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  1. Oct 2015
    1. Let me begin by recalling an event: When in 1965 Arno Pen­zias and Robert Wilson picked up signals from outer space said to derive from the microwave background, the New York Times announced the event with the headline: “SIGNALS IMPLY A BIG­ BANG UNIVERSE.” By way of contrast, let me now recall what happened in 1887, when Albert Michelson and Edward Morley conducted their experiment designed to measure the velocity of the earth in its orbital motion around the sun. What they found, to the dismay of the scientific community, was that this velocity is not the expected 30 or so kilometers per second, but turns out to be precisely zero! And let us note that there was nothing uncer­tain or tenuous in this conclusion: based upon the laws of what is nowadays, in retrospect, termed “classical” physics, the fact that the earth does not move was strictly implied by the outcome ofthe experiment. But whereas this result sent shock waves through the upper strata of the scientific world, the public at large was told little. Most assuredly, there was no banner headline proclaiming that “MEASUREMENTS IMPLY AN IMMOBILE  EARTH,” which unlike the 1965 caption, would not have been a mere journalistic exaggeration, but indeed a scientifically accurate statement.

      a Terra está provavelmente parada no universo.