Pssst. Want a thousand dollars?

Nope, it's for real. Here's the guy behind it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sungenis

Actually, the Bible does claim that the Earth is flat. At the time it was written, "The four corners of the Earth" could've only be taken literally, as the metaphorical meaning it has in modern languages is derived from the Biblical expression.

There is a pernicious streak of more-Catholic-than-the-pope Catholicism that manifests itself in many peculiar ways. Some of the ultra-Catholics decide the pope is a heretic and embrace sede vacantism ("There is no true pope!"). Some denounce the vernacular mass and say only Latin Tridentine masses are valid. Some go completely insane and start organizations like Catholic Apologetics International. These clowns think they're geocentric, but it's really egocentricity.

Aberration of starlight.

I'll take my $1000 please.

-k

PZ - some comments. One this is pretty old. Two, where I think he goes of the rails is with his distinction of mathematical from real in this case. Motion is relative. Of course you can come up with an internally consistent geocentric model or representation of planetary motion. It's just a helluva lot more complicated, a Rube Goldberg construct in comparison to a heliocentric model. Using it to forecast the future positions of planets, asteroids, or comets (or, more generally, their motion), will be much harder to calculate with that model than with the geocentric one.

I think that trying to forecast the location of objects outside the solar system will also be more difficult; I'm not an astro-physicist, but I suspect that most of these forecasts are relative to the solar system's center of mass, which I would guess is more closely approximated by the sun's center than by the earth's. I would guess that if we want to track the motion of such an object, using a heliocentric frame of reference is simpler because the relative motion of the earth and sun is filtered out of the calculation in advance. Using a geocentric model implicitly retains that motion while doing the calculation. So it is mostly a matter of simplicity - for doing astronomical work - that we use the heliocentric system. It also simplifies understanding of the seasons, since we can talk about the tilt of the earth and how the incidence of solar rays changes over the course of the year as the earth revoloves around the sun.

But I would be surprised if someone could not come up with an internally consistent model that matches all the predictions of a heliocentric model, and does not contradict what we know about gravity. It would probably be an amusing intellectual exercise for those so inclined, too.

Wouldn't parallax - the difference in the position of nearby stars 6 months apart be a pretty strong indicator?

The problem with geocentrism is that the Earth is not only moving, but moving in a circle. This means that if you're going to make it stationary, you have to basically re-write the laws of physics. Sungenis' exact views are hard to pin down - I sent a couple e-mails asking questions about the challenge a long time ago, and received no answer. He seems to think geocentrism can be made consistent with accepted laws of physics, but it's hard to tell.

This is really too much! Just when you think you've seen everything, more crazies come out of the woodworks.
And yea, reading the whole blurb, they seem serious!
Unreal.
But we should "teach the controversy".........

Dave,

Nah, you get the same result if you just allow that those distant stars and galaxies are wheeling around the Earth every 12 months. Parallax is just proof that the universe is three dimensional, not just "pinholes in the celestial sphere where the light from heaven leaks through". Of course if "everything" is spinning around the Earth in one year, think how fast those distant galaxies are moving.

Look up the aberration of starlight though, so the next time some kook says "if all motion is relative how do we KNOW the Sun doesn't go around the Earth?" you can just squish them like the worm they are. Aberration of starlight only happens because the Earth is periodically moving back and forth through light rays from distant sources.

-k

This is old. It came up on talk.orgins in 2002 and led to a lively discussion. At that time I said the following:

"While it may be impossible to prove it, there's just as much truth
in saying that the sun revolves around the earth as there is in saying
the earth revolves around the sun. It just depends on what you select as your reference point. Since there are no fixed points in the universe, you're free to pick any that you like. If I choose the earth as my reference point, then indeed, the whole universe will revolve around it."

"after thinking about it for a while, I've decided that (angular momentum and angular velocity) doesn't matter. Nothing changes at all by considering the earth to be at a fixed point, and everything else is moving relative to that point. I know this defies common sense, but I believe it's true...someone else, I forget who, wondered about exceeding the speed of light and violating laws of acceleration and mass and the like. But it wouldn't make a bit of difference. The universe would function exactly the same as it does now.
Nothing would change, no laws would be violated and we can all sleep peacefully in our beds at night knowing that the earth is at the center of the universe and everything else is revolving around it."

"In empty space, there can be no rotation, no movement, no velocity, no gravity. These 'qualities' can only exist WRT something else. Try to imagine the universe without any matter or energy. What would you have? Does it make any difference where you are? How can you be anywhere at all? Now imagine the universe with only one body in it. Perhaps the sun. Can this lone sun rotate? At what speed does it move? Where is it located? "Where you are" can only be
described in relation to something else. A lone object in the universe cannot be any "distance" away because there's nothing to measure to (or from). And it cannot rotate, because how would we be able to know that?
And can it travel faster than the speed of light? What is the speed of light wrt the universe?
Now, take all of the matter and energy in the universe and specify it's location. Not the location of each body WRT every other body. The whole thing together, WRT empty space. Can it be done? NO! Because there are no fixed points in spacetime. You can call anything you want "the center", it doesn't matter. In my example of an earth-centered universe, the sun, planets and stars are not revolving around the earth. They are still moving relative to *each other*, just as they did before. The only thing we've changed is their position relative to spacetime. And that doesn't matter because an object in spacetime has no way of determing "where it is". The laws of Physics don't even enter into the picture because it has nothing at all to do with defining the bodies in the universe with respect to each other. That part is not changing. We're only defining one particular point as the "center" instead of a different point. It's just conceptual.
This may seem a bit confused, and I could probably say it better. I hope you get some of what I'm saying. A very good book on these topics is "A Journey Into Gravity and Spacetime" by John Archibald Wheeler. I recommend it."

Read the whole thread here:
http://tinyurl.com/82bzx

I believe this fellow has stumbled on one more avenue to discredit the Bible as a reference for scientific truth. I wonder if the Evangelicals (Ken Ham) will start a geocentrism museum. As a geophysics major I will say simply - this is not a challenging problem.

What is his position?

Does the earth spin in his world? Does the Sun go around the earth every 24 hours or every 365 Days.

If it's every 24 hours, then look at the next closest stars (about 4 light years away). Every 24 hours they would have to complete a 24 light year trip (2 * pi * R) -- that would mean they were travelling almost 9000 times the speed of light.

Imagine the angular velocities of distant galaxies to rotate around the earth every 24 hours.

Forgot about the comsic microwave backround radiation (CMBR) the remains of the decoupling of matter and energy sometime (~100,000 years??) after the big bang. It is distributed across they sky to incredible uniformity (subtle variations in which are clues to the early universe), but acts as much as a "Newtonian Frame of Reference" for the universe as anything. And guess what? The Earth's (and Sun's and Milkyway's) motion through this background radiation can be seen in the doppler shifted frequencies of the CMBR. In the direction we are moving, the CMBR is shifted to the "blue", behind us, it shifts to the "red". The Earth isn't moving around the Sun fast enough fo that motion to show here, but the galaxy's motion as a whole is.

Unrelated side note to PZ if you read this....

Ever read the H.G. Wells short story "The Sea Raiders"? I think you would love it (and hate it at the same time).

