1 # Copyright (C) 2016 Petter Reinholdtsen
2 # This file is distributed under the same license as the Relativitiy of Wrong package.
4 # Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>, 2016.
7 "Project-Id-Version: \n"
8 "POT-Creation-Date: 2016-07-28 10:13+0200\n"
9 "PO-Revision-Date: 2016-07-28 09:28+0200\n"
10 "Last-Translator: Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>\n"
11 "Language-Team: Norwegian Bokmål <i18n-no@lister.ping.uio.no>\n"
14 "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
15 "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
16 "Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1);\n"
17 "X-Generator: Lokalize 1.5\n"
20 msgid "From The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44"
21 msgstr "Fra The Skeptical Inquirer, høsten 1989, vol. 14, no. 1, s. 35-44"
24 msgid "The Relativity of Wrong"
25 msgstr "Relativiteten til feil"
28 msgid "By Isaac Asimov"
29 msgstr "Av Isaac Asimov. Oversatt til bokmål av Petter Reinholdtsen."
33 "I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship "
34 "so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out "
35 "just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the "
36 "writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to "
37 "teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors "
38 "who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state "
39 "of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so "
42 "Jeg fikk et brev her om dagen. Det var håndskrevet med knotete håndskrift "
43 "som gjorde det vanskelig å lese. Jeg forsøkte uansett å forstå hva som sto "
44 "der i tilfelle det skulle vise seg å være noe viktig. I den første "
45 "setningen forklarte forfatteren at han hadde hovedfag i engelsk litteratur "
46 "men følte at han trengte å lære meg naturvitenskap. (Jeg sukket litt, da "
47 "jeg vet veldig få med engelsk hovedfag som er utstyrt til å lære meg "
48 "naturvitenskap. Men jeg er godt kjent med det enorme omfanget av alt jeg "
49 "ikke vet og klar til å lære så mye jeg kan fra hvem det skal være, så jeg "
54 "It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain "
55 "gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the "
58 "Det virket som om at jeg i et av mine utallige tekster hadde gitt uttrykk "
59 "for en viss glede over å leve i et århundre hvor vi endelig hadde fått "
60 "grunnlaget for universet riktig."
64 "I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know "
65 "the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational "
66 "interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of "
67 "relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules "
68 "governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these "
69 "are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and "
70 "1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies "
71 "are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and "
74 "Jeg gikk ikke i detaljer, men det jeg mente var at vi nå vet de "
75 "grunnleggende reglene som styrer universet og hvordan gravitasjonen for "
76 "mesteparten virker sammen, slik relativitetsteorien utarbeidet mellom 1905 "
77 "og 1916 viser. Vi kjenner også til de grunnleggende reglene som styrer "
78 "subatomære partikler og deres forhold til hverandre, da disse er svært godt "
79 "beskrevet av kvanteteorien som ble utarbeidet mellom 1900 og 1930. I "
80 "tillegg har vi funnet ut at galakser og samlinger av galakser er de "
81 "grunnleggende enhetene som utgjør det fysiske universet, slik det ble "
82 "oppdaget mellom 1920 og 1930."
85 msgid "These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see."
86 msgstr "Alle disse, ser du, er oppdagelser fra det tyvende århundre."
90 "The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me "
91 "severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they "
92 "understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be "
93 "wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern \"knowledge"
94 "\" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what "
95 "Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the "
96 "wisest man in Greece. \"If I am the wisest man,\" said Socrates, \"it is "
97 "because I alone know that I know nothing.\" the implication was that I was "
98 "very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal."
100 "Etter at den unge engelsk litteraturviteren hadde sitert meg, fortsatte han "
101 "med å belære meg om faktumet at i hvert århundre hadde folk trodd de endelig "
102 "hadde forstått universet, og i hvert eneste århundre hadde det vist seg at "
103 "de tok feil. Konklusjonen er at det eneste vi kan si om vår modere "
104 "«kunnskap» er at den beviselig er feil. Den unge mannen ga deretter sin "
105 "støtte til et sitat fra Sokrates, som hadde kommet med en kommentar da han "
106 "ble kjent med at oraklet i Delfi hadde erklært at han var den viseste mannen "
107 "i Hellas. «Hvis jeg er den viseste mannen», sa Skokrates, «så er det kun på "
108 "grunn av at jeg vet at jeg intet vet.» Implikasjonen var at jeg var svært "
109 "tåpelig som innbilte meg at jeg viste en hel masse."
