@The Risen: Layman is just the theorist way of describing an outsider beyond the walls of the universities.

@Gerald Kelleher: Oh, Hi Gerald. I saw you refer to the big bang theory yesterday as ‘nonsense’. Would you like to post your own theory so that we can forward it for peer review? There might even be a nobel prize in it for you….

@Jumperoo: LOL! Ta for that. Easy knowing I’m out of coffee….

@Jumperoo: time truly is relative. And yours is bad.

@The Risen: off to meet the singularity

@The Risen: Its a bit like Hollywood where there are many thousands of laymen out there with scripts trying to be the next Einstein so they can get their Oscar/Nobel prize. The poor unfortunates don’t realize that a theoretical icon serves a purpose within the high end welfare scheme known as astrophysics and the X-factor type function of peer review which is there to promote mathematicians and mathematics as a type of intellectual Moses with script written in equations. The fact that you yourself already have some sense of the carrot/reward scheme says enough.

As for ‘big bang’ or the mindnumbing ‘every-point-is-the-valid-centre- of-the- universe’ spiel, it owes its existence to celestial sphere geometry and the bind astronomers found themselves in the 16th century -

“And wherever anyone would be, he would believe himself to be at the center. Therefore, merge these different imaginative pictures so that the center is the zenith and vice versa. Thereupon you will see– through the intellect.. that the Earth and its motion and shape cannot be apprehended. For the Universe will appear as a wheel in a wheel and a sphere in a sphere– having its center and circumference nowhere. . . ” Archbishop Nicolas of Cusa

Augustine too had the same observation in mind way back when -

“Some of the brethren raise a question concerning the motion of heaven, whether it is fixed or moved. If it is moved, they say, how is it a firmament? If it stands still, how do these stars which are held fixed in it go round from east to west, the more northerly performing shorter circuits near the pole, so that the heaven (if there is another pole unknown to us) may seem to revolve upon some axis, or (if there is no other pole) may be thought to move as a discus? To these men I reply that it would require many subtle and profound reasonings to find out which of these things is actually so; but to undertake this and discuss it is consistent neither with my leisure nor with the duty of those whom I desire to instruct in essential matters more directly conducing to their faith” Augustine

@Mairtin Cathbhar: Cracks me up -

Infinite Density/ Zero Volume = Singularity – Nothing

Infinite Volume/Zero Density = Singularity – Still equals Nothing

People are easily fooled.

@Gerald Kelleher: So, got that alternative theory for us gerald?

@The Risen: Just wait till he starts investigating what’s possibly beyond the Hubble Volume…He’ll have a stroke… ;-)

@Gerald Kelleher: Hey Gerry, since you know it all, why don’t you have your discoveries published for peer review? Oh, I know, because the tinfoil society doesn’t do peer review, they get all their information from the most scientific of all sources, YouTube

@The Risen:
I think it’s the 800 limit that’s stopping him.

@Gerald Kelleher: “Infinite density/ zero volume = singularity – nothing infinite volume/zero density = singularity – still equals nothing” I can understand why this bothers you. It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s a good thing the scientific community also doesn’t think that makes sense either. What you have is a tabloid, red top version of the actual science (full of mistakes, misunderstandings, etc). But, the fact that you use that to deny astrophysics shows you don’t know what astrophysicists actually do.

@P.J. Nolan: I think it’s more the uncomfortable position of being asked to prove any one of the statements he extracts from his backuside.

@The Risen: Before there were theorists and theory there were astronomers who tried to account for observations using the normal human judgments of motion. The original geocentric astronomers saw the planets process imaginary loops around a stationary Earth at the centre of the solar system -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031216.html

Copernicus came along and said the loops were an illusion and that it is really the Earth overtaking the slower moving planets hence the Sun is stationary and central while the Earth moves -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011220.html

All astronomy is like this and made possible by online time lapse footage and imaging so there are no theories involved, just good judgment within the normal range we all use.

@Gerald Kelleher: Nope, I’m asking about YOUR theory, which disproves the big bang.

Whenever you’re ready…

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: “Infinite density/ zero volume = singularity – nothing infinite volume/zero density = singularity – still equals nothing” I can understand why this bothers you.”

I think it is hilarious so no, it doesn’t bother me but if people want to wreck their mind because of a silly way to describe ‘nothing’ then they can be my guest.

