Geocentrism: Was Galileo Wrong?

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei

While practically every scientist (and 79% of Americans) accept that the Earth and the other planets go around the Sun, it isn't quite everyone. In fact, a number of people have recently pointed out the following conference to me.

That's right, this November, a group of people are going to get together and try to put together as convincing an argument as possible for geocentrism, or the model that the Sun (and all the other planets) revolve around the Earth.

This is in stark contrast to our standard, heliocentric (Sun-centered) model, where the Earth is just one out of many planets, all of which orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits.

Both models allow for the same very reasonable observations, all visible with the naked eye. This includes the following:

  1. The explanation of days and nights.
  2. The explanation of Moon phases.
  3. The explanation of seasons.
  4. And finally, the observation that planets appear to "wander," or shift their position across the night sky, relative to the fixed, background stars.

But the greatest puzzle, back in the time of Copernicus, was the problem of retrograde motion. What's that? If you observe the planets, night-to-night, you'll find that they move across the sky in roughly a smooth line. But if you look up at Mars during the right time of the year, you'll find that it seems to stop in its tracks, reverse direction, go backwards for a little while, stop again, and continue forward in roughly the original direction.

This happens for all of the outer planets, by the way, and has been confirmed hundreds of times over the centuries.

Both models -- heliocentric and geocentric -- had a way to explain this by time Galileo came along. The geocentric explanation came first, by way of Ptolemy.

Image credit: Nick Strobel's Astronomy Notes.

Rather than making a perfect circle, each planet moved about the Earth on a "circle upon a circle." When the planet passes by closest to Earth, it appears to reverse its motion! This worked remarkably well for predicting the positions in the sky of the planets, and was the most accurate method we had by a lot. In fact, by even the late 1500s, 50 years after Copernicus, this geocentric explanation was far-and-away the most superior way to predict what the positions of the planets would be.

But the heliocentric explanation was a little more elegant, and didn't need these epicycles or "circles-upon-circles" at all. Instead, the inner planets, in theory, moved around the Sun more quickly than the outer ones! When an inner planet passed by an outer one, the outer one would appear to move backwards for a brief period of time, and as the inner one continued to move forwards, eventually the outer planet would resume its original course.

It wasn't until the early 1600s, when Kepler finally figured out that planets moved in ellipses (and not circles) around the Sun, that finally allowed the heliocentric model to catch up with the geocentric one in terms of predictive power.

So which was better? Was Galileo, the most passionate of all the heliocentric proponents, justified in his adamant rejection of geocentrism?

Up until the early 1600s, I would have said "no." But right around 1609, something remarkable happened that scientifically settled the issue.

The telescope was invented! (Note, you can repeat any or all of the following observations with even the simplest and cheapest of telescopes.)

And one of the first things that people looked at through a telescope was the planet Jupiter. In a single night, check out what you can see!

This video is a time-lapse of about 3 hours condensed into 10 seconds. (And it is taken with an amateur telescope, albeit a good one.) And you'll notice that there are definitely moons orbiting Jupiter, not Earth!

But perhaps even more striking is what you see when you look at the planet Venus. Taken over the course of a few months, you can see the individual phases of Venus, which go all the way from crescent to full.

Both heliocentric and geocentric models will allow Venus to run the full gamut of phases. But you'll notice something with a telescope that you'd never notice without one: Venus appears much larger when it's at its "new" phase and much smaller at its "full" phase.

This is different from the Moon:

and from the Sun:

which vary in size only slightly as seen from Earth.

Believe it or not, this observation is a killer for geocentrism! Why?

Because in the old geocentric model, sometimes Venus is on the same side of Earth as the Sun (and appears new), and sometimes it's on the opposite side (and appears full).

Notice how the closeness of Venus to Earth (which determines how big Venus appears) has nothing to do with what its phase should be! And yet, a crescent Venus is always huge, and a full Venus is always tiny!

But, in the heliocentric model...

Venus is huge when it's a crescent because it's closer to Earth, and small when it's full because it's on the other side of the Sun!

And while there are many, many, many other, subsequent observations that support the heliocentric model and contradict the geocentric model (such as the laws of gravity, accelerometers on spacecraft orbiting other worlds, the orbits of comets, the discovery of other stars and extra-solar planets, etc.), this is enough!

In other words, once we were able to make observations that were more sophisticated than the simple "position of the planets over time against the background stars", the geocentric model gives wild predictions about the apparent sizes and accelerations of the planets, inconsistent with observations.

But the idea that "Galileo was wrong" is now 401 years out of date, and very, very easy to disprove. The geocentric model has yet to come up with an explanation for the apparent size of Venus in its different phases, and the scientific conclusion is that's because it's wrong. But perhaps someone out there knows better... any ideas?