113 "My answer to him was, \"John, when people thought the earth was flat, they "
114 "were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. "
115 "But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as "
116 "thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put "
119 "Jeg svarte ham slik: «Da folk tenkte at jorden var flat, John, så tok de "
120 "feil. Når folk tenkte at orden var sfærisk, så tok de feil. Men hvis du "
121 "tror at det å tenke at jorden er sfærisk er like galt som å tenke at jorda "
122 "er flat, så er ditt syn mer feil enn begge to slått sammen.»"
126 "The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that \"right\" and \"wrong"
127 "\" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right "
128 "is totally and equally wrong."
130 "Du forstår, det grunnleggende problemet er at folk tenker at «riktig» og "
131 "«galt» er absolutter. Alt alt som ikke er perfekt og fullstendig riktig er "
132 "fullstendig og likeverdig galt."
136 "However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are "
137 "fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I "
140 "Jeg tror derimot ikke at det er slik. For meg virker det som om riktig og "
141 "feil er uklare konsepter, og jeg vil bruke denne teksten til å forklare "
142 "hvorfor jeg mener dette."
146 "When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century "
147 "scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, "
148 "what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same "
149 "degree? Let's take an example."
151 "Når min venn og engelsk litteraturviter forteller meg at i hvert århundre "
152 "har naturvitenskapsfolk tenkt at de har forstått universet og alltid tatt "
153 "feil, så ønsker jeg å vite hvor feil tok de? Har de alltid tatt like mye "
154 "feil? La oss se på et eksempel."
158 "In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth "
159 "was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were "
160 "intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of "
161 "sound evidence. It was not just a matter of \"That's how it looks,\" because "
162 "the earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, "
163 "valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on."
165 "I sivilisasjonens tidlige dager, var den generelle forståelsen at jorda var "
166 "flat. Det kom ikke av at folk var dumme, eller av at de var bestemt på å "
167 "tro på rare ting. De opplevde at den var flat basert på klare indisier. "
168 "Det var ikke et enkelt spørsmål om «det er slik den ser ut», da jorden jo "
169 "ikke ser flat ut. Den er jo kaotisk humpete, med hauger, daler, "
170 "steinrøyser, klipper og så videre."
174 "Of course there are plains where, over limited areas, the earth's surface "
175 "does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area, "
176 "where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that "
179 "Selvsagt er det sletter der, i begrensede områder, jordens overflate ser "
180 "ganske flat ut. En av disse slettene er i Tigris-Eufrat-området, hvor den "
181 "første historiske sivilisasjonen (en med skriftspråk) ble utviklet seg. "
186 "Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that persuaded the clever "
187 "Sumerians to accept the generalization that the earth was flat; that if you "
188 "somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left "
189 "with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that "
190 "stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days."
195 "Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the \"curvature\" of the "
196 "earth's surface. Over a considerable length, how much does the surface "
197 "deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would "
198 "make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its "
199 "curvature is 0 to the mile."
201 "En annen måte å se på det er å spørre seg hva «krumningen» for jordens "
202 "overflate er. Over en betydelig avstand, hvor mye avviker overflaten (i "
203 "gjennomsnitt) fra perfekt flathet. Jorden er flat-teorien ville få det til "
204 "å se ut som om overflaten ikke avviker fra flathet i det hele tatt, dvs. at "
205 "dens «krumning» er 0 per mil."
209 "Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that "
210 "it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of "
211 "the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is "
212 "wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long."
217 "There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-earth theory unsatisfactory "
218 "and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, "
219 "certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled "
220 "north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the "
221 "earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a "
222 "circle. Third, here on the earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the "
223 "horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling."
228 "All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the earth's "
229 "surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the earth to be a "
235 "What's more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward "
236 "a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a sphere. "
237 "A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common center if it "
238 "is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever."
243 "About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted "
244 "that the sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all "
245 "the shadows would be the same length if the earth's surface were flat). From "
246 "the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly "
247 "sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference."
252 "The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very "
253 "close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the "
254 "techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 "
255 "and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the "
256 "flat earth to the spherical earth."