It really isn’t rocket science, Newton’s agenda was to remove the boundaries of useful analogies (experimental science) from large scale astronomical and terrestrial sciences (Universal qualities) -

“Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither [intensification] nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton

How he tried to force this through under the heading of the ‘theory of gravity’ is a sight to behold but few have the time or the interest to go through the entire thing bit by bit and this is even given that they are interested and not defensive.

@Gerald Kelleher: That’s the thing, Gerald. That equation comment you gave to discredit the likes of Hawking, well, no one believes that. Not even Hawking.

@Gerald Kelleher: Still waiting gerald…

@The Risen: Let’s discuss the joy of Newton’s take on Kepler’s orbital geometry relating orbital periods with distance from the Sun, the one that appears to connect Newton’s opinion on attraction between objects an astronomical footing (otherwise known as the theory of gravity) -

“The proportion existing between the periodic times of any two planets
is exactly the sesquiplicate proportion of the mean distances of the
orbits, or as generally given,the squares of the periodic times are
proportional to the cubes of the mean distances.” Kepler

“That the fixed stars being at rest, the periodic times of the five primary planets, and (whether of the sun about the earth, or) of the earth about the sun, are in the sesquiplicate proportion of their mean distances from the sun…. for the periodic times are the same, and the dimensions of the orbits are the same, whether the sun revolves about the earth, or the earth about the sun.” Newton

I wouldn’t recommend anyone try to make sense of the latter without first knowing what Kepler’s statement refers to and it isn’t rocket science -

“But it is absolutely certain and exact that the ratio which exists
between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely the ratio
of the 3/2th power of the mean distances, i.e., of the spheres
themselves; provided, however, that the arithmetic mean between both
diameters of the elliptic orbit be slightly less than the longer
diameter. And so if any one take the period, say, of the Earth, which
is one year, and the period of Saturn, which is thirty years, and
extract the cube roots of this ratio and then square the ensuing ratio
by squaring the cube roots, he will have as his numerical products the
most just ratio of the distances of the Earth and Saturn from the sun.
1 For the cube root of 1 is 1, and the square of it is 1; and the cube
root of 30 is greater than 3, and therefore the square of it is
greater than 9. And Saturn, at its mean distance from the sun, is
slightly higher than nine times the mean distance of the Earth from
the sun.” Kepler

If the theorists are going to hijack Kepler’s work for their own use then they are bound to understand what it is that they are looking at. Walk before you run Risen.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: It isn’t an equation lad, it is a hilarious way to describe ‘nothing’.

I have a €2 coin in my pocket but it has shrunk to zero volume/ infinite density.

I have a €2 coin in my pocket but it expanded to infinite volume/zero density.

I could also say as a substitute for above that I have nothing in my pocket.

@Gerald Kelleher: Nope. All you’re doing once again is quoting actual intellectuals.

Got that theory yet?

@Jumperoo: I believe that The Risen has already corrected his mistake

@The Risen: When you want to squeeze the Earth’s atmosphere into the conditions found in a common greenhouse that is how you do it through the ‘scientific method’ -

“Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither [intensification] nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton

Analogies have their role but when they become universal theory without restrictions then bad things happen.

@The Risen: And that you’re on a hiding to nothing debating space with GK

@Gerald Kelleher: Another quote from an actual intellectual.

All you’re doing gerald, is proving thaqt you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Not having the intellect to understand theoretical physics is not the same as the best theoretical physicists being wrong and you being right gerald

But please, prove me wrong by posting your alternative theory to the big bang…

@The Risen: Einstein and Hawking got their iconic status by relying on the wider world not knowing they hadn’t the faintest idea how Newton arrived at his conclusions and it was a great gig for over 100 years. To be fair there were theorists who could once admit this but after relativity that door closed -

“The demonstrations throughout the book [Principia] are geometrical,
but to readers of ordinary ability are rendered unnecessarily
difficult by the absence of illustrations and explanations, and by the
fact that no clue is given to the method by which Newton arrived at
his results.” Rouse Ball 1906

Unfortunately for Rouse Ball that behind the word gymnastics of absolute/relative time,space and motion there is a structure which I find easy to understand and especially the manipulations and distortions of antecedent astronomical methods and insights.

You are very much a slave of the professors of Oxford and Cambridge there Risen – think of them like Boris Johnson in astronomical affairs and that is funny.

@The Risen: Here you go to show how theorists are dumb -

This is the Earth overtaking the slower moving planets Jupiter and Saturn rather than the illusion of direct/retrograde motion -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011220.html

This is the greatest innovation in all astronomy and it was first realized by Copernicus.

