The Sirius Research Group

THE FOLLOWING ENGLISH TRANSLATION IS BASED ON GIUSEPPE SAVARESE’S ORIGINAL LETTER IN ITALIAN, WHICH HE SENT TO PROF. ANTONINO ZICHICHI ON JANUARY 10, 2008.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A LOOSE TRANSLATION PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR HIMSELF, WHICH WAS EDITED FOR SYNTAX AND SPELLING ERRORS.

I bought your book more than anything out of curiosity, and also to see whether or not the eminent Professor Antonino Zichichi provided the reader with a value of 20 minutes for the precession of the equinoxes. And indeed you have.

However, I regret to say that I consider such a value false. Please, allow me to explain as follows.

I feel that I cannot accept in silence such an erroneous notion, for I consider it an offense to the dignity of Man’s Reason. Although it is possible that your scientific conclusions are made in good faith, it does not erase the fact these concepts have done enormous damage to the community in general and in particular to the community of young students who are trying to learn and understand the simplest notions of Time.

This damage will last for many years to come as a good part of the various school texts have been affected by the virus, so to speak, of the wrong conception of the Time relative to the length of the sidereal year and to the precession of the equinoxes. And it also has repercussion on the solar year as we shall see.

In my opinion, publishing such wrong conceptions conveys a poor image of our country, especially in view of the fact that your book is translated in other languages. While the wrong conception of Time is not just “Italian”, it does seem that one of the most important centers where such loss of knowledge in astronomy took root was at the University of Bologna. What a pity knowing that at the end of the Dark Ages the University of Bologna was not only the first university to be built in Europe, but also the one where the great Galilei taught.

Galilei would turn around in his grave learning about the downfall of his astronomy. Hipparcus, if he has a grave, would do the same upon hearing that his own words or writings do now say that the precession of equinoxes is 20 minutes per year!

Any good bookshop offers a great variety of popular books on astronomy that contain informative pages with beautiful drawings and pictures taken from modern satellites. All of these books give the value of 20 minutes for the precession, written in bold characters as if wanting to say that’s the non-plus ultra of the modern scientific truth in this field, usually with the author on the front page almost boasting to have graduated from the University of Bologna!

There is an ancient saying that everyone should act according to their own knowledge. It is still valid nowadays. Inform yourself well before becoming an expert on Time. And think it over carefully in calmness and in silence. In my opinion, there has been a lack of consideration in Italy and in the Western world during the last 20 or 30 years that has caused this regression - a 180° shift - in the development of astronomical time.

Time by itself is difficult to define. As someone once said, ‘I know what it is but I don’t know how to describe it’. Maybe in order to avoid this obstacle, the Ancients, on whom we so clearly look down from the height of our modern “scientific” position, already defined it in their simplicity and clearness of mind as an angular measure, relating the circumference of the celestial equatorial to the degrees, arc minutes and arc seconds of a circle.

The basis for time, as we know, is that of the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, etc. There is also the concept, a precise astronomical concept not invented by myself, of the “APPARENT CELESTIAL SPHERE”. The apparent celestial sphere is a hypothetical sphere with an infinite radius having the Earth and/or the observer at the center of the entire Universe. Surely, a unique universe composed of the Sun, the Moon, planets, stars, the Milky Way and all the far galaxies, which we can detect or see by telescope and even imagine on and beyond the surface of that sphere. As you see, it is a simple concept: Our Earth at the center (a point in the universe) and all the rest of the creation on the surface of the sphere. It is not a difficult concept for anyone to comprehend.

It is called the geocentric model of the celestial sphere. And it is a concept that is always valid with respect to the concept of time. This sphere, in its entirety, due to the daily rotation of the Earth, apparently turns around the infinite projection of the Earth’s axis, completing one rotation every day of “24 hours”.

It would be sufficient for us to lift our eyes toward the sky to realize this fact every day and night, even in this epoch with our hasty live-styles and short attention span. Once per day, the entire celestial sphere appears to be turning around the Earth’s axis (hypothetically projected into infinite space) from East to West. Whether it is one day, two days, ten days, one month, one year or ten thousand years, the sphere observed throughout all these periods is always the same, the APPARENT CELESTIAL SPHERE, turning eternally, completing one rotation per day, around the Earth or world axis. Due to said apparent rotation, the circumference that is most suitable for the measure of the same rotation is the circumference of the celestial equator which is none other than the projection of our equator onto the celestial sphere. Of course, its plane is perpendicular to the Earth rotational axis.

