Wednesday, May 08, 2019

[ozxdldnd] Scientific astrology

Astrology posits that the planets and other astronomical objects affect our lives.

This is mostly false.  But create a publication in the style of an astrological horoscope that captures the tiny tiny bit that is true.

The most obvious way the planets affect us is gravitationally, exerting minuscule accelerations.  Compute the amount and direction of acceleration toward each body day to day.  Vector sums of subsets might also be useful, perhaps omitting sun and/or moon.  Although magnitude is easy to express in terms of g, direction in the sky is not, at least in ordinary language.  Astronomers use right ascension and declination.  At very low resolution, a constellation gives a direction, but constellations aren't visible during the day.

One could also express the sum of gravitational forces in terms of the amount and direction of shift to the earth's orbit they will cause today.

The tiny accelerations of the moon and sun do cause macroscopic tides.

An even tinier force the planets exert is radiation pressure through their reflected light.

Planetary motion is not spherically symmetric, so they emit gravitational waves.

These are the fundamental forces of unlimited range.

Asteroid impacts can affect our lives, e.g., mass extinction.  Include in the horoscope whether there will be a large asteroid impact today.

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