“What appears in the planets as [the alternation of] retrograde and direct motion is due, not to their motion, but to the earth’s” Copernicus

Now we have Isaac who hadn’t a clue what direct/retrogrades mean so easy enough to point out a stupid falsehood -

“For to the earth planetary motions appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct,…” Newton

This is not throwing good information after bad, Copernicus didn’t propose a theory, he presented the reason why the Earth is in orbit with the other planets around the Sun using normal judgments of one faster moving object overtaking a slower object.

The oldest astronomical interpretation is Irish so my tradition stretches back thousands of years whereas theorists and their theories are upstart nuisances from the 17th century.

@Gerald Kelleher: Nope. More quotes from other people.

I take it you have no alternative theory?

@The Risen: Stop it will ya lol!

Gerald the christian fundamentalist obviously has all the answers to life, the universe and everything. God told him.

@Gerald Kelleher: quick question. Where are you getting that “shrunk to zero volume / infinite density”? And what is that allegedly describing? 5 sentences or less. If you need more than 5 then obviously you don’t understand what you wrote.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Tell everyone else what an object with zero volume looks like but at the same time has density. I would advise them that when they get the usual ‘counter-intuitive’ explanation they are wasting their time chasing rainbows, after all, zero volume may be a lovely way to describe nothing but that is all it is.

@The Risen: Theory is just another byword for the ‘scientific method’ just as layman is just another word for an outsider beyond the walls of colleges. There is no theory of global warming, there is just the overreaching ‘scientific method’ which believes it can reduce the Earth’s atmosphere into conditions found in a common greenhouse so it arrives at a conclusion -

” Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither [intensification] nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton

For intelligent people , the universality of Newton’s agenda was an overreaching attempt to remove analogies from large scale sciences like astronomy so when these academic speak of ‘greenhouse gases’ , they actually are bound to the notion that a greenhouse scales up to the planet’s atmosphere. It is ,of course, a swindle but that is what happens when society becomes lazy and accepts academic doctrine without investigating things.

Astrophysics is complete voodoo.

@Gerald Kelleher: you still didn’t answer the question. You’re like a posterboy for that old-fashioned proverb, “empty vessels make the most noise.” Name one object, allegedly or otherwise, that has zero volume and infinite density. Just one.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: No lad, density requires a geometry and a volume so it is up to you to convince everyone else that zero volume is not just a fancy way to describe nothing just as zero density is.

Sometimes you have to introduce the opposite to see the shallow way theorists use words

Zero Volume/ Infinite Density = Infinite Volume/ Zero Density = Nothing.

@Gerald Kelleher: You are one of the most seriously silly clowns I have ever come across. You put down the hard work of others and spout unintelligible quasi religious pseudo intellectual nonsense as some sort of rebuttal. Fair enough if you had something to fuel the debate, but you don’t. All you have is a nonsensical arrogant attitude and a bee in your bonnet with real people who are gifted intellectuals working for the greater good. It is great that you are rightly proud of your ability to produce heaps of mind numbing unintelligible steaming excrement here on a daily basis. No matter how high you pile it Gerald, all you produce is crap. I am sure your audience of adoring fans may disagree with me.

@Gerald Kelleher: but theorists don’t use those words. You use those words to discredit theorists, but theorists themselves don’t use them. And you still haven’t answered my question. Third time: what are you referring to with your “zero volume / infinite density”?

@SteoG: These notions of a ‘singularity’ in space whether it is called ‘big bang’ or ‘black hole’ are seriously unhealthy for the human mind even though couched in language that make it appear fantastical. Mathematical theorists never cared for physical considerations of what they promoted but that is a luxury astronomers, I mean real astronomers, don’t have.

A singularity is not an object that exploded to create the visible universe, it is a wordplay based on the word ‘nothing’ conjured into existence by assigning geometric properties of volume and density to ‘nothing’. It is seriously unhealthy and the effin Catholic Church has lately jumped on this bandwagon made popular by Hawking.

Here is what you all do if you are intent on wrecking your minds for nothing with something similar even though it isn’t required. The North and South poles of the Earth where daily rotation is zero mph from a maximum speed of 1037.5 miles per hour at the Equator. At what geometric point does the North and South poles exist in all timezones where direction of rotation ceases ?. What the theorists try to do to the human mind is terrible.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: You are fooling yourself and everyone else Brian but that isn’t a crime

“The Big Bang singularity is a point of zero volume, but very high mass, which makes the density infinite. This singularity contained all of the matter and energy in the Universe.”