Here too, it seems to me, that there should be no difficulty of understanding. It’s a simple matter – a simple circumference. And, as we know, like all circles it is measured in degrees. One complete circle is 360°, half of it is 180° and one quarter is 90°. Every degree is composed of 60 arc minutes, and every arc minute is composed of 60 arc seconds. In short, this is the well-known sexagesimal system. Hence, a circle can be expressed in 360°, but also in 21600 arc minutes or in 1296000 arc seconds.

We do not know who invented this system, but let’s say it was the Ancients, or as I would call them the Great Ancients. Perhaps it began by noticing that the number of beats of a healthy human heart is 60 beats per minute and that it takes a number of 86400 from the beginning to the completion of one apparent rotation of the celestial sphere. They must have decided, so to speak, to tie the measure of time to the measure of a circular motion or a circumference; i.e. 86400 = 360° = 21600’ (arc minutes) = 1296000” (arc seconds). It is almost like one is governed by the other.

If this was so, or whatever initial reasoning occurred, it was certainly the greatest revolution of all times. The Measurement of Time! What a greatness of mind and spirit! Eventually time became, as it is still today, an ANGULAR MEASURE, well defined and quantifiable to its smallest and largest parts.

Again, if true, then one heart beat is equal to 1 second of time = 15” arc seconds. And according to the sexagesimal system, 60 beats = 60 seconds of time = 1 minute of time or simply 1 minute = 900” arc seconds = 15’ arc minutes. And furthermore, in accordance with the sexagesimal system, 60 minutes = 1 hour = 54000” arc seconds = 900’ arc minutes = 15 degrees. Hence, we have 86400 beats = 86400 seconds of time = 1440 minutes = 24 hours = 1296000” arc seconds = 21600’ arc minutes = 360° degrees.

In a way, this is one piece of a greater Knowledge that was almost lost: the relationship between the measure of time and that of a circumference. The circumference of the celestial equatorial, that is the circumference of the celestial sphere, can be measured in degrees from 0 to 360 or in hours from 0 to 24. Thus, 1 hour = 15°; 2 hours = 30°; 3 hours = 45°; 4 hours = 60°; 5 hours = 75°; 6 hours = 90°; 7 hours = 105°; 8 hours = 120°; 9 hours = 135°; 10 hours = 150°; 11 hours = 165°; 12 hours = 180°;……….; 24 hours = 360°.

The same holds true for any other circumference. The tradition of this knowledge is still kept with the institutions that annually publish the astronomical almanacs. Among them is our “Istituto Idrografico della Marina” (Navy Hydrographic Institute), which shows in their almanac a beautiful map of the celestial sphere ideally graduated either in degrees or hours. Needless to say, all almanacs provide on a daily basis for each hour, minute and second of time, the equivalent angular measure relative to the most important objects or bodies of the celestial sphere.

Of course, from all the bodies of the celestial sphere the Sun is the most important. There is no life on Earth without it. I think we all agree there is no argument here. Maybe it was for this reason that of all the celestial bodies the Sun was chosen as the most important reference point for the hours, minutes and seconds of time, as well as for the degrees, minutes and seconds of arc of the daily rotation. Two successive passages or transits of the Sun over the same meridian imply a circle of 360° or 24 hours.

When we say ‘I shall see you in twenty minutes’ or ‘I will call you in an hour’, it actually means: “I will see you in 300’ arc minutes (20x15),” which is 5° of movement of the celestial sphere, or “I will call you in 15° of movement of the celestial sphere”. WITHOUT HAVING THE POSSIBILITY TO MEASURE THE ANGLE OF ROTATION WE CANNOT KNOW THE DURATION OF TIME, WHICH ‘PER SE’ AND BY IT SELF IS EPHEMERAL AND NON-DEFINABLE.

As mentioned in the preceding communication addressed to the Director of the School, copy to the President of the Republic, it is neither my intention to write a treatise on astronomy, nor to repeat what has already been said. I will try therefore, after having expressed above the important concept of the apparent celestial sphere, to use different words, in order to demonstrate the erroneous concept of a sidereal year of 365.2563 days and to clearly explain the fundamental yet simple mistake of the annual 20 minutes of precession. These two errors are directly linked – one depends on the other.

By the way, the good old Hipparcus never said that the precession of equinoxes causes a time discrepancy of 20 minutes per year. Actually, the wrong figure is exactly 20 minutes and 23 seconds, but commonly we just say 20 minutes. Hipparcus had made observations to show that the annual precession is an ANGULAR MEASUREMENT of about 50” arc seconds. Now based on the precise and unique relation already expressed between the measurement of time and a circumference, 50” arc seconds are equal to 3.3 seconds of time (three point three seconds).

