Yes, and my question was can we see any of that 41% that we normally can't see?
Quoting: Mother MaryErr, what? We see 50% of the Moon's surface at any time. If the Moon was in perfectly in plane, and perfectly synchronized in rotation, we'd only see 50% ever. It is not however perfect. It nods and dips slightly over time, leading to us being able to see about 59% of it's surface.
When I ride a Ferris wheel the world has never appeared upside down to me. That's a real new one on me. I wanna see that though cause it would be pretty cool.
Quoting: Mother MaryYou missed the key phrase "without pivoting cars." The implication was that you went head over heels during the ride. A better example would perhaps be one of those things you strap into and spin around and upside down.
Again...pictures of the moon doing this before now and less talk. I swear when something new comes up the shills come out in full force trying to give you babble about why the moon is perfectly normal when you know from your own eyes that it is not normal.
Quoting: Mother MaryThis is a case where direct observation trumps second-hand data. Watch the Moon. It will rotate. That is simple and direct and indisputable.
It is normal.
My experience as an artist, and as an amateur scientist, is that the human brain has an infinite capacity to confabulate. We all think we know what a cat looks like -- but most of us, asked to draw one, will get a hundred things wrong. Our lifetimes are mostly spent casually browsing the world, without the sharp and penetrating eye of the artist or the measuring and careful recording of the scientist.
It was a scientist, the wonderful Richard Feynman, who in an address to a graduating class said "Never forget you are the easiest one to fool." The process of becoming an artist is learning to actually observe, to memorize those details that most people pass by, to see what is actually there and not what people think is there. The process of becoming a scientist is to understand that we are all human and we all err, and to find ways to test oneself; to assume first of all that the anomaly lies with you, not with the experiment. To look, hard, for the place where you screwed it up, BEFORE going out into the world declaring you've made a great discovery.
We are all, even the greatest artists, blind and stupid about something. Given the great variety and complexity of the world, in fact, about many things. It is no shame to not have observed something closely in the past. This is why artists have clip books, and musicians have cheat books, and scientists have journals and symposia.
The only mistake is to proceed without doubt; to insist that a cat's ears lie parallel to the sagittal plane of the skull, and the ratio of tail length to body length is always 1:1.
Measure the cat. Or go find one and look at it with fresh eyes, trying to discard what you thought you knew and replace it with what is actually there.