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae649.cfm

Galileo realized that once people get something into their head as a conviction , regardless how silly, that they will run around in circles trying to defend it. In this case an expanded way to describe nothing (zero volume/infinite density) escaped out into the world as a theory.

“I have heard such things put forth as I should blush to repeat–not so much to avoid discrediting their authors (whose names could always be withheld) as to refrain from detracting so greatly from the honor of the human race. In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion In their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage–if indeed it does not make them ill.” Galileo

People would rather become ill than give up the ‘singularity’ notion but then again even the most basic experiences like one day/one rotation have fallen victim to theoretical indulgences passed of a truth or fact. With even the Catholic Church jumping on the bandwagon then God help us all.

@Gerald Kelleher: Gerald, having read your contributions above, it is my considered verdict that you are completely full of sh*t

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: ” Third time: what are you referring to with your “zero volume / infinite density”?”

Give it some thought as this is not the Jeremy Kyle show.

Infinite Density/Zero Volume = Infinite Volume/ Zero Density.

These type of forensics have only some value because the real topics of discussion are waiting for capable people, maybe you included.

OK Journal scientists, I have a question based your discussion on this thread. It might be stupid but here goes.

From the discussion, the big bang theory suggests the universe started as a singularity where mass was is very high, volume is zero and density is infinite. This is a point we could mathematically say is not defined.

So are big bang theorists suggesting that by using the laws of science, they have discovered that the point at which the universe started is a point where all the laws of science fall apart? In other words, current knowledge for big bang theorists is that the start of the universe was supernatural?

@Jimmy Ryan: The only one stating anything about the supernatural is you. The scientists are quite clear. The whacky supernatural, or god of the gaps have nothing to do with it. If you are really interested https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/180728/universal/

@SteoG:

I didn’t mean supernatural as in a God existing but in relation to its definition:

Supernatural: Attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

And my question relates to that. Do big bang theorists suggest that the universe started at a point where the laws of nature fall apart? I asked because I honestly didn’t know but based on the others conversation that seemed to be suggested also.

By the way, cheers for the book advice…

@SteoG:

Oh just on your “the scientists are quite clear” comment. In fact, the scientists are not quite clear on this. Hawking highlights this in his book that I think many of us have read. There are many different competing theories of how the universe started. The big bang theory is just one and as Hawking suggests:

“Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. (The Catholic Church, on the other hand, seized on the big bang model and in 1951 officially pronounced it to be in accordance with the Bible.) There were therefore a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a big bang.”

The interesting aspect of this is Hawking’s application of Penrose’s work actually suggests that GTR does actually predict that our universe should have a big bang or singularity event. Of course, scientists in the Big Bang model do understand that GTR does not really extend before 1 Planck time. Nothing is known of this period where all known laws of physics break down.

Now much of Hawking’s later work actually tried to convince people that his initial work with Penrose was wrong…as an example the Hartle-Hawking model. My initial question, as a non-scientist stands though..

@Jimmy Ryan: The book is highly recommended and is easy to digest. There is a good explanation of the big bang and what state existed before big bang and lots of other info that connect. I would rather not become a Gerald here and parrot my own understanding, that is why I suggest the book, I am no match for Prof Brian Cox who has a unique way of explaining things. I do understand what you mean but saying something is supernatural is a cop out in science terms. I can see how the word could be used, however, it is misused by people with different agendas so I would refrain from using it. There are other terms that give a clearer understanding. So what scientists are saying is they have insufficient knowledge, they are not suggesting anything supernatural. I hope you enjoy the book.

@Jimmy Ryan: “The scientists are quite clear” comment I mean they are clear that they are not suggesting supernatural as in the general meaning of the word.

@SteoG: I’m just a natural skeptic of most narratives. Cheers again for the book advice, I will read it.

@Jack Jackson: you know providing proof against a theory is almost as important as advancing it. At least he got minds thinking and helped popularise cosmetology. Who knows how many future will have been inspired by him. ‘If I can see further than you it is because l’m standing on the shoulders of giants’

@Deborah Behan: Like Rees-Mogg for example who called Remainers like Stephen Hawking ‘cave-dwellers’ ………… !!! ???

@Jack Jackson: nothing a firmly worded last wishes will wouldn’t resolve. Especially if estate and fortune is left to a charity if wishes are not fulfilled.

