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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: background radiation
Message-ID: <5397@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 15-Nov-86 00:14:50 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.5397
Posted: Sat Nov 15 00:14:50 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Nov-86 00:11:59 EST
References: <1388@trwrb.UUCP> <546@mcgill-vision.UUCP> <1167@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <3422@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 25

In article <3422@sdcrdcf.UUCP> markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) writes:
>...  In fact, there is an
>observed doppler shift in the background radiation as seen from earth.
>This has been used to get a fairly good estimate of the real velocity
>of the earth, sun, milky way, etc. with respect to the rest of the universe

This situation is pretty funny to the skeptic, which I am,
having witnessed an incredible number of ideas representing
"current consensus of the physics community" fade away
into oblivion during the last 20 years:

The original interpretation of the "isotropic background
black-body radiation" as being cosmic rather than local
was largely due to its isotropic nature (so far as had
been measured initially).

Now that the phenomenon is taken for granted to be cosmic
and not local, the anisotropy that newer measurements have
turned up is taken to indicate absolute motion with
respect to the cosmos.

This isn't physics, folks; it's religion.

I wonder what this week's fad is?  Bag confinement?
Yin/Yang?  Number of the Beast?