# Copyright (C) 2016 Petter Reinholdtsen
# This file is distributed under the same license as the Relativitiy of Wrong package.
#
# Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>, 2016.
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#. type: Plain text
msgid "From The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44"
msgstr "Fra The Skeptical Inquirer, høsten 1989, vol. 14, no. 1, s. 35-44"

#. type: Plain text
msgid "The Relativity of Wrong"
msgstr "Relativiteten til feil"

#. type: Plain text
msgid "By Isaac Asimov"
msgstr "Av Isaac Asimov.  Oversatt til bokmål av Petter Reinholdtsen."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship "
"so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out "
"just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the "
"writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to "
"teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors "
"who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state "
"of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so "
"I read on.)"
msgstr ""
"Jeg fikk et brev her om dagen.  Det var håndskrevet med knotete håndskrift "
"som gjorde det vanskelig å lese.  Jeg forsøkte uansett å forstå hva som sto "
"der i tilfelle det skulle vise seg å være noe viktig.  I den første "
"setningen forklarte forfatteren at han hadde hovedfag i engelsk litteratur "
"men følte at han trengte å lære meg naturvitenskap.  (Jeg sukket litt, da "
"jeg vet veldig få med engelsk hovedfag som er utstyrt til å lære meg "
"naturvitenskap.  Men jeg er godt kjent med det enorme omfanget av alt jeg "
"ikke vet og klar til å lære så mye jeg kan fra hvem det skal være, så jeg "
"fortsatte å lese.)"

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain "
"gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the "
"universe straight."
msgstr ""
"Det virket som om at jeg i et av mine utallige tekster hadde gitt uttrykk "
"for en viss glede over å leve i et århundre hvor vi endelig hadde fått "
"grunnlaget for universet riktig."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know "
"the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational "
"interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of "
"relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules "
"governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these "
"are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and "
"1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies "
"are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and "
"1930."
msgstr ""
"Jeg gikk ikke i detaljer, men det jeg mente var at vi nå vet de "
"grunnleggende reglene som styrer universet og hvordan gravitasjonen for "
"mesteparten virker sammen, slik relativitetsteorien utarbeidet mellom 1905 "
"og 1916 viser.  Vi kjenner også til de grunnleggende reglene som styrer "
"subatomære partikler og deres forhold til hverandre, da disse er svært godt "
"beskrevet av kvanteteorien som ble utarbeidet mellom 1900 og 1930.  I "
"tillegg har vi funnet ut at galakser og samlinger av galakser er de "
"grunnleggende enhetene som utgjør det fysiske universet, slik det ble "
"oppdaget mellom 1920 og 1930."

#. type: Plain text
msgid "These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see."
msgstr "Alle disse, ser du, er oppdagelser fra det tyvende århundre."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me "
"severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they "
"understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be "
"wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern \"knowledge"
"\" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what "
"Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the "
"wisest man in Greece. \"If I am the wisest man,\" said Socrates, \"it is "
"because I alone know that I know nothing.\" the implication was that I was "
"very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal."
msgstr ""
"Etter at den unge engelsk litteraturviteren hadde sitert meg, fortsatte han "
"med å belære meg om faktumet at i hvert århundre hadde folk trodd de endelig "
"hadde forstått universet, og i hvert eneste århundre hadde det vist seg at "
"de tok feil.  Konklusjonen er at det eneste vi kan si om vår modere "
"«kunnskap» er at den beviselig er feil.  Den unge mannen ga deretter sin "
"støtte til et sitat fra Sokrates, som hadde kommet med en kommentar da han "
"ble kjent med at oraklet i Delfi hadde erklært at han var den viseste mannen "
"i Hellas. «Hvis jeg er den viseste mannen», sa Skokrates, «så er det kun på "
"grunn av at jeg vet at jeg intet vet.»  Implikasjonen var at jeg var svært "
"tåpelig som innbilte meg at jeg viste en hel masse."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"My answer to him was, \"John, when people thought the earth was flat, they "
"were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. "
"But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as "
"thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put "
"together.\""
msgstr ""
"Jeg svarte ham slik: «Da folk tenkte at jorden var flat, John, så tok de "
"feil.  Når folk tenkte at orden var sfærisk, så tok de feil.  Men hvis du "
"tror at det å tenke at jorden er sfærisk er like galt som å tenke at jorda "
"er flat, så er ditt syn mer feil enn begge to slått sammen.»"