@Jack Jackson:
Give the obsession a rest Jack

@Maggie O’Connor: Not everyone is worried about their death like you are.

@P.J. Nolan: Valid facts aren’t obsessions little man!

@Jack Jackson: I’m worried about my death am I? Thanks for letting me know I have no idea .

@paul starrs: his family decided on a traditional burial, because they felt it was the best way for all of Cambridge to say farewell.

@Jack Jackson:
Correct, valid facts would not make an obsession but ranting about them on a unrelated article does.

@paul starrs: Its not a Christian burial but inclusive. Many atheist funerals do have Bible readings as the Bible though morally dubious a lot of the time does have merit as literature. Hawking only rejected the God concept as an explanation for the universe. He did not reject it on the basis that a God allowing the innocent to suffer smacks of condoning the evil. An atheist who feels that way cannot have a funeral that applauds a God or asks for mercy for it would be like devil worship.

@Seaghán Corcoran: “Relax your knickers”? Ah, I see, I’m dealing with a child. Conversation over.

@Gary: Hawkings was a theoretical physicists. It will take years for experiments to be set up to empirically prove anything. – if ever possible.Like boson-Higgs was predicted in the early 1960s and proved last year. Nobel’s go to people who have clear proof. Hawkins was never really going to be in the running. I reckon in a 100/200 when we can out this theories into practice he’ll be up there with the greats.

@Neal Ireland Hello.: I asked who not whose dummy

@Catherine Sims: Catherine, every single individual , including you, is only as remarkable to a society as the influence you have in small or great things. You all rely on second hand assurances that Hawking’s work represents an achievement but this happened before with Einstein and before that with Newton like a chain of icons where nobody understands what they did apart from the notion that mathematics and mathematicians represent a superior intellect.

I am not attacking the man or his memory but the precepts of his astrophysical tradition are truly awful and I mean unhealthy in the extreme for any society.

@David Dineen: The precepts of relativity could be found in any science fiction section of a book shop in the late 19th century -

“‘Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space”

http://www.bartleby.com/1000/1.html

His book should have been entitled – ‘A brief History of Timekeeping’ because the theorists built on errors created in the late 17th century that surfaced as a clockwork solar system. The world doesn’t need another theoretical icon .

@Gerald Kelleher: Now your comments appear as theorist writings to laypeople. I was thinking of using “preachings” in lieu of “writings” but that would be off topic, I think.

@Gerald Kelleher: Gerald, just because you don’t understand Hawkin’s work, doesn’t mean you get to play the superior intellect. Yesterday, you said time and space were not related, despite the fact that every one of us can prove you wrong just by getting into a car. Previously, you made a statement that implies it can rain without an atmosphere. You believe you alone are smarter than 10,000s of years of collective scientific knowledge. You have a poor grasp of linguistics (my field of expertise) and insinuated you know more about that than me. You treat anyone who doesn’t agree with you (the vast majority of humanity) with contempt and enjoy sneering at them. You have an inability to stick to a topic and often ramble like someone delusional. Honestly, I don’t think you’re mentally stable.

@wattsed: Hey, I like ‘The Time Machine’ as fiction instead of a formal educational notion passed off as fact or a triumph of human reasoning. Relativity is based on Newton’s absolute/relative time, space and motion but the theorists themselves hadn’t a clue what purpose they served in Sir Isaac’s scheme even though I do.

The theorists like Hawking relied on the wider public not knowing that they didn’t know either what Newton did so they reach for analogies that confound rather than clear up the issue – great if you can get away with it, even for 300 years, nevertheless it comes at a huge price for society.

@Gerald Kelleher: Ahhh, OK, got it now. “Not knowing what they didn’t know”, relatively speaking of course.

@Gerald Kelleher: actually his family decided on it, because they felt it was the best place and way that all of Cambridge could say goodbye. Hawking did not request such a burial.

@wattsed: The theorists have had a ball with society making sure they said the most outrageous things with a straight face and if anyone objected they would say it is all ‘counter-intuitive’ . The thing is that they can’t survive without an icon and the story is wearing pretty effin thin these days.

Their lifestyles and reputations are built on making sure the rest of the population keeps clear of Sir Isaac’s work and the bigger can of worms known as relativity that protects the 17th century contrivance.