Today this is still the true value of the annual precession, although no serious research has been carried out to confirm the value given by Hipparcus since an accurate verification would necessitate centuries of observations. Because as everybody knows, even if the Earth’s axis were to spin like a top, it takes many thousands of years for the terrestrial axis to describe a circle in space while keeping the obliquity at about 23° 27’. One complete 360 degree movement of the axis takes 25920 years. The figure of 25920 is derived from dividing the total number of arc seconds of a circle, which is 1296000”, by the 50” discovered by Hipparcus.

If instead of arc seconds we take the number of time minutes that make up the same circle and divide them by your 20 minutes; i.e. 1440 (24 hours x 60) ÷ 20, we arrive at - wonder of wonders – 72 years and not 25920.

Of course, the actual period is so immense (i.e. the one of 25920 years, not the one of 72 years derived from your 20 minutes) that a precise figure cannot be given and hence, there are several theories and current studies that suggest a precession period between 24000 and 30000 years. For argument sake, I shall consider for my following demonstration the prevailing value of 50.26” for the annual precession, which automatically decreases the precession period to 25786 years.

The question then is, why do you Prof. Antonino Zichichi, and so many like you, persist in refusing that Hipparcus’ value of 50 arc seconds is being equal to 3.3 time seconds?

Not only do you seem to deny the equivalence between the angular measurement and time, which is even accepted by the world’s almanacs or ephemeris tables, but you also contradict the official dates given by the International Astronomical Union that show the duration of the tropical or solar year as 365.2422 days of mean solar time (365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds equivalent to 31556926 seconds), and the duration of a sidereal year consisting also of 31556926 seconds which are time equivalent to 366.2422 mean sidereal days of 23 hours 56 minutes 04 seconds.

The answer, Professor Zichichi, is like Columbus’ Egg and it is given by yourself on pages 165 to 169 in your book, where the wrong reasoning for the concept of the 20 minutes is being developed. And like you, so many professors and astronomers keep dragging out the explanation. Instead, one could have easily arrived at the same wrong 20 minutes by reasoning as follows:

If one year consists of 31556926 seconds and the terrestrial axis due to precession completes one circle in space in 25786 years, what is the rate of precession in seconds per year? Without much thinking it is obvious that if we divide the 31556926 seconds/year by 25786 years, the result is 1223 seconds - that is 20 minutes 23 seconds - per year! That’s all there is to it.

Do you notice anything strange with this kind of reasoning, Professor? Doesn’t it say somehow to you that the 31556926 seconds per year consist in reality of 365.2422 times the relationship of the 360°/24 hours, i.e. the amount of rotations the celestial sphere performs during the course of one year, which is 365.2422 times one complete rotation of 86400 seconds?

However, another celestial sphere with a circumference of 365.2422 days DOES NOT EXIST.

As I have tried to clarify from the beginning, THERE IS ONLY ONE CELESTIAL SPHERE. The whole development of time is in relation to this unique sphere which continuously turns, giving us the days, years and millennia.

In order to re-establish the astronomical relationship between the circumference and time (360°/24 hours), we simply divide those 1223 seconds by 365.2422 to obtain the 3.3 (three point three) seconds of the annual precession as discovered by Hipparcus.

Imagine all the trouble, the damage and the waste of time that could have been avoided had the 50” of Hipparcus been simply transformed into real time. Nothing else had to be done. Instead, we had to demonstrate that we are more advanced than Hipparcus. But what kind of progress is that?

Now, let us follow your reasoning very critical using the same logic (or illogic?). You say: “”LET US SEE HOW THIS ADVANCE OF 20 MINUTES PER YEAR IS BORN. AS WE HAVE ALREADY SAID, IN ONE YEAR THE TERRESTRIAL AXIS MOVES JUST A SMALL PART OF A COMPLETE ROTATION OF 25620 YEARS: 1/25620 OF TURN = 3.903 x 10E-5. SINCE A COMPLETE TURN IS THE VALUE OF 360°, THE RESULT, EXPRESSED IN DEGREES, GIVES US: 3.903 x 10E-5 x 3.60 x 10E2 = 14.052 x 10E-3 DEGREES AND THAT IS ABOUT 14 THOUSANDTHS OF A DEGREE. FOR SIMPLICITY WE ASSUME 14 THOUSANDTHS OF DEGREE EVERY YEAR AS THE VALUE RELATIVE TO THE ROTATION OF THE TERRESTRIAL AXIS AROUND AN IMAGINARY POINT ON THE CELESTIAL VAULT.””

