Tim Cullen has been his usual self – questioning the group think of consensus science. One of his posts as been re-published at Tall Bloke's Talk Shop – go to http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/tim-cullen-planetary-axial-til…
In astronomy, he tells us, axial tilt, or obliquity, is the angle between an object's equatorial plane and it's orbital plane. He goes on to claim that consensus views of axial tilt are somewhat contrary to these facts. For example, the Sun is awarded an axial tilt relative to the geocentric ecliptic – as if the Sun orbited the Earth. Meanwhile, NASA has awarded the Moon axial tilt relative of the geometric ecliptic instead of its orbital axis – and he continues in that critical vein. On page 5 and 6 we arrive at Velikovsky and the planet Venus, which is said to be out of kilter – but the axial tilt of Venus may be fully assimilated into the Jupiter family sequence when its slowing retrograde rotation finally becomes a fully spun up prograde rotation. Spinning Venus is actually slowing down, we are told (or is this another case of wobble). NASAs Magellan Mission detected a slowing down and he goes on to suggest Saturn and Jupiter may eject moons and proto planets into the inner solar system – and eventually settle down to become planets.
In his following post, at http://malagabay.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/axial-tilt-game-over/ … he says that if Jupiter has released a series of planets into the solar system then the data would suggest the axial tilt and heliocentric inclination of those planets approaches zero as their orbital distance from the Sun approaches zero. Jupiter has an axial tilt of 3.13 degrees so a transition towards zero is fairly modest, unlike the axial tilt of Saturn which is 26.73 degrees. The Earth's axial tilt is 23.4 degrees and is declining at a rate of 47 seconds a century which is the equivalent of 40mm a day (and 14.5m a year).
Now, it is at this point Tim Cullen get very interesting as we learn the geographical North Pole has moved 20m since 1900AD – whilst the axis of rotation has moved by around 1446m. The Chandler Wobble is a small deviation in the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the solid Earth. The wobble, which is a nutation, combines with another wobble with a a period of around a year so that the total polar motion varies over 7 years. In other words the Earth is moving almost synchronously with the slightly wobbly axis of rotation as the axial tilt slowly decreases over the years. Mainstream does not mention much if anything on this, as far as public consumption is concerned, as recognising such an anomaly smacks of Pole Shift – and uniformitarians ignore that possibility at all costs (he goes on).
It is a coincidence that Tim Cullen is mentioning wobbles and axial tilt at the same time Peter M James is doing the same thing over at the NCGT journal – but who is right?
Later, Tim Cullen mentions the Temple at Karnak in Egypt, built in the late 3rd millennium BC. George Dodwell, who made observations of Earth's axial tilt and found it did not agree with the uniformitarian model thought to backtrack the anomaly back to source – assuming a declining wobble was in order. Cullen reproduces a letter by Dodwell to the Royal Astronomical Society in which he discusses a paper he had submitted but which was rejected by referees – who were unaware of such an anomaly and clearly didn't believe him or did not want to give life to the problem. They put the discrepancy in observation down to bad practise by ancient observers – fellow astronomers of the Greek and Roman era. Stunned by this response Dodwell set out to prove the ancient observers were correct by constructing a vertical gnomon in order to observe the motion of the Sun – similar to the gnomons used in the Classical Period. The results confirmed the accuracy of the ancient observations (nine observers took part in 172 observations) thereby vindicating the likes of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, and in addition confirming the reality of a wobble.
As we know, Dodwell's paper was never published, sad to say – but it can be found at www.setterfield.org
Data over the last 115 years shows the consensus of the axis of rotation is, shall we say, past the sell by date. However, Dodwell told us way back that we have a clear record of the foundation of the Temple of Karnak and its was definitely aligned to the Sun, very carefully and deliberately, and this implies there is some other factor going on not represented in Newcomb's Formula (or that of Stockwell). Mathematical formula are just that – they are not facts. The Sun's position in the past has been different.
Louis Hissink, in the comments section, suggested the rotating torus of electric charge, the Van Allen Belts, may play a role.
Also to be seen at Tall Bloke's place – http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/a-look-at-nelsons-1951-planeta… … which is a post that did not generate too many comments. Presumably this was because short wave radio enthusiasts have become a thing of the past. Radio Hams were quite common 30 years ago – but not anymore.
In March 1951 John H Nelson, an engineer in New York, had an article published describing a theory for predicting short wave radion propagation over the North Atlantic. He compared planetary positions relative to the Sun with propagation conditions and found that certain configurations of the six inner planets correlated with degraded propagation conditions. The implication is that the planets possibly influence the Sun in such a manner as to cause a change in its radiation characteristics. Do the planets influence sun spots – hotly disputed by solar physicists.