MORE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY INCONVENIENT TRUTHS ABOUT EARTH

AN URGENT OPEN LETTER TO EVERY PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS EVERYWHERE FROM OXFORD TO SONOMA STATE* LISTEN UP, PEOPLE! THERE ARE NO REAL POLES STICKING UP OUT OF THE GROUND AT THE PLACES WE CALL EARTHS NORTH POLE AND SOUTH POLE

* Sonoma State is famous for sponsoring 3 Stooges at the South Pole. See my Feb 14, 2011 blog Foucault Pendulum Delirium at South Pole

USE YOUR BRAINS, PEOPLE! If there was a real pole sticking up out of the ground at the North Pole, it wouldnt be so infernally hard to find, now would it? No explorer would have ever needed to wander around groping in the dark looking for it. None of the agonizingly slow and excruciatingly painful searching through the ice and snowand none of the explorer deaths would have ever been necessary. BUT: The human mind has never devised any means for identifying Earths North or South Poles other than ASTRONOMY. While the span of human experience is relatively brief, and the capabilities of the human mind are relatively puny, we may rationally proceed on the basis that this is a basic fact of life here in Earth. And then to ask ourselves, What about the Nature of Earth can we deduce from this fact?

HOW ABOUT: The line about which Earth Rotates is an invisible AXISas opposed to a visible AXLE. No boots-on-the-ice explorers, no aircraft-mounted cameras, no sophisticated imaging devices up in spacehave ever detected any structural abnormality at the Poles. There is nothing there evenly vaguely resembling this:

Which means that we can rationally know that Earths relationship vs. her axis of rotation is fundamentally different than the relationship between a bicycle wheel and its (fixed) axle, such as this:

Which means that if Robert Peary, back in 1909, had been assisted by an orbiting satellite with ultimate astronomical capabilities, and it had marked the North Pole with a sustained highly -visible laser beam : Peary would have detected no contrast between that spot and its physical surroundings. He could have bored a hole down into the ice right there, and erected a tall and sturdy flag pole, or candystriped barber pole, or a big bird-house pole, or a brightly painted May Pole. They would have all interacted with Earths surrounding surface exactly alikein every known physical way. Including a constant 360 per day Eastward rotation. The point marked by that laser beam would rotate precisely in synch with the Earth surface around it: to a radius of 1 meter, to a radius of 10 meters, to a radius of 1,000 meters, to a radius of 10,000 meters, and so forth to a radius of 3,440 Nautical Miles (Equator). So doesnt Earth literally match the classic scientific definition of a rotating BODY: which is one all of whose particles circle a common axis in a common direction and at a common angular velocity?

Does anybody with a Physics degree even know whether the definition of a rotating body also defines Earth? Its easy. Its basic Gravity. Is Gravity at the Poles any different than anywhere else? No. Hang a plumb bob smack dab over the North Pole and itll point toward Earths center of massjust like every other plumb bob everywhere else on Earth. If you throw a snowball at the north pole, its natural flight path will be straight (along a geodesicthe shortest distance between two points along the surface of a sphere). Jiggle that plumb bob, and Gravity will instantaneously start to CORRECT the disturbance you have caused. Ditto for a theatrical pulling back and launching of the bob in a reenactment of the Foucault Pendulum ritual Its Natural flight path will be along a geodesic. Unless the jiggling of a plumb bob causes it to separate from Earth, its behavior will be governed by the same forces that dictate the flight paths of snowballs. If the flight path of a jiggled pendulums bob is other-thangeodesic it will be because of either mechanical defect or crosswind. Its all about the Gravity, Snooky. THINK. If ANY of the just-stated points are true, then the Premise on which Foucaults Pendulum rests (naturally non-geodesic flight paths directly over the Poles) is disproved . You Professors allowed Leon Foucault to PRESUME that a pendulum situated at the North or South Pole would mark the location by temporarily defying Gravity (ceasing to be pulled toward Earths center of mass while jiggling) . Hogwash! You not only gave Foucault a free pass on his magic pendulum, you expanded on ityou used it as the foundation for an entire crazy World where Coriolis effects on weather systems and launch boosts for rockets would derive from the differing linear velocities through space of different geographic points on Earths surface. High Holy Hogwash! You called this crazy world a non-inertial frame of reference. And for hundreds of years any science student who didnt parrot this dogma has been chastised, ridiculed and cast out of your presence. Tragically, your ignorance has harmed not just yourselves, but the Real World whose people have looked to you for wisdom and guidance. You have misguided them. You have not acted in good faith. The time during which the non-inertial- frame-Earth prevailed will go down as a New Dark Age that began in Paris in 1851 with Leon Foucault. Yuk. Thats ugly.

 2011 C N Gifford, Springfield, MO usa The Final Authority on Foucaults Pendulum