-k

Jim H wrote:

"Imagine the angular velocities of distant galaxies to rotate around the earth every 24 hours"

The earth being the center of the universe is NOT THE SAME as saying that all of the bodies in the universe revolve around the earth.
We're not talking about how the bodies in the universe are positioned with respect to each other, we're talking about the position of the universe with respect to spacetime.
Imagine the passengers on an airplane. Their positions with respect to each other and the plane define one frame of reference. Their positions with respect to the gound make up an emtirely different frame of reference. What happens in one frame of reference does not necessarily affect what happens in the other.

No kook-science rant would be complete without a mined quote. From the CAI site:

As the famous physicist Hans Reichenbach has said: "Here lies one of the reasons which led the scientists to accept the Copernican system, even though it must be conceded that, from the modern standpoint, practically identical results could be obtained by means of a somewhat revised Ptolemaic system" (From Copernicus to Einstein, p. 18).

I note that he doesn't go on to give the "reason" the author refers to.

Yes, of course you can always mathematically transform the coordinate system to originate wherever you like, and come up with expressions that describe the motions of the sun and other planets on that system. But how does he make them move that way? Angels pushing them? I mean, the outer planets must be moving PDQ to orbit the earth in 24 hours, quite aside from the gymnastics they perform over the course of a year.

Charlie - reading his site, I get the impression that his point is that everything revolved around the earth, I just couldn't tell the time frame.

To the people that created Christianity, it appeared that the sun, planets, and stars went around the earth.

If the earth is stationary, then the stars would have to move around us every 24 hours.

-- Thanks PZ, until you brought this up, I didn't really believe there were still flat earthers and geocentrist still around. Then again, until a few years ago I didn't believe that someone could be both educated and not believe in evolution.

My Robert Sungenis page:

http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/sungenis.html

Sungenis is a great example of how far apologetics takes one (or what knowledge was like in the middle ages.)

I once got in an e-mail argument with a geocentrist. I mentioned the Hipparcos satellite parallax data. He assured me that it was unreliable because the satellite signals weren't secure.

We can adopt any frame of reference we like as "stationary". As commentators have said, the choice is a matter of convenience. In fact we commonly adopt a stationary earth as a frame of reference. Just as the motion of the planets is unnecessarily complex in a geocentric frame, so calculating the motion of earthbound phenomena would appear much more complex in a heliocentric frame! As Kenn points out above, at still larger scales the microwave background provides the most sensible frame of reference (in which the sun is not stationary).

General Relativity gives is a complete theory of how these descriptions fit together and shows that they can always be made consistent. (The "general" refers precisely to the fact that we may chose any frame of reference. This is in contrast to special relativity where our frames are restricted to the "special case" of constant motion in a straight line.)

Of course the "Copernican revolution" went beyond these rather technical points. It made an impact by claiming that the Earth is not the center of the universe, that the earth is not special in a cosmic sense. Relativity does not undermine this revolution - the claim that the Earth's reference frame is not privileged remains. We may select a geocentric reference frame, but we will get the same results from any other frame.

We should all be made sad by the damage religion has done to this man.

It really is sad.

Could we measure the difference in the net gravitational accelleration at the earth's surface depending on whether the earth is rotating or not? Crudely: gravity minus the centrifugal effect vs gravity alone.

To be precise, both the sun and the earth orbit their common center of mass. So, neither the earth nor the sun orbit the other. Just imagine the other semantic possibilities for getting out of paying up!

As an Astronomer, how can I convince these crazies that picking on astronomy is sooo 500 years ago. It is much more fashionable to pick on biologists now. Please leave us alone. =)

And just a reminder... You can't trust anything on this board. Much like the hipparchos communications channels, the internets are insecure. =)

The aberration of starlight is the simplest and most direct method to prove the earth's motion through space.

The question is, Would someone so ignorant as to maintain such a site and administer such a challenge understand this phenomenon?

We should all be made sad by the damage religion has done to this man.

I dunno: I often wonder whether True Kooks don't have some neurological oddity that enables or promotes their kookiness. Environmental influences no doubt determine the particular manifestation, but whatever they believed, they would still manage to find some aspect of it that could be magnified into a reality-impaired obsession.

I had once this discussion with a fellow physics student. It lasted about 5 hours, getting more and more intricate all the time. The issue of whether "all motion is really relative" in General Relativity is a lot more trickier than most popularizations make it seem.

My present position is this one: All coodinate systems are equivalent in the sense that one could describe all facts equally well adopting any of them, and the laws of Nature are the same in all of them (this is at the core of GR). In the case of the solar system, the coordinate system in which the Sun is at rest has the feature that the spacetime metric (which encodes the gravitational field) becomes assymptotically Minkowskian at large distances from the solar system (the Minkowski metric is the metric of flat spacetime, where there is no gravity present). By contrast, using the coordinate system in which the Earth is at rest the metric does not become Minkowskian at large distances, but includes constant terms related to the relative rotation of the Earth and Sun. The physical and absolute (not coordinate dependent) fact that the gravitational field of the Sun decreases with distance is therefore better "captured" using the first system. It's up to your philosophy of physics whether you view this as merely a "pragmatical convenience" of the first system or a license to say "the Earth really goes around the Sun". I prefer to say the latter.

Another way of explaining it, perhaps clearer. If one goes at far distances where the physical gravitational field is too weak to be noticed, one can remain at rest relative to the Sun without any rockets turned on. The reference frame of the Sun becomes assymptotically inertial. The reference frame of the Earth does not; if you try to stay at rest relative to the Earth at large distances of the Solar System, one needs to turn on the rockets and make the spaceship go in circles (from the point of view of an external, inertial observer). I take this as meaning that the Earth "really" moves, while others will (bringing up the valid point that one can use either system to describe the situation) regard it as a convenient, pragmatically useful fact of the Sun-centered system.

Of course all this discussion neglects effects of other stars, the motion of the Sun around the galactic center, the relative motions of the galaxies and the expansion of the Universe. But the essential points remain valid.

Wow, what bad Catholics. None of those books claim divine authorship. The Prophecies (and prophets) are not infallable, much less the Books of Wisdom which generally require (and are given by real Catholics) historical context in their reading.

Of *course* the earth is flat! Otherwise we'd all be rolling about on the ground. But let me tell you, them turtles carrying us around - now theys IMPRESSIVE!

If the earth were really stationary, there would be no coriolis acceleration and hence no tornados, no hurricanes, no noreasters, no typhoons, etc. The presence of these phenomena falsifies the stationary earth notion.

"If the earth were really stationary, there would be no coriolis acceleration and hence no tornados, no hurricanes, no noreasters, no typhoons, etc. The presence of these phenomena falsifies the stationary earth notion"

Goddidit, silly.

As usual Charlie makes a mess of things; and as usual it seems worthwile to at least point it out. For some sane views, paul, JK, MN, Alejandro, shows some of the takes one may have.

Now, the insane view.

This you can't do: "If I choose the earth as my reference point, then indeed, the whole universe will revolve around it"

since this is wrong: "after thinking about it for a while, I've decided that (angular momentum and angular velocity) doesn't matter".

"Now imagine the universe with only one body in it. Perhaps the sun. Can this lone sun rotate?"

GR permits you to observe both a rotational universe, and a single mass rotating in a universe, from energy-mass effects.

"And can it travel faster than the speed of light?"
Not inside spacetime; but spacetime itself can expand faster (inflation).

"What is the speed of light wrt the universe?"

Exactly that, in SR and GR.

"Because there are no fixed points in spacetime."

In our existing cosmology, the CMB breaks symmetry and provides a reference frame.

