Every Time I Get Wicket

Played shortstop again in our church softball league a few days ago. Everybody was feeling the full swelt of the sweltering late afternoon air. The opposing team's shortstop was flawless, which definitely made my light shine a bit duller, but shine on it did. I have a mediocre arm but a good glove, and both were on display. I made some nice grabs, and put what zip I had into my throws. Of course, my arm now feels like it's going to fall off at the elbow any minute. I mean really, even playing well I could barely keep pace with him. Until... I let a sharply hit ball go by me. This happens on poorly maintained infields, but there was no excuse for a ball to go through the wickets. If you don't know, it means you let a ball go right... between... your legs. It's the worst thing possible for a fielder. Just ask Bill Buckner. You can over or under run a ball in the outfield, or have it ricochet off your body in the infield, or have it go off your glove anywhere and people will have some sympathy for you. But there is no redemption for the guy who gets five-holed and has to turn around to watch the ball hop into the outfield. Maybe next time.

Mistakes

Spending a little time traveling, visiting family in bucolic Northern Michigan. The drive will be tough with two children, but the time in the woods will be good for all. I"m not likely to post for over a week, in the meantime. On with blogging:
On a recent Sunday, Wifey stayed home from church with Sarah Joy, who was sick. I stopped at Subway to grab some sandwiches for lunch on the way home with Sweetness. As I stood in line, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet. I turned on my heels and headed back to the car. Sweetness asked "Why are we leaving?"
What an opportunity! I could explain the principle of human fallibility here, even my own. I gently explained to her that I made a mistake, and that when we make mistakes we just have to do the best we can to find a solution.
The next morning, Wifey went in to see Sweetness and get her out of bed, only to discover that our daughter had wet her pull-up (thankfully, we are now done with that entirely). When asked what happened, because she had been staying dry overnight, Sweetness replied
"Sometimes, I like to make mistakes, just like daddy does." Sigh.
A few minutes later, as I headed out the door to work, I heard Sweetness shout "Don't forget your wallet, daddy." Evidently, it is I who have a great deal to learn.

Divers Garments

Spent more quality weekend time with the divers. One in particular is a bit, er, robust in build. Let's just say that his cohorts offer him (in only the kindest fashion, as one might expect) Vaseline to help squeeze into his wetsuit. And rather than the lithe gait of the other divers, he kind of jiggles his way about. We'll call him Wally, as short for Walrus. As we stood on the pier waiting for the guys to get cleared to dive, one of the divers starts fighting to restrain laughter and pointing excitedly at Wally behind his back. Sure enough, Wally has one of his gloves (compliments of Velcro wrist straps) stuck to the rump of his suit. About two minutes later, Wally is finishing gearing up and starts moving things around the divers' station, doing 360's scanning for something. We know what it is.
"Where did my glove go? Did anybody see my glove?"
Well, with the glove being Velcroed to his backside, you can imagine where his fellow divers suggested he look for it. Wally just took this as the usual treatment, scoffed at them and kept searching. Finally, the glove shook loose and fell to the concrete with a wet flop sound right between his feet. With great maturity, subtlety, and tact, as you can imagine, the other divers found great amusement in the appearance of the glove tumbling from his bum and landing in a pile between his feet. The lesson as always: when even the engineer is laughing at you, you're having a rough day.

Eccentric Orbits

Of all the places for this little pamphlet to drop, it had to be my mailbox. Addressed to "Resident", I received a pamphlet stating emphatically that the earth is the center of the universe. Seriously, folks, Christianity is a leap of Faith for any individual without whackos trying to sell this snake oil. I read the pamphlet to see if I could smell what The Geocentric Bible Foundation was cooking. Among their claims:

• Astronomers have deliberately ignored fundamental experimental results of the 1870's and 1880's that showed the earth to be standing still
• That all phenomena-including the stationary satellite thousands of miles above the earth- are better explained by geocentricity

Lordy, my head hurts. I'm guessing that those researchers in 1870whatever then went on to claim that Pasteurization was a complete hoax and that eugenics was the wave of the future. In fairness to The Ancients, gravity was not an easy concept to grasp or prove with crude tools. I mean, things fell because they wanted to get back to earth because it was the center of God's universe, right? In fact, it wasn't until around 1915 that gravity could truly be understood in the theoretical sense as it applied to celestial bodies. But, c'mon, we can respect The Ancients without falling into the same mental traps. As for geosynchronous orbit of satellites, it works because the are at such an altitude and rotating about earth at such a rate that they appear to stand still. And that is what this is really all about.

The pamphlet offers a free booklet to those who may be interested further explaining this concept. I don't need it. Why? Because I've taken my share of dynamics classes, to include the behavior of celestial bodies (I did a fun but rudimentary paper on the effects of drag on ideal ballistic trajectories upon atmospheric reentry, but that is a tangent too distant for tonight). The key (once we acknowledge the role of gravity) is frame of reference. The cover of the pamphlet shows a satellite shifted over with coordinate axes overlaid. What am I talking about? This:

A Formula One (or NASCAR, if you prefer) car does NOT revolve around the center of the track! At least not if you define the center of your "universe" as the car. You can also claim that a baserunner in baseball does not move, but that the field is rotating around the pitcher's mound while he and the pitcher's mound stay still. It's all a matter of perspective. This is just mathematical hand-waving, but to an observer (like an astronomer of the 1870s) it would be reasonable to claim this is happening:

But what about the other planets? If you take earth as our center once again, which is now proven to be in an elliptical orbit from outside (satellite) observation, and put it inside of the orbit of an outer planet that completes an orbit in twice the time, you get this (dig that free-hand squiggle!):

Say what? That planet just pulled an Immelman! I think we can intuitively note that something is amiss. I'm a hard-core dork, so I plotted this on paper before sketching it. If Johan Claus von Lichtenstein (or his cousin Jingleheimer Schmitt von Lichtenstein) observed the path of the outer planet for less than 24 months (in my scenario, actual times differ), he could miss the little loop that throws the whole hypothesis out of what.

Even this shady representation of multibody dynamics falls to pieces if you just launch a space vehicle that is not tied to any planetary orbit. It shows the solar system to be a group of planets orbiting the sun. Does this marginalize God? Hardly! Embrace the beauty of what He has set in motion. The earth can be "made" to be the literal center of the universe, mathematically. So what? God's true focus is His love for us, not an argument over coordinate transformations. I've done a LOT of coordinate transformations, and I assure you it revealed my lack of desire to obtain a PhD, not any great Truths about life. Learn to walk in His Will by study of scripture, be compassionate (I Tell You What does not yet excel in compassion) and forgiving (ditto), claim his Righteousness, and turn your back on snake oil.