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Defining the Sun as the center of the solar system isn't really right either Isaac Send a noteboard - 26/01/2012 11:28:44 PM
As an approximation it's very roughly true, but it really depends on the parameters being used. It's not the center of mass for the solar system, that lies near but not in the Sun, just as the center, the barycenter, of Earth-Moon lies in Earth's Mantle. Generally orbits look more like this not as most people tend to imagine them. And the difference is not small or trivial from a practical point of view, you can't ignore it.

If you adjust your parameter as not being gravity, or just gravity, then you can arrange a definition in which the Sun is the center. But you can just as easily do that with lots of parameters. What is the center of Catholicism, or Fashion, or World Governance? And just like a binary star system, or a red dwarf with a large Jovian world, you can get an effectively empty spot as center. Like if someone points out that the Center of economics and banking is New York, or London, or Geneva, trying to find their effective middle, the 'true center' would just get you some empty spot in the middle of the Atlantic, where the only banking which might ever have taken place involved a pirate ship making a 'withdraw' of trade goods flowing from the Americas to London or Lisbon. And you really can't ignore gravitational perturbation caused by things like Jupiter anymore than you could ignore the effect of change in tax or tariff rates by a country on where the center of trade routes was.

In this case the 'right answer' isn't really right, and I wouldn't object to people calling the Sun the center of the Solar System if I thought most understood it really was just a generalized approximation and depends on how you mean it, the loose direction which 'down' generally points in the solar system. Like then center of a city being downtown, even though the 'center' is often nowhere near the physical midpoint of a map of a city, or even necessarily the center of a population density map. And if you need to get to City Hall, the political center of a city, the approximate center of the blob that is its city limits is as likely to be in the dumpster behind a deli a mile from City Hall as the mayor's office. Of course, everyone would naturally shrug if you pointed out and say 'you know what I mean' and of course we do, or 'the political center, man, don't be ass, same as X street's the center of the shopping district' but I don't think people realize that this is how the sun is the center. So when things like this come up, I cringe a bit at people laughing at the morons. Most fairly decently educated folk actually picture the solar system as anything different then a big yellow basketball with some ping-pong sized balls all within a few feet, even most scientists do because that's how we learn, and that's fine enough so long as one is at least intellectually aware that that model is terrifyingly wrong, and I doubt even 1 in 10 really do, whereas most people really do get that the 'center of Catholicism' is implying something very non-physical and not some spot many miles under the Earth's surface found by plotting the locations of every Catholic.

Incidentally the question is phrased right, since it only asked if the Earth was, not 'what is the center?', though one might fairly point out that the Earth is effectively the center of the Known Universe, since we can see equally far in each direction from it, or from a telescope on it's surface or in orbit anyway.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein

King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
This message last edited by Isaac on 26/01/2012 at 11:37:28 PM
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For fk sake, how can people be this ignorant? - 26/01/2012 05:21:16 PM 673 Views
That's....special. *NM* - 26/01/2012 06:00:26 PM 205 Views
With stuff like that, I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt - 26/01/2012 06:25:30 PM 451 Views
They had plenty of time to answer. - 26/01/2012 06:52:43 PM 437 Views
How did it go down? - 26/01/2012 06:58:55 PM 542 Views
Re: How did it go down? - 26/01/2012 08:46:21 PM 515 Views
Well, there is kind of a big hint in the name. - 26/01/2012 08:19:05 PM 623 Views
I thought you were talking a little closer to home. *NM* - 26/01/2012 10:36:56 PM 176 Views
Defining the Sun as the center of the solar system isn't really right either - 26/01/2012 11:28:44 PM 612 Views
Asimov has a relevant quote. - 27/01/2012 12:55:56 AM 463 Views
Funny I almost quoted him myself, though a different bit - 27/01/2012 01:24:33 AM 379 Views
You haven't seen true idiocy until you've watched some Family Feud *NM* - 27/01/2012 12:59:41 AM 200 Views
I suppose idiocy might be a good description. - 27/01/2012 01:36:01 AM 632 Views
Re: Was one of them Sherlock Holmes? *NM* - 28/01/2012 03:40:27 AM 208 Views
Some people just have blinders about things they don't care about - 28/01/2012 02:37:42 PM 484 Views
That... that's scary. *NM* - 28/01/2012 11:27:23 PM 183 Views

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