Tidal Effects: The Planets vs. the Pebbles in Your Yard

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Here is a link to a companion piece related to the August 2015 Focal Point column in Sky and Telescope by Alan MacRobert:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/sky-and- ... _20150512/

I don't think there's anything new here.

I'd be interested to read the original article however.
"...the motions that are akin to the divine in us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe."

Plato, Timaeus, 90.

Re: Tidal Effects: The Planets vs. the Pebbles in Your Yard

4
astralwanderer wrote:Here is a link to a companion piece related to the August 2015 Focal Point column in Sky and Telescope by Alan MacRobert:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/sky-and- ... _20150512/

I don't think there's anything new here.

I'd be interested to read the original article however.
All you have to do is go to their site, buy a digital copy of that issue, and download it. I just read the Focal Point article the OP referred to and, as I suspected, the title was tongue in cheek and the article was dismissive of astrology. Not that I expected the editor of an astronomy magazine not only to be an adherent of astrology, but to advertise that fact in its pages. If you picture the title as Why Astrology "Works" you'll get a sense of where he's coming from. His point is that any random reading, like the comic strip wrappers for Bazooka Joe bubble gum, or an astrological reading, will cause you to "see things from an outside perspective" and can lead to insights about yourself or about situations you're involved in. The astrology reading or Bazooka Joe comic strip used as a reading doesn't have to be objectively valid or true to accomplish that, and he doesn't think either is. In the companion piece referenced above he follows up by explaining why it's actually not possible for the planets to affect us.
Article: After Symbolism