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that \"right\" and \"wrong"
"\" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right "
"is totally and equally wrong."
msgstr ""
"Du forstår, det grunnleggende problemet er at folk tenker at «riktig» og "
"«galt» er absolutter.  Alt alt som ikke er perfekt og fullstendig riktig er "
"fullstendig og likeverdig galt."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are "
"fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I "
"think so."
msgstr ""
"Jeg tror derimot ikke at det er slik.  For meg virker det som om riktig og "
"feil er uklare konsepter, og jeg vil bruke denne teksten til å forklare "
"hvorfor jeg mener dette."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century "
"scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, "
"what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same "
"degree? Let's take an example."
msgstr ""
"Når min venn og engelsk litteraturviter forteller meg at i hvert århundre "
"har naturvitenskapsfolk tenkt at de har forstått universet og alltid tatt "
"feil, så ønsker jeg å vite hvor feil tok de?  Har de alltid tatt like mye "
"feil?  La oss se på et eksempel."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth "
"was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were "
"intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of "
"sound evidence. It was not just a matter of \"That's how it looks,\" because "
"the earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, "
"valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on."
msgstr ""
"I sivilisasjonens tidlige dager, var den generelle forståelsen at jorda var "
"flat.  Det kom ikke av at folk var dumme, eller av at de var bestemt på å "
"tro på rare ting.  De opplevde at den var flat basert på klare indisier.  "
"Det var ikke et enkelt spørsmål om «det er slik den ser ut», da jorden jo "
"ikke ser flat ut.  Den er jo kaotisk humpete, med hauger, daler, "
"steinrøyser, klipper og så videre."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Of course there are plains where, over limited areas, the earth's surface "
"does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area, "
"where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that "
"of the Sumerians."
msgstr ""
"Selvsagt er det sletter der, i begrensede områder, jordens overflate ser "
"ganske flat ut.  En av disse slettene er i Tigris-Eufrat-området, hvor den "
"første historiske sivilisasjonen (en med skriftspråk) ble utviklet seg.  "
"Dvs. Summererne."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that persuaded the clever "
"Sumerians to accept the generalization that the earth was flat; that if you "
"somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left "
"with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that "
"stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the \"curvature\" of the "
"earth's surface.  Over a considerable length, how much does the surface "
"deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would "
"make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its "
"curvature is 0 to the mile."
msgstr ""
"En annen måte å se på det er å spørre seg hva «krumningen» for jordens "
"overflate er.  Over en betydelig avstand, hvor mye avviker overflaten (i "
"gjennomsnitt) fra perfekt flathet.  Jorden er flat-teorien ville få det til "
"å se ut som om overflaten ikke avviker fra flathet i det hele tatt, dvs. at "
"dens «krumning» er 0 per mil."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that "
"it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of "
"the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is "
"wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-earth theory unsatisfactory "
"and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, "
"certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled "
"north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the "
"earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a "
"circle. Third, here on the earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the "
"horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the earth's "
"surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the earth to be a "
"sphere."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"What's more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward "
"a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a sphere. "
"A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common center if it "
"is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted "
"that the sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all "
"the shadows would be the same length if the earth's surface were flat). From "
"the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly "
"sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very "
"close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the "
"techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 "
"and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the "
"flat earth to the spherical earth."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can "
"be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be "
"mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't "
"taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a "
"flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way "
"of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered "
"spherical rather than flat."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite "
"earth, or of the existence of an \"end\" to the surface. The spherical "
"earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and "
"it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to "
"its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in "
"favor of the spherical-earth theory."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid "And yet is the earth a sphere?"
msgstr "Men er virkelig jorden en sfære?"

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has "
"certain mathematical properties - for instance, all diameters (that is, all "
"straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, "
"to another point on its surface) have the same length."
msgstr ""
"Nei, den er ikke en sfære, ikke i matematisk forstand.  En sfære har visse "
"matematiske egenskaper - for eksempel har alle diametre (dvs. alle rette "
"linjer som går fra et punkt på overflaten, gjennom sentrum, til et annet "
"punkt på overflaten) samme lengde."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth "
"differ in length."
msgstr ""
"Dette er derimot ikke riktig for jorden.  Forskjellige diametre gjennom "
"jorden har ulik lengde."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, "
"the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the "
"limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope.  This is "
"consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly "
"spherical in shape."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic "
"observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets "
"were not circles, but distinct ellipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn "
"were not true spheres."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a "
"massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces "
"(exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it "
"were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the "
"body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the "
"closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the "
"more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very "
"rapidly indeed."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect "
"should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the "
"curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton "
"was proved correct."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the "
"poles. It is an \"oblate spheroid\" rather than a sphere. This means that "
"the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters "
"are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite "
"point on the equator. This \"equatorial diameter\" is 12,755 kilometers "
"(7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South "
"Pole and this \"polar diameter\" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles)."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers "
"(27 miles), and that means that the \"oblateness\" of the earth (its "
"departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 "
"of 1 percent."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile "
"everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile "
"everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, "
"the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the "
"mile."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller "
"than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the "
"earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the "
"notion of the earth as flat."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. "
"In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, "
"it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth--and "
"therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the "
"equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge "
"north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer "
"the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the earth was "
"pear-shaped, and at once many people decided that the earth was nothing like "
"a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, "
"the pear-like deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards "
"rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of "
"an inch per mile."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights "
"and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth "
"may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow "
"icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept "
"they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as "
"their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as "
"incomplete."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the "
"earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually "
"arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement "
"were needed, then the old theory would never have endured."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-"
"centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to "
"something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of "
"finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and "
"eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind.  It was precisely "
"because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement "
"standards of the time that kept it in being so long."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly "
"and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at "
"first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always "
"existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference "
"whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. "
"Thousands were easier to grasp."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at "
"a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth "
"and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the "
"notion of biological evolution."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have "
"reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the "
"difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of "
"change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that "
"the creationists can continue propagating their folly."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient "
"theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; "
"advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, "
"and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking "
"sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today."
msgstr ""
"Grekerne introduserte for eksempel begrepene lengdegrad og breddegrad, og "
"laget fornuftige kart over middelhavet, uten å ta hensyn til sfæriskiskhet, "
"og vi bruker fortsatt lengdegrad og breddegrad i dag."

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that "
"planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and "
"they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the "
"earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been "
"enormously refined but the principle remains."
msgstr ""

#. type: Plain text
msgid ""
"Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the "
"simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and "
"subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete."
msgstr ""
"Selvfølgelig kan teoriene vi har nå anses å være feil i den enkle "
"betydningen av ordet som min engelske litteraturviterkorrepondent legger opp "
"til, men i en mer sannferdig og subtil forståelse bør de bare anses som "
"ufullstendige."