I didn't post this week about the first quarter moon, but it happened anyway. Imagine that!
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The moon doesn't wait for Internet posts before it changes phases.
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The moon had its first quarter again, at 7:48 pm Tuesday June 2nd, as scheduled on the Old Farmer's Almanac website -- a place where the words "flat earth" have never appeared because it's not a ridiculous publication.
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Therefore, farmers all over America have been purchasing and using a publication for well over 200 years (since 1792) that has never mentioned a "flat earth." But what do farmers know, anyway?
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But I digress. The moon rose, as predicted, and I measured the angle between it and the sun just before the quarter moon phase and just after. It started at less than 88 degrees (waxing crescent moon), became Quarter Moon at less than 90 degrees and greater than 89 degrees, and finished at greater than 90 degrees (waxing gibbous moon).
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This is the same results I got last month. Surprise, surprise. I expect it's going to be the same every time I check it, until the cows come home (or the sheep and goats if you're lactose intolerant).
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This figure of 89-plus degrees is very interesting. It is always less than 90 degrees, which is comforting, because it actually makes sense this way.
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Triangles have the consistent property of having three interior angles that add up to 180 degrees. I know, I know, that's witchcraft HAHAHAHAHA. NOT.
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When the moon is at just one quarter (a state that lasts for a minute or two but who's counting that closely?), the angle as observed from the moon between the earth and sun is just 90 degrees, which is why we can see the moon appearing as a Quarter Moon. That means the earth, moon and sun (for a minute or two anyway) are located just at the points of a right triangle.
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Right triangles are great because trig functions are very easy to use with them.
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Therefore, we have one known angle, 90 degrees between earth and sun as viewed from the moon, and we didn't have to travel to the moon to know this.
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And we have a second known angle, the angle between the moon and sun as viewed from earth, which is where we are so we didn't have to travel anywhere.
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Consequently we can calculate the third angle, namely, the angle between the earth and moon as viewed from the sun, and we didn't have to travel to the sun (fortunately).
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180 - 90 - 89.5 = 0.5 degrees. But we do not have an accurate number, only an approximation, since our instruments are crude. We know the angle between sun and moon is greater than 89 and less than 90 so I have approximated it at 89.5 here. If that is a good number, then the angle between earth and moon as viewed from the sun would be one half of one degree.
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More witchcraft!!
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Burn him at the stake!!
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Apostate!! Heretic!! Calumniator!! Ingrate!! Malefactor!!
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Curiously, all the accusations against me for being "uncharitable" toward flat-earthers, the flat-earthers practice toward me without restraint. Interesting. That could be called duplicity and hypocrisy, but we can't say that because it's "uncharitable." Correct?
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