"The earth being the center of the universe is NOT THE SAME as saying that all of the bodies in the universe revolve around the earth."

This is contradicting the first statement.

To add to Charlie's list of crackpottism and/or lack of basic knowledge, in the order I seen them:

Old crackpottism:
- Evolution has no evidence.
- ID is correct.
- There is no Big Bang.
- The observed age of the universe is infinite.

New crackpottism:
- There is no conservation of angular momentum.
- Our whole cosmology is geocentered.

Possible lack of knowledge:
- Speed of light has no special meaning.
- CMB doesn't provide a reference frame.

Of course, each of these points are well established as false, which is why it's crackpottism and not only kookism. Charlie is the first multiple crackpot I've encountered. I wonder how far it will go?

If anyone is thinking of trying to collect the money, my advice is DON'T DO IT! Alfred Russel Wallace, of Darwin/Wallace theory of evolution fame proved to flat earther that the world was round for a money prize and the flat earther set about destroying his life. I think poor mild mannered Wallace believed winning the contest was the worst mistake of his life.

Ooops, made a mistake there. Actually Charlie said way back that:
- The observed age of the universe _may be_ infinite.
which of course is totally wrong too.

It's on. I could use a thousand bucks. I'd probably have to sue to collect, though (what are these "proofs" that they're willing to acknowledge?). Move over, Dover!

If he can 'prove' he will pay the 1000$ to the same degree of certanty, using the same restrictions on 'proof' he requires, I'll take him seriously.

(Hmmm, he didn't say US dollars. Or real money. Or how it would be sent. Or who is the judge of 'valid proof'. Or...)

CAI will be the sole judge of whether you have successfully proven your case. But since CAI is built on its reputation of honesty and truthfulness, rest assured that if you do indeed prove your case, you will be rewarded the money.

that pretty much covers it. Good luck guys.

I may be misunderstanding this, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the possibility that this is true seems to hinge around choosing your frame of reference--which I take to be choosing the stationary center of the universe.

However, and again correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the universe have a real, absolute center according to the Big Bang theory? Wouldn't that make all this "I can choose X to be my stationary center" rather pointless except in terms of perception (i.e., we perceive the Earth to be stationary)?

"However, and again correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the universe have a real, absolute center according to the Big Bang theory?"

Um, no. Usual picture is to imagine the surface of a ballon as a model of expanding space. When you blow up the ballon everything recedes from everything else at the same time. No center.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bbtest1.html uses a more illustrative raisined bread model instead. Go and see the movie, hot buns seems to be better than toys.

They say: "Moreover no raisin, or galaxy, occupies a special place in this universe - unless you get too close to the edge of the loaf where the analogy breaks down."

The earth's rotational rate is not constant. It varies with the time of year, as the distribution of ice changes on the surface. Earth quakes can also change the rotation rate, and we all know that tidal effects are slowing earth's rotation. If the earth is stationary that means that all the objects in the universe are changing their motion around the earth in response to events on the earth. Objects thousands of light years away respond instantly and all together to an earthquake.

Sorry, the key sentence was really "In a given time interval, a nearby raisin would move relatively little, but a distant raisin would move relatively farther - and the same behavior would be seen from any raisin in the loaf." Which is why one can't find any stationary center.

I ran across the CAI version of geocentrism a while back. If memory serves, their brand of it not only insists that the Earth is at the center of the Universe but that it is also unmoving- including in the sense of rotating on its axis.

The thing about that is that the precession of a gyroscope or Foucault pendulum, including the observed fact that the period of precession is inversely proportional to the sine of the latitude in which the gyro or pendulum is located, can be derived from the plain old Newtonian laws of motion if one admits a rotating Earth. The apologists, OTOH, handwave a mysterious additional force which, apparently, only affects devices whose behavior could imply a rotating Earth.

IMHO, one is justified in rejecting the apologist position simply on the grounds of parsimony.

As far as I know, there are 3 competing models.
1) Heliocentric. Earth goes around the Sun.
2) Geocentric. Sun goes around the Earth.
3) PenOnMyDeskcenric. All goes around this nice blue pen on my desk.

I'm sticking with #3 until Mr. Sungenis can prove otherwise. I'll give him 100$ *

Fortunately, "What happens in one frame of reference [Charlie's ossified excuse for a mind] does not necessarily affect what happens in the other [consensual reality]."

Torbjorn Larsen wrote:

"In our existing cosmology, the CMB breaks symmetry and provides a reference frame."

I reject your existing cosmology. Since the CMB originates within the known universe, it is part of that reference frame and is unaffected by changing the reference frame to the universe's position in spacetime, just as placing the earth at the center of the universe does not cause distant galaxies to suddenly begin revolving around the earth at 9000 times c.

Torbjorn,
Sorry about the name spelling...Larrson...I got it now!

Torbjorn wrote:

"Charlie is the first multiple crackpot I've encountered. I wonder how far it will go?"

Probably until I get some respect ;-)

What I'm suggesting is that while the whole universe, meaning all of the mass and energy *in* the universe, may well be one big inertial frame of reference, this universe exists within a non-inertial frame of reference called absolute space, where Newton's laws do not apply. This is because there is nothing in absolute space with which the universe can interact, and against which we can measure motion, speed, position or acceleration.

Further background on how off the reservation Sungenis is. His moment of fame was appearing on some weekly show on EWTN a few years back...until he started making anti-Semitic references; Mother Angelica's TV station invited him not to come back.

After my Salon article on anti-relativity groups appeared, he sent a long incoherent rant to the magazine.

wow.
The Burden of Proof is yours,
I have the Literal Word of God.
The Bible.
King James Version, New International Version, American Standard, or the New Living Translation?
I'm right, you're wrong, no matter what!

Eppur Si Muove.

Jesus Christ.

First Slashdot, now Fark? PZ, you're becoming quite the link-whore.

Not gonna ask for proof the world is round?

Here's one "simple" thought experiment to prove that the earth is indeed moving around the sun. Get a bucket and some firewood. Walk to the geographic North Pole. Light the firewood. Put some snow in the bucket. Hold the bucket over the fire until the snow melts. Look at the water level. You'll see that it sloshes away from the Sun.

Inescapable conclusion: The Earth is accelerating toward the Sun.

Repeat the process on the Sun. (Don't ask me how you keep the water from evaporating. This, I hope you'll recall, is a thought experiment.) You'll see that the water sloshes away from the Earth, but to a much smaller degree.

Inescapable conclusion: The Sun is accelerating toward the Earth--but dramatically more slowly than the Earth toward the Sun.

Hence, the objects are revolving around each other, but the Sun moves much less than the Earth does in their mutual orbits. I believe that the center of the mass (and the center of their orbits) is actually still within the Sun.

(To everyone who argues that motion is relative, I agrue acceleration is not.)

(To everyone who argues for an independent frame of reference of a stationary Earth, I argue the acelerations invalidate this agrument.)

Okay, first axiom: the Bible is a novel. I can't go around claiming that somebody must prove to me that elves don't exist just because Tolkien wrote a book that described them.
Second axiom: Gravity, which permits orbit, is a function of distance between and the mass of the objects involved.
Third axiom: Mass can be considered inertia.
Fourth axiom: If two bodies act on one another via gravity, the force of gravity will pull on the two objects equally.
Fifth axiom: The same force applied on two separate objects of different mass (and hence different inertia) will cause greater motion in the less massive body.
Conclusion: The sun, whose mass is more than 300,000 times the mass of the earth, could not rotate around the earth because such action would require the earth to be less affected by the gravity of the sun than the sun is of the earth. That's the laymans version of why the sun can't orbit the earth, but doesn't prove that the earth revolves around the sun.

