PLANETS

ZETETIC COSMOGONY:
OR
Conclusive Evidence
THAT THE WORLD IS NOT A
ROTATING—REVOLVING—GLOBE,
BUT
A STATIONARY PLANE CIRCLE.
By Thomas Winship
1899

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(Post 27/47)

PLANETS.

If all that astronomers have to say about themselves were correct, they would be about the wisest as well as the cleverest men that ever existed. There are not many modest men among them, but the quotation which follows is about the most immodest that can well be found. It is taken from "The Story of the Heavens," from which we have quoted so frequently.

"Astronomers have taken an inventory of each of the Planets. They have measured their distances, the shapes of their orbits, and the positions of these orbits, their times of revolution, and in the cases of all the large planets their sizes and THEIR WEIGHTS," . . . . "It is not even an easy matter to weigh the earth on which we stand. How, then, can we weigh a mighty planet vastly larger than the earth, and distant from us by some hundreds of millions of miles. Truly this is a bold problem. Yet the intellectual resources of man have proved sufficient to achieve this feat of celestial engineering. . . . . . ALL SUCH INVESTIGATIONS ARE BASED ON UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION." "A foot-rule placed at a distance of 40 miles subtends an angle of a second, and it is surely a delicate achievement to measure the place of a planet and feel confident that no error greater than this can have intruded into our result."

The uninitiated reader may gape with wonder when reading these and such-like absurdities, but we shall see presently how great the errors are, which have intruded into the calculations of the wise men. But first, as to the basis of the whole of these supposed achievements of scientific celestial engineers, IT IS SAID TO BE FOUNDED ON UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION, which we have proved to be like most other statements of the wise men, A MYTH.

Now as to the small errors. "Our Place Among Infinities," by R. A. Proctor, page 166, informs us that:

"If the error of the sun's distance appears startling, what will be thought of an error which must be estimated by millions of millions of miles? If the estimate of the star's distance . . . . . . were correct, the distance of Sirius would amount to about 100,000,000,000,000 of miles; THE CORRECTED ESTIMATE is as above mentioned 50 millions of millions of miles."

Thus, gentle reader, the very exact men of science acknowledge an error of 50,000,000,000,000 miles. What do you think of that? If a man thinks at all, he must think that these wise men know nothing at all about the sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies which must of necessity be lighter than air or they would fall on the earth as everything that is heavier than air does. When such errors are unblushingly admitted and the figures based on the law of gravitation, the results arrived at must be as mythical as we have seen the law of gravitation to be.

T. G. Ferguson, in the Earth Review for September, 1894, says:

"Let us now glance at their theories about the Planets. . . . . . Saturn's mean distance from the sun, as given in the 'Story of the Heavens,' is 886,000,000 miles, and the diameter 71,000 miles. Professor Lockyer gives its distance as 890,000,000 miles; a difference of 4,000,000 miles. Professor Olmstead gives Saturn's distance from the sun as 890,000,000 miles, and the diameter 79,000 miles. Others could be quoted equally at variance. WHERE, WE ASK, IS THE ACCURACY OF THIS 'MOST EXACT OF SCIENCES.'"

Were it necessary we could fill a good many pages with the errors of this exact science; enough has been said to prove to the thinking man that the wise men we have quoted know no more about the planets, their sizes, weights, and distances than did Hodge when, after having listened to a very learned discourse about the starry heavens, he was asked what he thought of the marvellous fact that light had taken from creation to travel from some of the fixed stars to the earth, he exclaimed, "Law, Sir, what a big lie it do be, to be sure."