What is this? I don't even?

[Triple Zero]

Also, he incorrectly states that the Coriolis effect makes water run down plug holes different ways in different hemispheres. Maybe it was just a brain fart, but it is hard to take him seriously when he messes up a simple physical principle like that.

I wondered about that too. But he only said it in so little words that I was unsure if he was actually being incorrect or just giving the wrong impression.

[Telarus]

Also, he incorrectly states that the Coriolis effect makes water run down plug holes different ways in different hemispheres. Maybe it was just a brain fart, but it is hard to take him seriously when he messes up a simple physical principle like that.

I wondered about that too. But he only said it in so little words that I was unsure if he was actually being incorrect or just giving the wrong impression.

Yeah, that's the general impression I got of the guy too.

But the best thing I took away from the video was that our simplified models have us thinking in arc of 90 degrees waaaaaaay too much.

According to the folks over @ this forum, it's something like (Earth's axis is 23 degrees off of the ecliptic - solar-system-plane, and the ecliptic is about 60 degrees off from the galactic plane... and Sol' orbit around galactic center is not parallel with the galactic plane, we actually "will/have" crossed the galactic plane, much like Pluto does in the below diagram).

Not to Scale reference:


Technical reference (note the orbits on the right are a "Zoom in" on the inner solar system):


Technical reference from: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/fenertyb/solsysGC.html

This web site focuses on schematic diagrams of the solar system (orbits and planet positions, may be updated occasionally) AS SEEN from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.

The pictures align the Milky Way horizontally, rather than at an angle as usually seen from Earth. As the home page indicates, note how steeply our Solar System is tilted compared to the galaxy. Not all books (even University texts) and films (sci-fi) show this angle correctly - a regular oversight resulting from earth-bound thinking. Yet anyone who studies the stars for a while (amateur and professional astronomers for example) realizes we are at an angle.

Over and over I encountered books and films which didn't show our correct placement among the stars, so I started making sketches while imagining what a traveller* coming from some other system might see as they approach our world. Those sketches along with contemplating the night sky when it was clear and exploring some computer star programs when the skies were cloudy led to putting this site together...
* could be an extraterrestrial or future human traveller

[Rumckle]

That's pretty cool, though, the gif does do one thing that annoys me about images of the solar system, relating the seasons to the location of the earth around the sun, but it probably just annoys me because I live upside down.

[Telarus]

That's pretty cool, though, the gif does do one thing that annoys me about images of the solar system, relating the seasons to the location of the earth around the sun, but it probably just annoys me because I live upside down.

Totally! And the orbits loop back on each other (if our reference point is outside of the solar system, they shouldn't).

Drawing the orbits connecting back to each other is fine, in some sense. It sells the idea of "caught in a gravity well" very well and our reference point for stationary motion in many of those diagrams is Sol, so it makes intuitive sense. But, to fall back on the near burnt out metaphor, it's just one Map, and it leaves out a lot of the Territory in such a way that those aspects of reality are edited out of our internal models. We simply 'can't imagine it' within the old model.

[Kai]

Don't worry. I also went "what is this I don't even".

Yes, the speaker is correct, if we take into account the movement of the solar system through space; to an outsize observer at a fixed point not traveling with the solar system, the planets tracks would be helical through space. However, they would still be /around the sun/. Furthermore, given that the sun and the planets move at the same speed in their revolution around the galaxy, and given that the scale is so small compared to the rest of the galaxy, the spiral movement is largely irrelevant. As for the rest of his gobblygook, I didn't even bother to listen.

The incline of the solar system plane to the galactic plane is, however, awesome.

[Bruno]

I'd just like to point out that an outside observer likely wouldn't give a shit.

We're just another speck floating in space, and they have a fucking spaceship.

Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

[Xooxe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex283trHBgE


Watch this.

Oh GOD it's THAT GUY. I have friends who tried to make me watch a 6 COCKING HOUR lecture of his and it was all "BLURBLURBLUR IM SO SMRT COS I DIDN'T LISTEN IN SKOOL BLURBLURBLUR ATOMS WEAR CRAZY-ASS HATS IN 6 OUT OF 13 DIMENSIONS". I'm paraphrasing, heavily.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex283trHBgE


Watch this.

Oh GOD it's THAT GUY. I have friends who tried to make me watch a 6 COCKING HOUR lecture of his and it was all "BLURBLURBLUR IM SO SMRT COS I DIDN'T LISTEN IN SKOOL BLURBLURBLUR ATOMS WEAR CRAZY-ASS HATS IN 6 OUT OF 13 DIMENSIONS". I'm paraphrasing, heavily.

EVERYBODY WINS!