All this expanding of numbers, by powers and by thousandths, may be more suitable for calculating atomic and subatomic particles for which you are surely an expert. This kind of mathematical rambling leads astray, because 14thousandth of a degree is in reality Hipparcus’ 50 arc seconds. Obviously, you don’t like degrees, minutes and seconds neither of arc nor of time. I would say, it is a bad habit for many scientists, who only tend to see in it astrology, witchcraft and non-existent things. Or do you want us to believe that the almanacs are an instrument of astrology, as they also contain degrees, minutes and seconds of both arc and time?

For your information, until recently the position for airplanes and ships, during transoceanic flights and on the open seas, has been calculated with the use of chronometer, sextant and astronomical almanac. This calculation has to be precise, using degrees, minutes and seconds of arc and of time based on the 360°/24 hours relationship. The mistake of only one time second causes an error of about 500 meters on the Earth’s surface. A miscalculation of ten seconds causes an error of about 5000 meters, etc. In adverse conditions or during bad weather this would make the difference between life and death!

Let us continue with your reasoning. You say: “”SINCE ONE COMPLETE ROTATION IS 360000 THOUSANDTHS OF DEGREE THE RESULT IS 14 THOUSANDTHS OF DEGREE DIVIDED BY 360000 THOUSANDTHS OF DEGREE = 3.889 x 10E-5 (3). THAT IS A LITTLE LESS THAN FOUR HUNDREDTHS OF THOUSANDTHS OF A ROTATION IN ONE YEAR. THE DURATION OF ONE YEAR EXPRESSED IN MINUTES IS: 525600 MINUTES (4). MULTIPLYING (3) x (4) WE OBTAIN 3.889 x 10E-5 x 5.184 x 10E5 = ABOUT 20 MINUTES.””

In this second rambling operation you have clearly converted the 14thousandths of degree per year, that is the 50” of Hipparcus, into 20 minutes, thereby making the same crucial error as shown earlier: 360° of 525600 minutes, instead of 360° of 24 hours.

My dear Professor, the time that humanity knows, and also the time that science uses, is the time of our wrist-watches, with 12 hours a.m. and 12 hours p.m., for total of 24 hours. After 24 hours we enter into another day with another date. A watch or clock with 525600 minutes does not exist. Hypothetically speaking, we can imagine for example a wrist-watch or wall clock that shows a period of one year - a yearly clock. But first of all let us correct the number of minutes.

A hypothetical yearly clock, based on the tropical year, requires 31556926 seconds equal to 525948 minutes and 46 seconds, or better said 8765 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds. On this hypothetical, yet non-existing clock we place your 20 minutes. Those 20 minutes belong to this clock because they are based on a non-existing celestial sphere with a circumference of 8765 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds. These 20 minutes of yours are in reality equal to 3.3 time seconds of our normal wrist watches and clocks, which are familiar to us. Of course, the ratio between 3.35 seconds and 24 hours (86400/3.3479 = 25807) is the same as the ratio between 20 minutes 23 seconds and 8765 hours (525948/20.38 = 25807).

What you and others have not understood is that the core of the conceptual mistake is extremely simple. When you take 525600 minutes for the duration of one year, or the more precise figure of 525948 minutes, it implies in reality as many rotations of 360°/24 hours as there are days in the year. That means 1440 minutes of rotation in a unique celestial sphere that would surrounds us, since time is an ANGULAR MEASURE OF THIS SPHERE AND OF THIS SPHERE ONLY. Certainly we are able to measure much longer periods than 24 hours, but we must always take into consideration the amount of rotations these longer periods contain.

It is false to relate the 360° to 525600 minutes, as you have done. Because in this case it is 365 times 360°/1440 minutes, as these are the amount of rotations of the celestial sphere to arrive at 525600 minutes.

That is to say, the correct result is not the 20 minutes but 3.3 seconds, which is 365 times smaller than 20 minutes. To be even more clear, your result of 20 minutes must be divided by the amount of rotations of the apparent celestial sphere that originally produced it, in order to obtain the angular measure of time with respect to THE ONE ROTATION OF 360°/24 HOURS OF THAT UNIQUE EQUATORIAL TIME-CIRCUMFERENCE.