The simple version is this:

Axiom: Objects do not orbit other objects, in fact, but rather orbit the center of mass of all objects involved in the scenario. So, the sun, plus the 9 planets, plus asteroids, plus any other planets scientists claim to be discovering, etc., all must be factored into the orbital equation

As the sun comprises (axiom:) between 98% and 99% of the mass of the solar system, you can imagine the center of mass would be closer to the sun than anything else (it's actually just outside the radius of the sun). In fact, no matter how far or close the rest of the planets were in relation to the sun, mathematically this point would have to be closest to the sun.

Now for the PROOF of EARTH REVOLVING AROUND THE SUN:
Every object in the solar system orbits this point. The sun and the earth both orbit this point. As the point is significantly closer to the sun, the sun has a much tighter (smaller) orbit. The earth, further from this point, has a much wider (bigger) orbit. The two orbit's are concentric. The earth's orbit, being wider than the sun's orbit, entirely encircles the sun's orbit. Thus, the earth does revolve entirely around the sun's orbit, which contains the sun. Hence, the earth revolves around the sun.

This is silly. You're all wrong.

Everyone knows that the universe revolves around cats.

Interesting... Would this be the same $1000 that Dembski offers to the first teacher to break the law (if passed) in Wisconsin?

Bottom of the barrel.

Less amusingly, the author of the website, Robert Sungenis, is an anti-Semite.

I have a hard time believing this organization is for real. They actually have an old war propaganda poster on their seminars page that says "Back the Attack! Need a CAI Conference We'd be happy to drop in" and shows a prone soldier brandishing a machine gun against a sky full of paratroops. No way can this be real...or else I might just have to kill something.

Has anyone actually looked at the quotes referred to in the article? None of them seem to say that the earth is flat, most of them say the sun rises and it sets.

I don't know much about Catholicism but why is he trying to prove that the sun revolves around the earth if the Bible is not saying it?

Torbjorn,
Sorry about the name spelling...Larrson...I got it now!

That's `Larsson'. :)

Screw established sciences and laws of physics, just ignore it altogether and lets believe the bible because its the only truth there is. Disregard the fact that it was written by people who thought the world was flat, and has its origins in a number of different religions before Christianity was even established. Disregard the fact that it was written in languages that are no longer used (for the most part) and was never meant to be taken literally. oh, wait, there is a $1000 prize. Shit, forget what I said, earth is the center of the universe, god is great, hes a big white guy in the sky that watches us sleep. He loves us all, he just hates all these little kids that are starving in Africa.

On behalf of all us normal Catholics. Doh! Talk about the wrong people speaking for us. Even the Holy See(That's the Vatican) states that Science is correct i.e. Astrophysics, Evolution, ....

Leave it to a guy who ventured around with the "Fundies" to come back and try and speak for Catholics

Um, whats all this talk about the Earth being the center of the universe? I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Just look it up on the cyberweb. To anyone who can proove otherwise, $50,000,000!!!!

Ignoring gravity, science and all other outside visual perseption; If I stand still outside and look at the big yellow thing in the day and the white bits at night in the sky I see the universe doing nothing but revolving around my perspective. Therefore the universe must revolve around me. Of course it only does this as until the day I die.

So metaforically metaphysically consciously, and in a spiritual sense the universe does revolve around the earth as long as we are alone in the universe. For now we are.

On the other hand Physically, from any other perspective in the universe we are but a minute microscopic spec of sputum in the vast expanse and quite insignificant. To think of it this way is kind of Liberating and Depressing at the same time.

Have a nice day.
Ed Wood

Charlie said: "The earth being the center of the universe is NOT THE SAME as saying that all of the bodies in the universe revolve around the earth."

It is if you say the Earth is completely stationary (i.e., non-rotating) given that celestial objects appear to circumvent the Earth approx. once per day.

Charlie said "What I'm suggesting is that while the whole universe, meaning all of the mass and energy *in* the universe, may well be one big inertial frame of reference, this universe exists within a non-inertial frame of reference called absolute space, where Newton's laws do not apply."

And yet there is no evidence for this external universe you speak of.

The likely problem with meeting this $1000 "challange" is that the ultimate proof (aberration of starlight) requires precise measurements over long periods of time (something that generally requires a professional astronomer and more than $1000 worth of time/equipment). Of course, you could hand over other people's data, but I'm sure they would simply refuse to review an indirect demonstration (thinly veiling the reality that the data would baffle them).

I saw this blog too late to discuss :(

I think I'll wait for their next challenge which I think is "prove blair witches were not witches challenge"

question:
wasnt this settled like 600 yrs ago anyway? we even stoped trapping souls in photos

Great board BTW.

I can't prove that the Earth goes round the sun. They win!

However like the Italian Atheist that sued a Priest for lying about the existance of God. I would like to offer $1000 dollars to the first guy to send me a proof the Sun goes around the Earth. However, since I don't believe in the dollar and no one can prove to me that it exists, I won't.

We can only be judged on the quality of our bullshit and not on whether what we say is bullshit or not. Science bullshit wins hands down IMO. It's an interesting

Thanks guys for the read; it's always a pleasure to see people trying to be rational in an increasingly crazy world!

Just realised that I forgot to finish a sentence there.

Christians prove that God exists by saying HE has spoken to me or I KNOW HE exists (they tend to use caps).

If that's the degree of proof that they will accept, then I only have to say I KNOW that the Earth moves around the Sun to win.

Don't I?

It's worth pointing out that the "fixed earth" guy looks like a major-league antisemite too. If a brief reading (all I could stomach!) is accurate, he seems to blame evolution & all societies problems on the Talmud, Kabbala, Zionists & Jews in general...

(It'd be nice if we could claim credit for evolutionary theory, what with it being a great thing, but, y'know, not so much...)

amazing. simply amazing. how do these people live, knowing they believe in something as retarded as this?

The internet is so cool.
Thanks for that link.
I really can't be anything but grateful that man has religion.

Whoa!

Mars Retrograde Motion is worth $1,000.00.

If they claim that Mars orbits around some point in space that itself is in orbit around the Earth (the Ptolemaic Explanation), I'd ask them to explain why the Hubble Space Telescope, which can see detailed surface features on Mars, can't see or measure the apparent change in distance to Earth as would be required by the Geocentric System.

Let's just get NASA to shoot good ole' Bob Sungenis up on a one way trip above the plane of the ecliptic and have him report back on who's right. Solves two problems at once...

The problem with geocentrism is that the Earth is not only moving, but moving in a circle.

Well, if you wanted to be both nutty and have accurate math, you could describe the earth as stationary and the rest of the universe in some sort of strange substance, that moves around the earth, like a circular groove around a peg. But you could pick Andromeda and make an equally valid claim "it" was the peg, or even a random particle the size of a grain of sand some place.

Now that would be funny concept for a story, explorers find a single sand grain sized peg floating in space, with a sigh in some universal language that says, "Warning, do not remove!" lol

"I reject your existing cosmology."

That's unfortunate since it's so easy to measure the CMB and understand that it provides a reference frame from it's black body properties. You don't even have to understand cosmology.

