Why Horoscopes are scientifically bull excrement

Anonymous

What's a Horoscope?


Basically, a Horoscope is apart of Astrology, which is a field that studies how universal bodies (stars, planets, et cetera) have an effect on the human condition. In relaity, this field is about as credible as Alchemy, but that's another story for another time. A Horoscope is a prediction on your life outcome based on the alignement of the stars during your birth. The time of year you were born gives you a "sign", which is used for the prediction. For example, I'm considered an "Aries". Now, how do these stars end up having an effect on your lifestyle? The commonly given answer is the minute pull of gravity by these starts causes your brain to change and molds you into one of those 12 signs.


So how am I going to disprove this?


Simple, if gravity is what Horscopes are based on, I'll use gravity to disprove it. To do this, I'll use a well known equation developd by Sir Isaac Newton.


Why Horoscopes are scientifically bull excrement.



Gravitate dat ass over here, baby!




This equation is known as the Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. It goes like this:


Why Horoscopes are scientifically bull excrement


G, the gravitational constant, is the constant gravitational pull by anything anywhere in the universe. It is equal to 6.674 x 10^-11 N*(m^2)*(kg^-2) .


So, I'm going to put up a mathematical test. Assume everything but the univerasal constant is an approximation. Everything is rounded to 4 significant figures.


You, as a freshly born baby shot out of your momma's love cannon, have a mass of 3.400 kg, a worldwide average. I will have 5 different bodies to test that have a gravitational pull on you (other than the Earth): The Sun, Mars, The doctor that gave birth to you, Alpha Centauri (the closest star to our solar system that isn't our own Sun), and Polaris (The North Star).



  • The Sun has a mass of 1.989 x 10^30 kg and a distance from you of 1.496 x 10^8 km.

  • Mars has a mass of 6.419 x 10^23 kg and a distance from you of 2.250 x 10^8 km (yes, Earth is closer to the sun than Mars).



  • The doctor has a mass of 75.00 kg and is 1 meter away from you during birth.

  • Alpha Centauri has a mass of 2.188 x 10^30 kg and a distance from you of 4.132 x 10^13 km. Fun fact! Light from Alpha Centauri takes over 4 years to reach you!

  • Polaris has a mass of 8.951 x 10^30 kg and a distance from you of 4.104 x 10^15 km. Fun fact! Light from Polaris takes over 433 MOTHERHUMPIN' YEARS TO REACH YOU!

  • You, as mentioned eariler, have a mas of 3.400kg.



Results:


After calculating, I have found the gravitaional force that each of these 4 bodies has on you. Gravitional force is measured in Newtons, which are equal to 0.225 lbs of force for those of you that don't live in a place where things make sense.



  • The Sun: 2.017 x 10^5 N (That's a lot of force, which is why you orbit the sun.)

  • Mars: 2.877 x 10^-3 N (That's almost nothing in comparison to the sun.)

  • The Doctor: 1.702 x10^-8 N (That really is almost nothing at all...)

  • Alpha Centauri: 2.908 x 10^-7 N

  • Polaris: 1.206 x 10^-10 N



So, what does all of this mean? Well, for starters, stars are really far away. Polaris is quite far away at 433-ish light years, with a decent amount of stars being closer than that. However, you can see stars that are thousands of light years away. The point is that the distance of a star has a really bad effect on how much gravity it can pull on you, since it's squared in the equation. So most of those stars Astrolgoists use to determine Horoscopes are super far away, meaning they have very little gravity acting on you thanks to the extreme distances. You could even consider these pulls nonexistent since they're so small.


The docotor has a gravity pull of 0.00000001702 Newtons, while Alpha Centauri has a gravity pull of 0.0000002908 Newtons. Both of those are insignifcantly small, but Alpha Centauri has about 17 times more insignificant pull on you then the doctor. Either way, when it comes to stars like Polaris and such, a doctor has much more pull (that's insignificant, in case you didn't know) on you than the stars.


That's why Horoscopes are useless. A doctor can have more pull on you at birth than some of the stars they use. Even then, if those tiny amounts of gravity that don't mean anything had an effect on you, they would be useless in comparison to the gravity that the Sun or Mars has on you.


The only effect the alignment of the stars has on you is whether or not Cthulhu is going to wake up and devour the world that morning.


Thanks for reading!

Why Horoscopes are scientifically bull excrement
2 Opinion