the sun in the heliocentrical world, so don't ruin it by dragging the tone down to rude talking. If we don't respect their beliefs why should they respect ours.

Thank you,
mark

[Noah Dint]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

I am currently playing catch up.

Kindly leave our forums.