"Since the CMB originates within the known universe, it is part of that reference frame"

This doesn't make sense, it _is_ the (only) reference frame we see.

I think you are imagining some other frame, but there is no observations or verified theory that allows one to do that. On the contrary, except for CMB, one expects no such frame. That's why it's called general relativity.

This is probably way beyond me, but I was looking at how they figured out the mass of the sun on the NASA website. If you use the Fgravity = Fcentripetal, and say that the sun is the one that moves, you will find that the mass of the earth will be of course a lot larger than the mass of the sun. But then you have to prove that those formulas are correct, and then prove that the aether that they believe in isn't true as well. oh well. Interesting to think about while I am wasting time at work.

"Sorry about the name spelling...Larrson...I got it now!"

Thats nice. It's wrong however, it's Larsson.

PS. If you are into such things, you can guess nationalities here, and get a handle on the ending. -en/-sen: Danish, Norwegian. -on: USan. -son: Swedish, Icelandic.

Here it's 'Lars-son' since it's a patronymic. Frozen between my 'farfars farfar' and 'farfars far' to use swedish for something it can do better than english. 'Far' = 'father'. DS

"Probably until I get some respect ;-)"

Depends; respect is earned. On a science blog cracpottery doesn't earn respect.

OTOH, I personally have always characterized you for your behaviour (crackpot, slow the one time you proposed an IDism 1 hour after someone speculated some IDiot would do it), or your view for it's properties (crackpot, insane since it's against the verified sane one) and abstained from speculate why you do what you do. That's respect, of sorts.

"this universe exists within a non-inertial frame of reference called absolute space"

What Phobos says; we don't observe that.

You can't even make the thought experiment of proposing a scientific (verifiable or falsifiable) theory where the universe (not the observed universe) is embedded in something else. By definition we take the universe to be all there is. See "Science for Dummies" in your book shelf. ;-) It's like ID in this sense.

I found this interesting list of "fundamental observed properties of our Universe" at http://hoggresearch.blogspot.com/2006/02/accelerating-universe-fundamen… :

"That said, I was trying to list the truly fundamental observations, the ones that will never go away. Here are some:

* The night sky is dark (Olbers's paradox).
* We are not being shredded by gravitational radiation (the gravitational radiation equivalent of Olbers's paradox).
* Spacetime is locally flat (related to the above but stronger, really).
* The Universe is transparent at most wavelengths.
* The Universe is isotropic.
* The Universe is expanding.
* The laws of physics look very similar at enormous distances from us (and therefore in the distant past).
* The Universe was hotter in the past.

Those are sort-of in the order of most certain to least."

It is easy to see that combining these and going back in time you get Big Bang as unavoidable part of a cosmology, which are further and independently confirmed by further properties of CMB (some are already in the list) as observed by WMAP and COBE, and by primordial nucleosynthesis.

Torbjorn wrote:

"I think you are imagining some other frame, but there is no observations or verified theory that allows one to do that."

Isaac Newton proposed a universal reference frame that stood behind the observable universe that we could measure things against. In this context, the observable universe is a "laboratory" that is either stationary, or moving relative to absolute space, not relative to the Milky Way, or the Sun, or the Earth (or the CMB). Since there is no way of detecting or measuring our position relative to absolute space, there's no logical reason why we couldn't assign any known point to be the "center". This doesn't detract from the fact that all of the bodies within the "laboratory" are in an inertial frame of reference defined by all of the mass in the universe, and that all of Newton's laws apply to these bodies.
The concept of absolute space was not invented to allow a person to claim a particular relation with respect to it as a matter of personal taste. It was proposed by Newton to explain non-inertial frames. In the famous experiment in which he rotated a bucket of water, he observed that the water would recede from the middle of the bucket and rise up on the sides, first being perfectly level, and then gradually rising as the bucket communicated its motion to the water.
Although Newton believed in absolute space. I'm well aware that we don't believe in it today. It has been shown to be unnecessary by Einstein's relativity. Inertial forces, like that acting on the water in the bucket, are now considered to be the result of interactions among masses in relativistic spacetime. This is related to "Mach's principle" (The inertia of any system is the result of the interaction of that system and the rest of the universe. In other words, every particle in the universe ultimately has an effect on every other particle.) One result of this is that if there were a universe with only one mass in it, the mass could not be said to be spinning, and there would be no centrifugal force on it, because there would be nothing else for it to be spinning with respect to.
I'm casting my lot with Newton on this one. I kind of LIKE the notion of absolute space and I rather dislike some of the notions of GR.

Torbjorn wrote:

"Depends; respect is earned. On a science blog cracpottery doesn't earn respect."

It hasn't beeen demonstrated that I am a "cracpott". This is contrary to the evidence and totally unsupported. The fact that I challenge accepted views on many subjects does not make me a "cracpott". A "cracpott" is "an eccentric person, especially one with bizarre ideas." I am neither eccentric nor are my ideas bizarre. The worst I could be justifiably called is "iconoclastic".
I am also accused at times of sophistry. I'm inclined to defend the Sophists. They have been maligned by associating them with deception and trickery. They actually disdained theoretical natural science and concentrated on the rational examination of human affairs in order to achieve the practical improvement of life. In large part, they helped to overturn the concepts of mythical deities controlling human affairs and offered other explanations of natural phenomona. I think that one of the reasons why this disdainful hue was cast on them is because they were smarter and better informed than most other people and this led to a resentment of their skills and disparagement of their motives. They were not trying to deceive people or trick them into believing untruths, they were simply offering all of the possible sides to the issues, presenting arguments from every viewpoint. This could not help but increase the understanding and knowledge of those they taught. I
admire them greatly, and had I lived in that time, most likely would have counted myself among them.

It's fairly obvious after reading the cited passages of Biblical scripture that the authors were exercising poetic license. Nowhere could I find any dogmatic assertion in scripture that the heavens revolve around the earth.
I don't believe the Bible teaches of a flat earth either. I mean, the ancients weren't stupid. A fairly accurate calculation of the earth's circumference was calculated in 276-194 BCE. A flat earth hypothesis would have been easily disproved minutes after the invention of the first ocean going vessel. The "Four corners of the earth" is a phrase used in scripture to mean "everywhere", much like it's used today when someone says "Voters turned out from the four corners of the state to cast their ballot". I suppose it could have been meant literally at the time of writing; howver, since the phrase only appears in Revelation (virtually a completely alegorical book), I sincerely doubt it.
There's some debate as to whether or not there ever were 'flat-earthers' at all. The church was not afraid that Christopher Columbus would fall off the edge of the earth, they were afraid that his acceptance of the Pierre d'Ailly calculation of land mass-to-water ratio of the earth was incorrect and he would perish at sea.
Religion hasn't damaged this man but abject stupidity sure has.

Motion is relative. Of course you can come up with an internally consistent geocentric model or representation of planetary motion.

Motion is only relative when it's at constant velocity. Because the Earth revolves around the Sun at 30 km/s, time will run slightly more slowly on Earth than on the Sun, after factoring out the Sun's rotation and the the effect of gravity over time.

Nowhere could I find any dogmatic assertion in scripture that the heavens revolve around the earth.

Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still.

I don't believe the Bible teaches of a flat earth either. I mean, the ancients weren't stupid. A fairly accurate calculation of the earth's circumference was calculated in 276-194 BCE.

