"The way it's done is to pick a star and stare at it. Hold up your thumb and index finger in a "pincher" shape about 6 inches from your eye. Open and close pincher until all you can see it the light in the sky. Now, measure the exact distance of your pincher opening with a Stanley tape measure and multiply by any arbitrary big number. Now, divide in half and call it light years. You'll be about as close as the scientists best guess."
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"You'll be about as close as the scientists best guess"
True a scientists uninformed guess would be pretty bad. However, scientists do not guess. They use carefull measurement and maths.
Depth perception.
Imagine your eyes were 3x10^11 meters apart, instead of a couple inches. That works for nearer objects. The phenomenon is known as parallax, and can be calculated.
The measurement of really distant objects depends upon the known standard brightness of a specific stellar type (which, I forgot) and the distance can be calculated from its perceived brightness.
Well, yeah. If your scientist is crosseyed, can't do math, is drunk, and has had numerous Bible-thumping-induced brain injuries.
In other words, a "creation scientist."
"The way it's done is to pick a star and stare at it. Hold up your thumb and index finger in a "pincher" shape about 6 inches from your eye. Open and close pincher until all you can see it the light in the sky. Now, measure the exact distance of your pincher opening with a Stanley tape measure and multiply by any arbitrary big number. Now, divide in half and call it light years. You'll be about as close as the scientists best guess."
Not quite. My understanding is that you measure the angle to the star during a given night and then, exactly half the year later, you take another measurement from the other side of the sun. You can then use triangulation to get a reasonably rough distance to the star.
I'm sure there are other more sophisticated and much more accurate methods but even someone of your limited intellect could handle this one.
*BUZZ!* Wrong, dumb-ass!
A light year is the distance light travels in one year's time, which is exactly 9,460,730,472,580.8 km.
image
Go directly back to school, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars.
"Do that with the sun and tell us how far away the sun is. Take your time getting the finger distance correct."
But that would fry his retin-... Oh wait, I see what you did there.
I didn't know this. Thanks.
BTW: Does this also work in 3 dimensions--you know, like the dimensions of our universe? I only see you using two...
Foo. (Doesn't deserve the "l.")
The measurement of really distant objects depends upon the known standard brightness of a specific stellar type (which, I forgot) and the distance can be calculated from its perceived brightness.
Cepheid variables are frequently-used as a standard candle.
The way it's done is to pick a bible, any bible, there are many, many versions but preferably a KJV and stare at the words. Sorry, most do not have "pitchers". Nevermind you can't understand the words, scholars have been studying these things for hundreds of years and they don't either. Hold it up a comfortable distance from your eye - make sure it is right side up. Open it and try to read it or close it and just accept whatever your pastor or anybody else tells you is in it. DO NOT, under any circumstances, try to make any sense out of any of it. Close your eyes and mind until all you can see is Jesus. Measure with a Stanley tape measure the thickness of your bible and realize a tree died for this waste of paper. Now, divide in half and call it your I.Q. You'll be about as close as the scientists best guess.
In order to calculate how far away a star is, astronomers use a method called parallax. Because of the Earth's revolution about the sun, near stars seem to shift their position against the farther stars. This is called parallax shift. By observing the distance of the shift and knowing the diameter of the Earth's orbit, astronomers are able to calculate the parallax angle across the sky.
The smaller the parallax shift, the farther away from earth the star is. This method is only accurate for stars within a few hundred light-years of Earth. When the stars are very far away, the parallax shift is too small to measure.
The method of measuring distance to stars beyond 100 light-years is to use Cepheid variable stars. These stars change in brightness over time, which allows astronomers to figure out the true brightness. Comparing the apparent brightness of the star to the true brightness allows the astronomer to calculate the distance to the star. This method was discovered by American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt in 1912 and used in the early part of the century to find distances to many globular clusters.
Brian-sama wrote "I wouldn't call this "fundie" so much as "fucking dumb."
Trust me, he's both. And arrogant as well. He's got threads worth of nonsense that could be future submissions here.
Now write down the number, take the first two digits, prepend "20" to them, and you will be *exactly* as close to the year of the rapture as the best snake oil salesman's guess.
Sure, because any random moron can duplicate any scientific experiment with his fingers, with perfect accuracy!
You don't deserve to use any of science's products while shitting on it like this!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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