America “retrogrades” after 240 years
An emotional CNN analyst described the election result as a “white lash” against a black president and his legacy
Quamrul Haider
On October 30, we set the clock an hour behind to go back to the standard time zone. Nine days later, American voters reset the clock behind by decades and pushed the country back into an unknown zone.
Since becoming a US citizen, I voted in four presidential elections. But the outcome of this election is tough to digest. The campaigns angry rhetoric and negativity by Donald Trump certainly didnt showcase the best of what America has to offer to the world. Thats why today, many of us are understandably feeling as if the country is fractured on racial, gender and ethnic lines.
As we try to make sense of the new reality ‒ Donald Trumps election as the 45th President of the United States of America, people worldwide are reacting with shock, disbelief and despair. A despondent Tweeter wrote, Trump didnt win. Racism won. Sexism won. Hate won. Lack of education won. Another one noted, Never saw a country as contradictory as the USA. They elect the first Black President and then choose a racist one.
An emotional CNN analyst described the election result as a white lash against a black president and his legacy. And one of my colleagues remarked that beginning January 20, 2017, people should put up a sign at the entrance of the White House warning women: Enter at your own risk; a groper lives on the premise.
Because Donald Trump has questioned the science underlying climate change, the director of public affairs for the American Physical Society, our professional organization, lamented: Trump will be the first anti-science president we have ever had. The consequences are going to be very, very severe. Trump believes that climate change is a Chinese hoax and he pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement.
Donald Trumps election has an eerie resemblance to an astronomical phenomenon involving planets of the solar system. As we go outward from the Sun, each successive planet has a slower speed in its orbit. This means that the Earth, moving faster than the outer planets, periodically passes each of them. This occurs once in every synodic period the time between when the planet lines up with the Sun in the sky at one time and the next similar alignment, as seen by an observer on Earth.
As the Earth overtakes the outer planets, there is an interval of time during which our line of sight sweeps backward with respect to the background stars, making it appear that the planet is moving backward for a short time. The same thing happens when we, in a rapidly moving automobile, pass a slowly moving vehicle. For a brief moment the other vehicle appears to move backward with respect to the fixed background. This apparent backward movement is called retrograde motion.
Every 780 days, Mars undergoes retrograde motion for 72 days after which it turns around and goes back to normal motion. Likewise, by electing Donald Trump as the president, America went into retrograde motion with a synodic period of 240 years. The retrograde motion will last at least 4 years and at most 8 years.
The writer is Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York
