A thought experiment came to my mind yesterday. Let me share it with you.
A hypothetical situation. It is well known that the moon revolves 12 to 13 times round the earth in our solar year. If suppose, I were to be on a distant star looking at the Earth and the Moon (with damn sophisticated equipment) and were to count the no. of revolutions of the moon round the earth in a solar year, WILL MY RESULT be less, more or equal to the observation from Earth??? (I VOUCH LESS)
The fact is that the moon revolves 12 to 13 times around the earth in a year. So no matter where we stand, we'll get the same result. The thing is, if you count the number of lunar cycles in a year, however, you'll get more from a third person view.
ReplyDeleteHere's how: If we take the revolution of the moon around the earth from a fixed point (on earth) we'll get 12. From the outside, we will not be able to keep track of the point on earth. So we'll be taking the revolutions from a point along its axis. In that case, we'll get the number of revolutions as slightly more than what is observed from the earth. Either ways, it's too small to be of any consequence.