--- /dev/null
+# SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
+# Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
+# FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
+#
+#, fuzzy
+msgid ""
+msgstr ""
+"Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2016-07-25 21:55+0200\n"
+"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
+"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
+"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
+"Language: \n"
+"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
+"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n"
+"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:2
+msgid "From The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:4
+msgid "The Relativity of Wrong"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:6
+msgid "By Isaac Asimov"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:15
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:19
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:29
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:31
+msgid "These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see."
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:42
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:48
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:52
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:56
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:61
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:68
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:73
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:80
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:86
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:92
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:101
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:105
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:111
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:118
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:124
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:132
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:138
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:142
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:144
+msgid "And yet is the earth a sphere?"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:150
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:153
+msgid ""
+"That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth "
+"differ in length."
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:159
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:164
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:173
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:178
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:187
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:192
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:198
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:203
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:212
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:219
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:225
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:230
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:236
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:245
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:252
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:257
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:264
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:269
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:274
+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 ""
+
+#. type: Plain text
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:280
+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
+#: The_Relativity_of_Wrong.txt:283
+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 ""
projects / text-relativity-of-wrong-asimov.git / commitdiff