261 "Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can "
262 "be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be "
263 "mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't "
264 "taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a "
265 "flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way "
266 "of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered "
267 "spherical rather than flat."
272 "Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite "
273 "earth, or of the existence of an \"end\" to the surface. The spherical "
274 "earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and "
275 "it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings."
280 "So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to "
281 "its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in "
282 "favor of the spherical-earth theory."
286 msgid "And yet is the earth a sphere?"
287 msgstr "Men er virkelig jorden en sfære?"
291 "No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has "
292 "certain mathematical properties - for instance, all diameters (that is, all "
293 "straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, "
294 "to another point on its surface) have the same length."
296 "Nei, den er ikke en sfære, ikke i matematisk forstand. En sfære har visse "
297 "matematiske egenskaper - for eksempel har alle diametre (dvs. alle rette "
298 "linjer som går fra et punkt på overflaten, gjennom sentrum, til et annet "
299 "punkt på overflaten) samme lengde."
303 "That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth "
306 "Dette er derimot ikke riktig for jorden. Forskjellige diametre gjennom "
307 "jorden har ulik lengde."
311 "What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, "
312 "the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the "
313 "limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is "
314 "consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly "
315 "spherical in shape."
320 "However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic "
321 "observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets "
322 "were not circles, but distinct ellipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn "
323 "were not true spheres."
328 "Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a "
329 "massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces "
330 "(exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it "
331 "were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the "
332 "body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the "
333 "closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the "
334 "more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very "
340 "The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect "
341 "should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the "
342 "curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton "
343 "was proved correct."
348 "The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the "
349 "poles. It is an \"oblate spheroid\" rather than a sphere. This means that "
350 "the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters "
351 "are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite "
352 "point on the equator. This \"equatorial diameter\" is 12,755 kilometers "
353 "(7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South "
354 "Pole and this \"polar diameter\" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles)."
359 "The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers "
360 "(27 miles), and that means that the \"oblateness\" of the earth (its "
361 "departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 "
367 "To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile "
368 "everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile "
369 "everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, "
370 "the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the "
376 "The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller "
377 "than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the "
378 "earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the "
379 "notion of the earth as flat."
384 "Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. "
385 "In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, "
386 "it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth--and "
387 "therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the "
388 "equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge "
389 "north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer "
390 "the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was."
395 "There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the earth was "
396 "pear-shaped, and at once many people decided that the earth was nothing like "
397 "a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, "
398 "the pear-like deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards "
399 "rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of "
405 "In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights "
406 "and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth "
407 "may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow "
408 "icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after."
413 "What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept "
414 "they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as "
415 "their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as "
421 "This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the "
422 "earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually "
423 "arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement "
424 "were needed, then the old theory would never have endured."
429 "Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-"
430 "centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to "
431 "something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of "
432 "finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and "
433 "eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely "
434 "because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement "
435 "standards of the time that kept it in being so long."
440 "Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly "
441 "and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at "
442 "first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always "
443 "existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference "
444 "whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. "
445 "Thousands were easier to grasp."
450 "But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at "
451 "a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth "
452 "and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the "
453 "notion of biological evolution."
458 "If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have "
459 "reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the "
460 "difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of "
461 "change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that "
462 "the creationists can continue propagating their folly."
467 "Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient "
468 "theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; "
469 "advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements."
474 "The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, "
475 "and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking "
476 "sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today."
478 "Grekerne introduserte for eksempel begrepene lengdegrad og breddegrad, og "
479 "laget fornuftige kart over middelhavet, uten å ta hensyn til sfæriskiskhet, "
480 "og vi bruker fortsatt lengdegrad og breddegrad i dag."
484 "The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that "
485 "planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and "
486 "they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the "
487 "earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been "
488 "enormously refined but the principle remains."
493 "Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the "
494 "simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and "
495 "subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete."
497 "Selvfølgelig kan teoriene vi har nå anses å være feil i den enkle "
498 "betydningen av ordet som min engelske litteraturviterkorrepondent legger opp "
499 "til, men i en mer sannferdig og subtil forståelse bør de bare anses som "
projects / text-relativity-of-wrong-asimov.git / blob