[Nobar King]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Thanks for clearing that up. Do you know why the sun doesn't burn the clouds?

[Thaddaeus]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

The troposphere where most of the water vapour and clouds reside extends to 4-12miles above the surface (depending on latitude). This is far short of the 500mile distance of the Sun, plus water doesn't burn very well.

[Nobar King]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

That's what I thought.

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

If the Sun is 500miles above the surface and has a diameter of 10miles then it would have an angular diameter of about ~0.57deg from the surface when directly overhead.

If the angular diameter is measured simultaneously 2000miles away on the surface then it should appear to have an angular diameter of ~0.14deg (assuming flat Earth) or ~0.13deg (assuming spherical Earth of radius ~3959miles). We should notice such a decrease in angular diameter of the great coal furnace in the sky as midday progresses into evening.

And so it is, but there is an optical illusion in play that makes it appear as though the sun and moon are larger when they are near the horizon. There's an article about that effect here.

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[Thaddaeus]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

If we assume the Earth to be spherical of radius 3959miles and the Sun to have an altitude of 500miles then surface area illuminated by the Sun comes to about 1.1e7 square miles which is approximately 6% of the surface at any given time. This would correspond to a maximum day length of ~3.6hrs.
If my numbers are right of course.

[Thaddaeus]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Oh yeah.
And latitudes above 27.3deg would have a zero day length.

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

If we assume the Earth to be spherical of radius 3959miles and the Sun to have an altitude of 500miles then surface area illuminated by the Sun comes to about 1.1e7 square miles which is approximately 6% of the surface at any given time. This would correspond to a maximum day length of ~3.6hrs.
If my numbers are right of course.

Oh yeah.
And latitudes above 27.3deg would have a zero day length.

What? Look, if you think of the sun as a light bulb, why is the light bulb restricted as to the area over which it can give light?

[Thaddaeus]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

The curvature of the Earth?
I must admit I did use the unholy version of pi and this might explain the anomalous results.

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

The curvature of the Earth?
I must admit I did use the unholy version of pi and this might explain the anomalous results.

Pi = 3

2Ch:4:2: Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

[Babylon]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

But the sun can be far away just that God himself corrects the sun rays correctly so they hit the wonderful Earth

[Thaddaeus]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

I can see the error of my ways. It's so clear now.
Truly this is the surest or only path to salvation. From now on I calculate only for Jesus.
Praise the Lord!

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

If we assume the Earth to be spherical of radius 3959miles and the Sun to have an altitude of 500miles then surface area illuminated by the Sun comes to about 1.1e7 square miles which is approximately 6% of the surface at any given time. This would correspond to a maximum day length of ~3.6hrs.
If my numbers are right of course.

I bolded the error in your assumption. How do your calculations work if you assume the Earth to be circular of radius 3959miles?

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[Thaddaeus]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

As always you are right Pastor. Without that assumption all the numbers are invalid. But it does help illustrate how one invalid assumption, perhaps inspired by the dark one himself, can give a skewed perception of reality and so deflect one from the true path.

[Runman]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

We got our spectrometer up and running, and today was a sunny day, so we fired it up! Here is the result:

[ATTACH]7483[/ATTACH]

It turns out that the peak wavelength is 501nm, which means that the sun is actually green rather than yellow! Why does it look yellow to us then? Because air is blue, and when you shine a green light through a blue filter, it looks yellow.

Now I'll revisit all of my old calculations with the new data:
501 = 2897768.5/T
501 * T = 2897768.5
T = 2897768.5/501
T = 5784.0° K (9951.5° F)

So the sun is 5784.0° K rather than 5039.6° K. That's a good bit hotter. Let's see how far away it is now:
d = (5039.6 - 288)/6
d = 916.0 km (569.2 miles)

So the sun is exactly 569.2 miles away, not the 491.1 miles I estimated earlier. My calculation was off because I didn't know that the sun wasn't really yellow.

Let's calculate the diameter again, now that we have accurate numbers.
Remember, with a focal point of 1 meter, the sun appears to have a radius of 1 cm. We can use this information to calculate the angular degrees.

x = 1.000 m
y = 0.010 m
Θ = arctan(0.010/1) = 0.573°

So we calculate the radius again like this:
915.994 km = r * cos(0.573°)
915.994/cos(0.573) = r
r = 916.041

y = 916.041 * sin(0.573)
y = 9.161 km (5.7 mi)

So the diameter is about 11 1/2 miles, not the 10 miles I calculated earlier.

Pastor Billy-Reuben

Now billy, you have used this on this thread as if it were an answer all. However the beckman coulter DU® 800 UV/Vis Spectrophotometer, does not allow you to take a sample from a 'sunny day'. The vials filled with colored liquid that came with the instrument are cuvettes which are used to zero at a specific absorbency. Then you take a sample which you wish to test and record the difference between this sample and the control.

Now you have posted a picture, which I am not sure what it is, it is a spectrum of the visible light, however, I do not see any tables describing this, or informing me what this is. Additionally i would like to add that you did not initially know how to hook up this device, and tried to have a IT person hook it up???? I do not understand why you thought simply because this device had a computer with it, that it would work similarly.

Now i will not dispute your mathematics, but i will dispute your chemistry. You said that you received a reading around 500nm. Unless you took and some how bottled sunlight, to test against a control, this is an invalid number to use in your calculations. Now i would post some scientific articles here to show you how a proper experiment with a control is set, up or else i could show you some data on why the sun is not 600 miles away. But it seems so easy for you to simply say it is 'liberal scientific lies'. Now that is closed minded.

Please do post a picture, and a model number from a google search and say that you proved you idea, without doing proper experimental design.

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: The Sun: Millions of miles away?

Gerry actually ran the experiment because I don't understand any of this stuff. He gave me that image file from the spectrometer. I'll ask him about it when I see him at church later this morning. I do remember seeing him putting those vials in one of those little contraptions that was hooked to the computer and holding it up to the sunlight.

I can't give you the serial number like you asked because we don't still have the spectrometer. We didn't need it anymore so we donated it to Piedmont Baptist College over in Winston-Salem.

I'll be back online later this afternoon and I'll let you know what Gerry said.

Pastor Billy-Reuben