eccentricity

April 11, 2021April 11, 2021

Circles of Life

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
(Psalms 19:1-6) ESV

If the Earth is at the center of the universe, and the Sun orbits the Earth, then these bodies are the two foci of elliptical planetary orbits required by Kepler’s laws.

June 9, 2020October 17, 2020

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?
(Job 38:31-33) KJV

There’s a nuance in discussing variation in the orbital radius of the sun vs. the Earth-sun radial distance. This gives popular science (SciPop) the ammo it needs to oppose anyone who proposes a Geocentrospheric model.

December 31, 2016January 23, 2022

Effect and Cause

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
(Matthew 15:14) KJV

Why are planetary orbits elliptical? Supposedly Sir Isaac Newton solved this problem mathematically in his Principia Mathematica (1687).