The Old Testament is older than that: it was written between 1000 and 300 BCE, with no contact with Greek scholarship.

While this guy is pretty kooky, in his defense he doesn't actually claim that "good Catholics really do have to believe that the earth is the center of the universe." He states:

"Since the Catholic Church has made no dogmatic ruling on either of these two issues, we accept anyone with an opposing view, and in fact, we invite their comments so that intellectual discussion can be advanced."

( http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/science/scicreed.htm )

I've read a couple of this guy's exchanges with another Catholic apologist named Gary Hoge, who used to run a site called Catholic Outlook. Hoge believed that a good starting point would be to prove that the Earth rotates about its axis, and he used the ground tracks of geosyncronus and geostationary satellits to show this. When asked how the satellites could remain "up there" without orbiting the Earth, Sungenis muttered some nonsense about the "point of equilibrium between the Earth's gravity and that of the stars". Sungenis revealed himself to lack a basic understanding of physical phenomona. He also has a tendency to pick and choose from Newton and Einstein which ideas he accepts and which he rejects.

I can't seem to find his page anymore (used to be www.catholicoutlook.com), but if anyone is able to find it there are at least four good debates between Hoge and Sungenis that are quite entertaining.

Everyone here has valid points. I'm tempted to email CAI and find out what they have to say about the "oscillation" that takes place with the stars and Sol if Earth is stationary. They would probably claim God "oscillates" them to and fro.

To make a clear distinction... I do not believe there are any sane adults in the developed world who sincerely believe the earth is "flat" - in the literal sense, and in the sense that chooses (not unreasonably) to discount the existence of such non-flatnesses of hills and valleys.

Of course this assertion begs the question of where the boundary of the developed world is, and I do hesitate to say. I also will be confounded if just one unlucky kid home-schooled by lackwits (religious or other) has grown up without an idea of the globe. But I still feel good about it.

As for CAI (this CAI), I notice the promise is that they will write a check for $1,000, not that the check will be honored by a current non-busted bank. Such a failure might be a criminal fraud, however. Also, the check will be given to "the first person who can prove that the earth revolves around the sun", and since your proof must be both in directly observable form and submitted by e-mail, the person actually performing the experiment will be Mr. Sungenis. Therefore it will be Mr. Sungenis who has actually proved it to Mr. Sungenis, and so he can write the check to himself. On the whole I think Mr. Sungenis is less likely to make the big payout than the lottery is, and is as unworthy of your attention.

Frankly I'd rather leave Mr. Sungenis in error on the motion of the earth, and on the actual meanings of the words "effect" and "affect", than clean up this aspect of his doctrine whilst leaving his other beliefs intact. The fact that Mr. Sungenis is metaphorically wearing a propellor beanie hat is a useful sign for the rest of the world, and not a problem. Accordingly I take with a pinch of salt the recommendation that we try to change his mind.

I also do not even believe that he is both sincere and sane, either. So the fun of persuading him to build a Foucault's pendulum at his own expense is not really accomplishing anything.

I do not think he has a contrary theory of the universe, sincere or otherwise. He has a theory of the earth - that it is stationary - and $1,000 if you can convince him that the earth revolves around the sun. Of course most of us would say that the earth not only revolves around the sun but also follows the sun in a long orbit around the circumference of the galaxy, which interacts in a complicated way with other galaxies in an expanding universe.

That the earth is not stationary is demonstrated by plate tectonics, but that isn't the issue and if it was you'd wait a long time to get your money.

And I don't think $1,000 is a lot of money, anyway, unless you need $1,000 and you don't have $1,000. As I hinted, I do live in the developed world...

Hmm... I never got around to printing up bookmarks for www.fixedearth.com to leave inside creationism and intelligent design books in bookstores. Maybe I'll think about that again.

None of the above is correct. Everything in the universe is stationary. The earth simply sets in one spot and spins. All other seeming movements by other objects is just the wind blowing the cover of our cage around. You gentlemen give this person too much credit for intelligence, or maybe not enough, as surely, one could only be jerking your collective chains; by offering such a challenge. The criteria to confirm or disprove any submissions are vague and subjective at best. Spend your time in an effort to truly better this world. From most of the views I've read here, you are able to wrap your minds around some really boggling concepts of physics, is it really worth the $1000? Or even being able to say I out thought someone who was stuck in the middle ages philosophicaly? Either way have fun, I did. Truly remarkable suppositions, truly.

Mr. Carnegie. Simply Loved the propeller beanie ref. I'll tell Cecil nexttime I see him.

Charlie,

"This is related to "Mach's principle".

Mach's principle, which interested Einstein, was found to be incompatible with GR. Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach's_principle ) gives references that you can peruse.

"It hasn't beeen demonstrated that I am a "cracpott". This is contrary to the evidence and totally unsupported. The fact that I challenge accepted views on many subjects does not make me a "cracpott". A "cracpott" is "an eccentric person, especially one with bizarre ideas." I am neither eccentric nor are my ideas bizarre. The worst I could be justifiably called is "iconoclastic"."

The colloquial term on the web of someone who proposes potentially revolutionary contributions to physics or another; but are wrong according to accepted and verified theory is 'crackpot'. (See http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html .)

ID is one such idea, that bigbang doesn't exist is another, and that you can do a geocentric cosmology is a third. To the everyday person it's like you suggest earth is flat or that there are proofs that Jesus existed; all is against what we _know_ is true. It's a cpommon psychological mechansism of the crackpot to believe is merely proposing viable alternatives and that they are "smarter and better informed than most other people" when the rest of us see plainly that isn't true.

Let's see how you score on Baez's index:

1. 5p for suggesting ID combined with panspermia.
2. 11p for the 8 mistakes I listed in an earlier comment, the one above, for rejecting GR and for adopting absolute space.
5. 30p for keeping insisting on evolution wrong, ID correct, bigbang wrong, rejecting CMB reference frame, keeping geocentric universe and keeping absolute space.
6. 5p for the 'lone object' thought experiment.
10. 10p for pointing out academics. (On another thread.)
24. 20p for bringing up old ridicule.
37. 150p for proposing ID, no bigbang and geocentricity without giving testable predictions.

That adds up to 231 points on the crackometer scale. Not among the crackiest, but definitely firm evidence. You don't have to take my word for it, you can ask others to rate you on the scale for comparison.

I don't know how to help you, but it would probably be better if you tried to study for example PZ's information on these pages instead of proposing your own disinformation. It can't be good to keep enforcing crackpot behaviour. When you discuss real facts and theories I'm sure you are welcome to do so.

Torbjorn wrote:

"The colloquial term on the web of someone who proposes potentially revolutionary contributions to physics or another; but are wrong according to accepted and verified theory is 'crackpot'."