The whole story is back at the Galileo affair and the actual objections of the Pope as to whether predictive astronomy (lunar/solar eclipse dates, transits, ect) could also be used to prove the Earth orbits the Sun. The failure to resolve that issue opened the door for the train wreck that is astrophysics.

@Gerald Kelleher: astrophysics gave you the possibility of sending that message, Gerald.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Engineering give me the ability to send this message. Astrophysics was an attempt to apply experimental sciences to observations in the great solar system arena where the fall of an apple was the exact same thing as orbital motion of planets.

It is because of astrophysics that people can’t associate one rotation of the Earth and all its effects with one 24 hour day with one rotation and one day following the next -

” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard

That is what a theory looks like and the easiest way to understand the damage done with timekeeping under the notion of ‘time’. Newton used Flamsteed’s Equatorial Coordinate System for his modelling so here we are in the 21st century with nobody bothered about that solar vs sidereal fiction and the monstrosities of relativity grew out of it from Newton’s original assertions.

@Gerald Kelleher: you are insane, Gerald. No, engineering didn’t enable you to send that message. Engineering was used in the process, I agree, but without astrophysics, the satellite communications required for the modern Internet can only exist by reference to modern astrophysics. But, hey, you think it rains without an atmosphere and don’t even seem to know what a speedometer is, so why am I arguing with you?

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Satellites are engineeering too as is sending rockets . Astrophysics was strictly an attempt to explain the structure of the solar system and orbital motion by appealing to experimental sciences, not as an analogy but directly by upscaling -

” if it universally appears, by experiments and astronomical observations, that all bodies about the earth gravitate towards the earth, and that in proportion to the quantity of matter which they severally contain, that the moon likewise, according to the quantity or its matter, gravitates towards the earth, that, on the other hand, our sea gravitates towards the moon, and all the planets mutually one towards another, and the comets in like manner towards the sun, we must, in consequence or this rule, universally allow that all bodies whatsoever are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation.”
Newton

You poor folk don’t know how he tried to graft his opinion on universal attraction to Kepler’s comments on orbital periods and distance from the Sun whereas I find it easy enough.

“The proportion existing between the periodic times of any two planets
is exactly the sesquiplicate proportion of the mean distances of the
orbits, or as generally given,the squares of the periodic times are
proportional to the cubes of the mean distances.” Kepler

Even though the periodic times argument is gorgeous it is also fatally flawed in discriminating how we see the faster and slower moving planets from a moving Earth but it was of its time -

” The 10th argument,taken from the periodic times, is as follows; the
apparent movement of the Sun has 365 days which is the mean measure
between Venus’ period of 225 days and Mars’ period of 687
days.Therefore does not the nature of things shout out loud that the
circuits in which those 365 days are taken up has a mean position
between the circuits of Mars and Venus around the Sun and thus this is
not the circuit of the Sun around the Earth -for none of the primary
planets has its orbit arranged around the Earth,as Brahe admits,but the
circuit of the Earth around the resting Sun,just as the other
planets,namely Mars and Venus,complete their own periods by running
around the Sun.” Kepler

The difference between me , you and your theorist buddies is that I love and respect what the older astronomers did with what they had and can even give Newton credit for what he tried to do but it is an unmitigated mess that serves nobody.

@Gerald Kelleher: you’re embarrassing yourself.

@Martin Byrne: I need creative lads who are good with graphics, animation and putting together narratives that work for students rather than dealing with the nonsensical wordplays of theorists. A dope might believe I am arguing against academic politics which is rotten anyway when I have more creative and productive uses in mind.

Nobody has ever partitioned how we see the slower moving planets further from the Sun from the faster moving Venus and Mercury seen from a moving Earth. I try to cobble together imaging to tell the story when I need dedicated graphics and animation to distinguish between the illusory loops of the outer planets from the actual loops of the faster planets -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031216.html

http://www.insideastronomy.com/uploads/gallery/album_7/med_gallery_40_7_128459.jpg

Now eff off if you are a dull theoretical drone, I need youthful enthusiasm and nothing else.

@wattsed: Yeah well that may be true. The life expectancy of a person with ALS averages about two to five years from the time of diagnosis. Hawking lived for 55 years with this disease which is quite incredible, but perhaps he is much better known and respected for his science fiction novels than his ability to survive a crippling disease?

@Michael Hunt: You just did a whole paragraph speaking ill of the dead in a spectacular fashion, attacked the grieving family’s funeral choices, then ended it with “Anyway it’s best not to speak I’ll of the dead”.

Just so you know.