Surely the good Hipparcus, with all good intentions, would have not been so ignorant to have mistakenly given the 365 times smaller value of 3.3 seconds for the 50 arc seconds of precession. Haven’t you realize, Professor, that at a rate of 20 minutes per year one complete 360° circle of the terrestrial axis would be completed in just 72 years (as indicated before), instead of 25920 (25786, 25620 or similar) years? The polar star bears witness to the fact that for several hundred years it has always been in the same position more or less. How do you explain this with 20 minutes of precession, and compared to the data given by the International Astronomical Union?

Furthermore, did you realize that the equinoctial axis (ecliptic) being perpendicular to the polar axis, should also move by the same 20 minutes per year? Hence, the cosmic point of the polar axis, as well as the ecliptic should consequently complete one rotation in 72 years instead of 25920?

And how do you explain the values of 4 minutes and 20 minutes that you mention several times in your book. We seem to agree that 4 minutes are equal to one degree (or 3600” arc seconds), whereas the 20 minutes should be equal to 50” arc seconds, which you cunningly try to disguise, calling them 14 thousandths of degree? Do you have two kinds of clocks? One, where 20 minutes are equal to 50” arc seconds or 14 thousandths of degree, and another regular clock where 4 minutes are equal to one degree or 3600” arc seconds? Do you see the inconsistency, Professor?

As you can see there is sufficient material to contemplate. The fall of these 20 minutes will cause the fall of the sidereal year of 365.2563 days, as commonly published in text books and encyclopedias, believing that the 20 minutes 23 seconds is the difference between the solar year of 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds and a sidereal year of 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes 9 seconds, both expressed in mean solar time.

Once recognized by the International Astronomical Union, all that will remain are the 3.3 seconds of Hipparcus. Of course, this will imply that up to the fourth decimal the value will not change significantly. Just as we were taught in school during the fifties, that one tropical year has 365.2422 mean solar days and a one sidereal year has 366.2422 mean sidereal days.

One remains somewhat speechless, perplexed and in disbelief to realize that almost an entire planet has been hypnotized over the last 30 or 40 years to believe in a concept of the time that is so blatantly wrong. That such a thing could have happened can only be explained by the fact that nobody looks at the sky anymore. It seems as if nobody is continuously observing for many years the flow of the celestial sphere, and due to this lack of careful observation the idea has taken root among professors and astronomers that there are two celestial spheres, a daily celestial sphere of 360° and 24 hours, and another non-existing yearly celestial sphere of 360° and 31556926 seconds or 525948 minutes. There is only one celestial sphere, but to realize this simple fact it does take many years of observation.

If the numbers quoted are the same as officially published, then it is more than obvious that the poor Professor confused himself with all his thousandths of degrees. The problem lies with his initial reasoning which is based on a false premise. He wants to prove the existence of 20 minutes by pre-assuming a precession cycle of 25620 years. That's a circular argument or like a dog biting his own tail.

The number 3.903 x 10E-5 is nothing more than the reciprocal of 25620 or the 25620th part of something. He uses 'years' for his cycle and calls this period 360°. In other words, the 25620th part of that 360° period is now a 14 thousandths of a degree. This fraction of a degree is immediatley converted without proper reason to a 14 thousandths of a degree per year.

Of course, we know that the 25620th part of 360° (1296000 arc seconds) is about 50". For instance, if 360° represent 86400 s, then a 25620th part of those seconds is about 3.3 s, while a 14thousandths part of the 86400 s is 1200 plus seconds (which one should not confuse with a 25620th part of a year!). Although 50 arc seconds are approximately a 14thousandths of a degree, they are not roughly 20 minutes, but 3.3 seconds of time. Simply stated, the 25620th part of a circle is NOT the same as its 14thousandths part.

However, the Professor goes further and mixes a 360° year with a 360° rotation. First of all, he decides to divide the former 14thousandths part of his degrees by 360°, in order to get the number 3.889 x10E-5. Then, using that number as a factor, he wants to figure out how many minutes "four hundredths of thousandths" of a rotation is in a year.

Finally, he gets totally confused by his thousandths and 25620th parts of something, that he believes those 20 minutes, which were probably born in the fantasy of his head, are somehow the 25620th part (25920 according to the figure quoted) of a year of 5.184 x 10E5 minutes.

In the end, all he did was to take the rough amount of total minutes in a year and figure out its 25620th part, again assuming that the actual year is the 25620th part of a precession cycle - which he probably never bothered to measure or verify for himself.