How sad. How does science move foward if people with revolutionary ideas do not challenge "accepted and verified" theories? This will ultimately lead to the death of science and the ascension of blind dogmatism. We NEED more "crackpots" if science is to flourish. Many of the most important advances in science were made by people who challenged "accepted and verified" theory.
The real reason for calling someone a "crackpot" is not because they challenge "accepted and verified theories" or propose revolutionary concepts. It's because their proposals threaten your world view or your pet theories or ideology.
A true scientist welcomes new ideas and new challenges to existing theories. Only those scientists who are so insecure that they themselves have doubts about their own theories would make such desparaging remarks. You are perfectly free to say that such a person is wrong and present evidence to prove them so, but to call a person a "crackpot" says more about you and your theory than it does about your critics.
In order for an idea to be considered "crackpot" it must be shown to be unlikely or impossible by a large body of evidence and its advocate must refuse to listen to any evidence against it and it must be defended in spite of overwhelming evidence against it. ID and panspermia are not crackpot ideas because they have not been shown to be unlikely or impossible by a large body of evidence.
On the other hand there is a large body of empirical evidence, both observational and experimental that challenges darwinian and neo-darwinian orthodoxy and shows it to be unlikely to have occurred. The two main pieces of evidence are the fossil record, which does not support the darwinian necessity for gradual change and the artificial selection experiments, which have failed to produce any new forms and have demonstrated clearly that there is a limit beyond which you cannot go.
Yet,its advocates refuse to listen to any evidence against it and defend it ruthlessly by advocating the firing and humiliation of anyone who doubts it. The Crocker case is a good example.

C Wegener says:

A true scientist welcomes new ideas and new challenges to existing theories.

True enough. These days we look upon the fine work of the Galileos, Newtons, Einsteins and Copernicuses of the world as revolutionary and powerful. There was a time when their theories were counter to the prevailing notions. I wonder if, and who, may have leveled accusations of crackpotism at them at the time their ideas were first proposed. Yet, in the long term, their ideas were borne out. How? Prediction. Testing. Observation. Evidence. New and challenging ideas about the structure of the universe are proposed all the time, but only some of them survive the gauntlet. The successes and failures of science are equally important in a search for scientific truth, but mostly its the successes we remember. Which is why we've heard of the above guys. But who knows the name of the guy who first championed the aether?

In biology, of course we all know of Darwin: he was one of the remarkable (unfortunately most controversial) successes. I've only recently heard of Lamarck: his ideas about evolution turned out to be lame, and today his name isn't part of the national zeitgeist. I would not have called Lamark a crackpot --at the time--, because although we observed evolution nobody had yet described any feasible way it occured. People were at least looking. Can't fault Lamark for being wrong.

Although anyone today who steadfastly adheres to Lamark's ideas I would certainly consider a crackpot. His idea has been discredited by the vast body of evidence. To dispute that evidence is evidence itself of crackpotism. And to adhere to a discredited OLD theory is even moreso.

Religious creationism IS an old discredited idea. Even if you give it plastic surgery and a new ID (haha), its still creationism, and the compiled evidence still weighs against it.

So new ideas and new challenges to existing theories are most certainly welcome. Got any?

Oops, I meant Wagner.

But now for a bit of crackpottery of my own, and a little sympathy for you, too, Charlie.

I *gasp* agree with Charlie about an aspect of the universe as a whole. I think Charlie is catching some heat for believing that there is something else out there that the universe exists inside of. I'm inclined to agree with him on that score. Like him, I've been unpersuaded by--or at least haven't completely comprehended--arguments that the known universe exists solo. Quite the opposite, my hunch is that there must be something. If that makes me a crackpot, well, ugh but so be it. But until its existance is demonstrated, I'm not in any turmoil about modern cosmology. Everything I've heard about our universe seems pretty right on. Taking cosmologists to task for failing to demonstrate *my belief* seems silly and counterproductive.

(Although there IS that unexplained accelleration of the expansion. Could it be that its speeding up because of simple Boyle's gas laws? If the pressure INSIDE our closed gravitational bubble of a universe is greater than OUTSIDE, then its naturally going want to distribute that pressure more evenly. The Big Bang gave all this stuff an initial oomph, and now, 15 billion years later its still riding that wave, but if you factor in an "outside" with less pressure, than you'd add a little bit. I dunno. I'm just a layman, and that's my crackpot, totally unresearched hypothesis.)

I will agree that, at least for now, our universe is all we know of. And it just may be that due to the shape of our universe, we will be unable in principle to know much, if anything, about what exists outside of it. So my reading is that when astrophysicists talk about our universe being "all there is", its a statement about the limitations of our knowledge. Like when like when we say we can know nothing about what came before the big bang? Its not that there was no "before" the big bang, or no "outside our universe", just that it is unknowable.

At least that's what I think, I hope, they are saying. I mean heck, I have trouble enough contemplating wave-particle duality. Quantum mechanics is hard enough on my poor brain--I cant even *fathom* that our universe is ALL THERE IS. When I think of boundaries, I think of those lines that divide two seperate places. If the stuff that came out of the big bang is finite, then there is a boundary. What's on the other side that line? To say the other side simply doesn't exist is too much for me. Does not compute. Blue Screen of Death. Total system failure. But again, its not the cosmologists fault, I don't think, for demonstrating that it exists. If they could, I'm sure they would.

So anyway, Charlie, a healthy dose skepticism is a good thing. Its one thing to propose a new idea and actually PROVE it. This is good. How do you know when you've gone too far? Well, your analysis of "pet theories and world views" was pretty good. I'd start there. Things to watch for are feelings of paranoia, martyrdom, and persecution. YES sometimes those feelings are justified. But sometimes they aren't. One can overstate events, misinterpret and distort reality to such a degree that they believe they are being persecuted when in fact its just that their "pet theories" are unsupported and have no place being taught as facts in school.

A hundred years from now (or sooner!) hopefully saner heads will prevail and some historian will comment that, "finally the special creationists were persuaded by the mounting evidence that biologists have been pointing out all this these years and issued a formal apology for wasting all this time, money and energy on disputing its process. Finding themselves suddenly with a correspondingly vast expanse of free time, money, and energy on their hands, they turned their considerable resources to helping the poor. And the world rejoiced!"

I have written a three part series (plus supplement) on geocentrism. It is available on my blog:

Geocentricity 101: A beginner's Course

Geocentricity 101, Part I: Basic Principles
Geocentricity 101, Part II: Basic Physics
Geocentricity 101, Part III: Scriptural and Church Position
Geocentricity 101, Supplement: Discussion of Scripture and Church Position

Here is a link to a debate w/ Gary Hoge (and his chosen replacement Marty Rothwell), which I believe led (at least partially) to his removing his "geosynchronous satellite" argument against geocentrism.

http://www.catholic-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=875

Basically I showed that general relativity would predict the same behaviour for geosynchronous satellites as Newtonian mechanics does (else, general relativity is incorrect).

Mark Wyatt
http://www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com

Also, unless I'm mistaken about physics, and I grant this is a possibility, this particular statement by Charlie is absolutely incorrect.

"In empty space, there can be no rotation, no movement, no velocity, no gravity. These 'qualities' can only exist WRT something else."

You're proposing a thought experiment where nothing exists save for one single object in all of the universe. A koosh ball, for example.

(For those of you uninitiated in the joys of a koosh ball, it is a sphere about the size of a baseball, made from thousands of strands of rubber about the diameter of ordinary spaghetti. The strands are all bound together at the center and radiate outward in all directions. But its soft, flexible rubber, so if the koosh is just sitting there on your table, it all kind of slumps down into into a lump shape. Rush out and buy one!)

In your thought experiment, you're asking whether it makes any sense to describe motion at all. I think you're saying that no it doesn't. Things like rotatation, velocity, movement and gravity don't exist without something to compare these things against. Its a little hard to tell exactly what you're saying, but I think that's the gist. Anyway, I'm calling BS.

