Millionaire Matchmaker

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Sun Nov 7 01:59:09 UTC 2010


Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>BONUS SOPHISTICATION INDICATOR:
>>
>>The show featured a commercial for something expensive whose score included
>>a guy crooning, "You got me circling like the moon around the sun!"

Laurence Horn:
> Maybe meaning 'not circling at all', like "ad kalendas Graecas" or
> "till the twelfth of Never"?  Naaaah.

Below is a question from the textbook "Physics, classical and modern":
The magnitude of the force on the moon due to the sun is more than
twice the magnitude of the force on the moon due to the earth. Would
it be more accurate to say that the moon orbits the sun rather than
the moon orbits the earth?

http://books.google.com/books?id=gt3iAAAAMAAJ&q=%22moon+orbits%22#search_anchor

I do not know if astronomical nomenclature dictates an answer. With
multiple objects the simple notion of "orbit" breaks down from my
non-astronomer layperson perspective.

"You got me circling like the moon around the sun!"

There is a possible generous interpretation: You have me so
dumbfounded that I am circling around you with a wobbling orbit as if
I have a large companion object.

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