Hallo Alex,
My name is Chris (from Belgium, living in the Netherlands), and I should write in German, but I thought to use English, because I can write faster and better in this language than in German. As reading this topic made my blood rushing, I just chose the easy way for me. Hope you can understand my English. German grammar is quite time consuming for me, so sorry for that. Hope you forgive me [;)]
I saw your question, and I think you should be careful with this teacher. You are entering dangerous grounds my friend![:)]
Even after being questioned by other people, she doesn't seem to be convinced in this. Beware, I am not necessarily on your side, because I love to see new theories, it is because of new theories that our knowledge is growing. Sometimes we might need people such as your teacher to bring us closer to our so proclaimed 'reality'! And nowadays (Kuhn, Jantsch, Popper, and a whole bunch of German philosophers) we need scientific proof to be convinced of things. Suppose she is right. That would be quite something, isn't it?!
To make things clear (I do not dare to use the word obvious etc., but I do not want to be called a heritic afterwards!) I do believe that the axis rotation of our planet Earth has influence on the night-day rhytm ONLY in so far that it determines the duration of day and night. Is this what the teacher wanted to say?
One of my hobby's is to study the constellations according to traditional Chinese astronomy, and I was fortunate enough to have access to Chinese maps written down by a Chinese astronomer (Professor Yi Shitong, Normal University Beijing) and I was taught about all this by a Dutch scientist, Prof. J.Kistemaker (inventor of the ultra-centrifuge' and was working at Leyden University). The book I have in front of me is telling me how the sky looked like for the Chinese people 4000 years ago. It has everything to do with the precession-clock, which is set by the swirling motion of the axis of the spinning earth. Its full period is 27500 years. ... I believe I should not go into details, as I think all astrotreff readers have access to enough literature to explain how we now believe our sun based system is working.
What worries me more is what and how you are going to tell the teacher? When you show her "proof" (what we call proof), and you give her the list and answers of everybody who replied in this forum, she will definitely feel attacked and maybe humiliated. From my side I do not want you to use the way of confrontation.
Try to find maybe a smarter way to let her reconsider her corrections? Give her a simple present (a book about the universe in which these basic concepts are explained... and yes I am in the mood of St.-Nicolas[:)], as here in the Netherlands they are completely crazy about this saint I believe![:o)]) If the teacher discards this as nonsense and she doesn't bring better arguments but only her proper conviction, then, and only then I think, you should bring this thing to the attention of the school board, and demand an answer.
best regards (and again sorry for the English)
Chris
