Gold Standards

[Guest guest]

Just an observation from a novice.

 

For many years in the medical arena there have been heated debates

about certain measurements used in electrocardiography. These debates

deal with how the measurements are done and the resulting debate has

crystalized into what has become known as the Gold Standard debate.

 

It goes something like this: If I measure something using standard A and make

my determination of illness based upon how the physical state if the patient is

based on those measurements, the fact that the ruler is 11" long or 13" long is

immaterial. The fact that I always measure the patient with the SAME ruler is,

however, very important.

 

Measureing the postitions of the stars and planets, prior to big telescopes was

an

art. The best european observers, those of Tycho Brae in Copenhagen, could get

the positions to only 2' of arc. Now that isn't bad for eyeballing it, but it

limited

a number of things, like position on the planet (Latitude and Longitued) and the

position of the celestial bodies, like planets and stars. If you want a

referent to

the 2', the moon is about 2" of arc in the heavens as seen from earth. Divide

that

into 60 bits and you have the approximate human eye resolution.

 

Now here comes the kicker. If the observations, over the ages, of the Jyotishi

have

been using a specific system, that is an observed planetary locale adjusted for

precession (which you can detect using the naked eye over the course of about

100 or so years), and the characteristics of the chart have been intuited and

compiled

using this system, them "changing the ruler" from one Ayanamsha to another may

not be a good ideal, in general.

 

In an experimental sense, it is always interesting to look a new ways to do

things,

but, sometimes the side effects cannot be pre-determined. For example, in the

70's

it was deemed "safe" to test nuclear bombs underground because they could not

send radiation into the air. In the 60's, it was thought that the "safe"

tranquilizer

thalidomide could be given to anyone, including pregnant women. We all know the

results.

 

Namaste'

John

 

 

Strange but stupid:

"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero,

they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs"

(Weren't Roman C programs always 500 lines long?)

John F (Jack) Melka