Okay, you seem to be toying with special relativity, but you're missing a lot. Motion doesn't matter without context? In a particular case this is true--motion in a straight line at a constant speed is undetectable from the point of view of the thing doing the moving. So your hypothethical koosh ball can be barreling along in empty space at any speed whatsoever, and since it can't tell, why even talk about motion at all?

Well, any other type of motion is totally detectable. An accellerating koosh ball will definately feel forces. If you know anything about general relativity, accelleration and gravity are indestinguishable from a physics standpoint--so I really don't know why you say that gravity wouldn't exist. In the case of acceleration, the strands of rubber will appear to fly back away from the direction of acceleration, just as they would slump down in the presence of a gravitional field.

In the case of a rotating koosh ball, the strands of rubber on will NOT just float around as it would if it were not spinning. Rather, they will all more or less stick straight out from the common center, but with a tendency to bunch up toward the middle. You've seen one of those troll pencils with the crazy hair. Take the pencil between your hands and spin it back and forth rapidly, and the wild hair will do the same thing. This effect has nothing to do with the existance of anything in the universe other than the troll, its rotation, and the simple fact that rotating objects do obvious things. Even in the absence of the entire rest of the universe, it really does make sense to talk about things like gravity, rotation and movement. You're right about velocity, if you mean x miles per hour or the speed of light or what have you. But whenever you deviate in any way from a straight line in a constant speed, the object in question can tell.

Where the heck did you get your physics larnin' from?

This thread has now been completely taken over by crackpots, so I believe this will be the last comments I do.

I can't answer all these factual errors, so I pick some that seems relevant in a short glance.

"How does science move foward if people with revolutionary ideas do not challenge "accepted and verified" theories?"

By new observationally facts or new proposed and verifiable ideas, not necessarily revolutionary, that challenge or add to already accepted and verified theories and observed facts.

"We NEED more "crackpots" if science is to flourish."

Inasmuch crackpots spread disinformation, they hamper science and societys attempt to understand reality.

"Many of the most important advances in science were made by people who challenged "accepted and verified" theory."

I think you need to give examples; it's unfortunate that this will probably be my last posts here. Perhaps you are thinking of Einstein proposing relativity instead of absolute space, or the quantum theory. Sure, some advances, but not many, comes from such essentially modifications to earlier theory. (You can still use absolute space or classic theory to approximate many problems.)

"The real reason for calling someone a "crackpot" is not because they challenge "accepted and verified theories" or propose revolutionary concepts."

Of course it's the former; if you go on and on about how ID is true or earth is flat, when we _overwhelmingly know_ that is wrong, you are crackpot.

"A true scientist welcomes new ideas and new challenges to existing theories."

This is about the only thing that makes sense in your commentary. But these ideas or facts need to be backed up by observations and not, as the case ususally is, be falsified by observation or fundamental theory already. If you say bigbang doesn't exist or absolute space exist it's not a challenge. It's plain wrong.

"You are perfectly free to say that such a person is wrong and present evidence to prove them so, but to call a person a "crackpot" says more about you and your theory than it does about your critics."

We call them crackpot if they continue to argue for their pet theories after the rest of us is amply satisfied they are wrong. It doesn't matter what the crackpot thinks - they are deluded.

"its advocates refuse to listen to any evidence against it and defend it ruthlessly by advocating the firing and humiliation of anyone who doubts it."

As per your own description of real scientists they of course do nothing of the sort. They have been exceedingly patient to listen and analyse these arguments. You can go to http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html to find the results of analyses and answers of most common arguments, by wellknown scientists (I think) from what science tells us.

They have never refused to listen - but they have also never found any merits in ID claims. That's a fact. ;-) Crackpots have the tendency to overlook obvious facts that is against their pet theories about how the world ought to work, which is why they propose such conspiracy theories.

You have just added 40 points to your crackpot score. (By satisfying #34 in Baez crackpot index.)

"These days we look upon the fine work of the Galileos, Newtons, Einsteins and Copernicuses of the world as revolutionary and powerful. There was a time when their theories were counter to the prevailing notions."

Notions being one keyword here. The work of Galileo, Newton and Copernicus was done at a time no real science of observations and theory had really begun. They started it.

Counter being the other keyword. If you will, you can look on Einsteins contributions as expanding on earlier theories from absolute space to relativity, and from low speed mechanics to all speeds. They were not exactly counter. Same goes for quantum mechanics.

This is another reason why crackpots seems so lunatic for the rest of us - it's not that Newtons mechanic was proved wrong by Einstein, but 'not exactly right everywhere'. The same goes for evolution; the period to seriously question it's foundations are long passed, and only additions or refinements are realistically possible. But a crackpot will not see the truth in that no matter how many times the obvious is laid out. Sigh! :-(

Lest I be misunderstood, I will say that I'm not arguing that Jay is a crackpot (but geocentrists like Charlie or Mark are).

In fact, I think Jay eminently picks apart another of Charlies misconceptions about spacetime.

Jay, one takes your analogy, based in general relativity, further, one can realise that GR describes all '"strands of rubber" so that an embedding of the energy-mass universe in another space becomes impossible. At least, that's what GR cosmology tells us.

Thanks, Torbjorn. I do wish you'd stick around--don't let a few crackpots turn you away from a fine community. Most of the posters here are knowledgeable and sensible who are pleased to share their thoughts. PZ himself is full of kicks and smarts. And to the contrary, consider that the actual crackpots are one reason to keep coming back. Crackpots give the aforementionaed rational population perfect opportunities to refine their understanding of, and seed the general intellectual ground with, good science.

Plus, crackpots are great fun to argue with. :)

WRT general relativity, my understanding is completely qualitative. Or perhaps its more accurate to say incompletely qualitative. I have heard nothing about the impossibilility of embedding our universe in another space via the tenets of GR. Which is another reason I prefer you to stay--maybe one day I'll eke an explanation out of you.

Either way, enjoy.

Good job Mr. Larsson.
It never ceases to amaze, that ID'ists want to argue (against) Darwin, as Charlie wants to argue (with) Newton, because in either case they get to ignore a several centuries of science in between.

BTW... did you know that Pythagorus once wrote....

Jay,
"Thanks, Torbjorn. I do wish you'd stick around"

Thanks! Don't worry, I'll stick around. It was just this thread that ended up with too small S/N ratio.

"Crackpots give the aforementionaed rational population perfect opportunities to refine their understanding of, and seed the general intellectual ground with, good science."

I think that is a wise perspective - but we do need to have the energy to bring forth where they aren't merely legitimately speculating but go severely wrong with their pet ideas. It's usually nicely early on, but unfortunately on a massive scale,...

"I have heard nothing about the impossibilility of embedding our universe in another space via the tenets of GR. Which is another reason I prefer you to stay--maybe one day I'll eke an explanation out of you."

Uh, I don't know much about GR apart from general physics courses and sci.physics usenet groups facts. I have always hoped for excess time in which I can take down my copy of "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne, Wheeler and study it. You can probably ask experts on some physics blog or find other web resources. Hopefully I didn't bungle the answer beyond recognition, or truth. ;-)

M,
"Good job Mr. Larsson."

Thanks!

Okay, now I'm blushing here. Time to go!

The fact of the matter is that the Roman Catholic Church has been very involved in supporting that the earth is round, the earth revolves around the sun, the big bang and evolution. The Church holds, however, that God is responsible for all creation. They are smart enough to see the truth when it is staring them in the face. This guy is not a true Catholic