Comments on "Evidence for the distribution of angular velocity inside the sun and stars."

Abstract

I want to discuss the question of whether the oblateness measurements that Dicke and Goldenberg [1967] made do indicate that the core of the sun is rotating rapidly, or whether there is an equally attractive alternate possibility. Dicke and Goldenberg looked at the shape of the sun in visible light, and there are really three ways that the sun might look oblate in visible light. The first possibility is that the equipotentials. gravitational plus centrifugal. are oblate, which would be the case if the interior of the sun were rotating rapidly. The second and third are variations of the possibility that the solar equator is somehow hotter than the poles. If the equator were hotter, it would also be brighter, and this might be confused with an oblateness because of the limitations of seeing in the earth's atmosphere.