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20 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:2
21 msgid "From The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44"
25 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:4
26 msgid "The Relativity of Wrong"
30 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:6
31 msgid "By Isaac Asimov"
35 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:15
37 "I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship "
38 "so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out "
39 "just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the "
40 "writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to "
41 "teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors "
42 "who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state "
43 "of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so "
48 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:19
50 "It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain "
51 "gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the "
56 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:29
58 "I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know "
59 "the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational "
60 "interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of "
61 "relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules "
62 "governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these "
63 "are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and "
64 "1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies "
65 "are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and "
70 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:31
71 msgid "These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see."
75 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:42
77 "The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me "
78 "severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they "
79 "understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be "
80 "wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "
81 "\"knowledge\" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval "
82 "what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed "
83 "him the wisest man in Greece. \"If I am the wisest man,\" said Socrates, "
84 "\"it is because I alone know that I know nothing.\" the implication was that "
85 "I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal."
89 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:48
91 "My answer to him was, \"John, when people thought the earth was flat, they "
92 "were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were "
93 "wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as "
94 "wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of "
95 "them put together.\""
99 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:52
101 "The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that \"right\" and "
102 "\"wrong\" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely "
103 "right is totally and equally wrong."
107 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:56
109 "However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are "
110 "fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I "
115 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:61
117 "When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century "
118 "scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, "
119 "what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same "
120 "degree? Let's take an example."
124 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:68
126 "In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth "
127 "was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were "
128 "intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of "
129 "sound evidence. It was not just a matter of \"That's how it looks,\" because "
130 "the earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, "
131 "valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on."
135 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:73
137 "Of course there are plains where, over limited areas, the earth's surface "
138 "does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area, "
139 "where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that "
144 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:80
146 "Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that persuaded the clever "
147 "Sumerians to accept the generalization that the earth was flat; that if you "
148 "somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left "
149 "with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that "
150 "stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days."
154 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:86
156 "Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the \"curvature\" of the "
157 "earth's surface. Over a considerable length, how much does the surface "
158 "deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would "
159 "make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its "
160 "curvature is 0 to the mile."
164 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:92
166 "Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that "
167 "it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of "
168 "the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is "
169 "wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long."
173 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:101
175 "There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-earth theory unsatisfactory "
176 "and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, "
177 "certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled "
178 "north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the "
179 "earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a "
180 "circle. Third, here on the earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the "
181 "horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling."
185 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:105
187 "All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the earth's "
188 "surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the earth to be a "
193 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:111
195 "What's more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward "
196 "a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a "
197 "sphere. A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common "
198 "center if it is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever."
202 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:118
204 "About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted "
205 "that the sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all "
206 "the shadows would be the same length if the earth's surface were flat). From "
207 "the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly "
208 "sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference."
212 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:124
214 "The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very "
215 "close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the "
216 "techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 "
217 "and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the "
218 "flat earth to the spherical earth."
222 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:132
224 "Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can "
225 "be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be "
226 "mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't "
227 "taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a "
228 "flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way "
229 "of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered "
230 "spherical rather than flat."
234 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:138
236 "Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite "
237 "earth, or of the existence of an \"end\" to the surface. The spherical "
238 "earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and "
239 "it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings."
243 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:142
245 "So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to "
246 "its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in "
247 "favor of the spherical-earth theory."
251 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:144
252 msgid "And yet is the earth a sphere?"
256 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:150
258 "No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has "
259 "certain mathematical properties - for instance, all diameters (that is, all "
260 "straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, "
261 "to another point on its surface) have the same length."
265 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:153
267 "That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth "
272 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:159
274 "What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, "
275 "the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the "
276 "limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is "
277 "consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly "
278 "spherical in shape."
282 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:164
284 "However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic "
285 "observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets "
286 "were not circles, but distinct ellipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn "
287 "were not true spheres."
291 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:173
293 "Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a "
294 "massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces "
295 "(exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it "
296 "were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the "
297 "body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the "
298 "closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the "
299 "more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very "
304 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:178
306 "The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect "
307 "should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the "
308 "curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton "
309 "was proved correct."
313 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:187
315 "The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the "
316 "poles. It is an \"oblate spheroid\" rather than a sphere. This means that "
317 "the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters "
318 "are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite "
319 "point on the equator. This \"equatorial diameter\" is 12,755 kilometers "
320 "(7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South "
321 "Pole and this \"polar diameter\" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles)."
325 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:192
327 "The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers "
328 "(27 miles), and that means that the \"oblateness\" of the earth (its "
329 "departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 "
334 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:198
336 "To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile "
337 "everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile "
338 "everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, "
339 "the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the "
344 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:203
346 "The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller "
347 "than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the "
348 "earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the "
349 "notion of the earth as flat."
353 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:212
355 "Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly "
356 "speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about "
357 "the earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the "
358 "earth--and therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out "
359 "that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the "
360 "bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly "
361 "nearer the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was."
365 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:219
367 "There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the earth was "
368 "pear-shaped, and at once many people decided that the earth was nothing like "
369 "a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, "
370 "the pear-like deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards "
371 "rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of "
376 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:225
378 "In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights "
379 "and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth "
380 "may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow "
381 "icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after."
385 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:230
387 "What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept "
388 "they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as "
389 "their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as "
394 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:236
396 "This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the "
397 "earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually "
398 "arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement "
399 "were needed, then the old theory would never have endured."
403 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:245
405 "Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a "
406 "sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious "
407 "to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of "
408 "finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and "
409 "eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely "
410 "because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement "
411 "standards of the time that kept it in being so long."
415 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:252
417 "Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly "
418 "and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at "
419 "first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always "
420 "existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference "
421 "whether the earth and life were billions of years old or "
422 "thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp."
426 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:257
428 "But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at "
429 "a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth "
430 "and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the "
431 "notion of biological evolution."
435 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:264
437 "If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have "
438 "reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the "
439 "difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of "
440 "change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that "
441 "the creationists can continue propagating their folly."
445 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:269
447 "Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient "
448 "theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; "
449 "advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements."
453 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:274
455 "The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, "
456 "and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking "
457 "sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today."
461 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:280
463 "The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that "
464 "planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and "
465 "they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the "
466 "earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been "
467 "enormously refined but the principle remains."
471 #: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:283
473 "Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the "
474 "simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and "
475 "subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete."
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