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If NASA has a video depicting the Earth's orbit around the Sun, then isn't this debate over?

By Allan Schwarb (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

AMDG:
55.....
If there's no fixed point in the universe, then wouldn't a probe near the outer region of the Solar System approximate a fixed point and couldn't it video the Earth's orbit around the Sun? Is there no NASA video like this?

By Allan Schwarb (not verified) on 21 Sep 2010 #permalink

i neen to know Has the universe always been the same explanation and evidence and
There was a huge explosion also the universe is getting bigger now

think you people

It's nothing to do with the traditional views of geocentrism, and the observations disproving it set out so concisely by Ethan, but I have heard some creationists appealing to Einstein and frames of reference, and that in one sense, the whole universe does move around the earth if you take the earth as your frame of reference, although they don't address the fact that this doesn't make the earth 'special' as it also moves around every other point in the universe as well by this logic.

I think they're pushing a version of Tycho Brahe's model, which claims that all the other planets revolve around the Sun, and the Sun revolves around the Earth. So while they are crazy, we need evidence other than the above to show they're wrong.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

I've met up with these folks. Specifically, Mark Wyatt... who is some kind of Sungenis sidekick. Surreal; but you certainly don't bother trying to see what evidence would convince them.

By Chris Ho-Stuart (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

You are part of the conspirahceh, Ethan!

Couldn't we just....have a satellite based telescope take thousands of pictures of the planet's motion and declare victory?

I think that would make a pretty neat animated .gif

By Drivebyposter (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

What a bunch of hogwash! Everybody knows the Earth is flat! And the moon is made of cheese!

By herebedragons (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Physicalist, if you push a version of Tycho Brahe's model, the really, really difficult challenge is 3753 Cruithne: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/07/meet_our_second_moon.php

It makes sense if you use a heliocentric model, but in a Tychonian model, you cannot explain why it always appears in front of us (and never behind). But either way, you have to ignore the laws of gravity, which is a preposterous proposition.

I believe most geocentric models had Venus and Mercury orbiting the Sun because they're never seen too far from it (Venus can get fairly far away, but its still nowhere near opposition). To people that were already thinking that way, the evidence of moons around Jupiter would be meaningless... the Sun had orbiters too, and the important thing was that everything ultimately moved around a stationary Earth. Even the Venus evidence can be probably be made to pass that model.

But either way, you have to ignore the laws of gravity, which is a preposterous proposition.

Y'know, once you've gone all-in on rejecting every other natural law, ignoring gravity isn't really that far a leap. I'm just sayin'...

I once read the translation of a book by a Jesuit priest in "The Heavens Declare the Glory of God" genre. He was thrilled to observe the moons of Jupiter through the newly invented perspective glass, because here was epicyclic motion made manifest.

By Dan Milton (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

But either way, you have to ignore the laws of gravity, which is a preposterous proposition.

I agree, but I'm curious (in a perverse sort of way) to know what their "arguments" are. Apparently one of the authors (Robert Bennett) of the main book being hawked has a PhD from Stevens Institute of Tech. in GR. (I have a friend working in QG who's also from Stevens, I believe.) So I'd guess that part of the argument is supposed to be something along the lines of "According to GR there's no fact of the matter about what's in motion and what's moving" or something like that.

(Funny. I think I might have predicted this a little over a year ago)

By Physicalist (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

I really have to be skeptical of the statistic you cited at the top of your post (79% agree with the heliocentric model). The statistic really shows that 21% of poll respondents like to have fun when asked stupid questions.

The traditional narrative does some disservice to the science of the ancient Greeks. Aristarchus proposed a heliocentric model in the 3rd century, BCE. Other Greek astronomers rejected this, on the grounds that there was no observable parallax. Aristarchus saw this as evidence for how distant the stars were. His writings on this unfortunately do not survive, so we know of his role in this debate only indirectly. Even so, I think it is significant that the Greek astronomers were debating a heliocentric model almost two millennia before the Renaissance. And that the grounds on which it was argued and the reason it didn't win the support of most Greek astronomers was empirical: the failure to observe a parallax. I think that says more about Greek science of the time than the simple fact that they were wrong. Science gets things wrong all the time. Astronomy then was science as we would recognize it today, and on the big question they got wrong, it was due to the limits of measurement given technology of the time. The tragedy is that science slowed, and then reversed. As far as human knowledge goes, the dark ages were well named.

I loved the intro to astronomy revelation in college that without a backdrop frame of reference, A orbiting B is indistinguishable from B orbiting A...it's all relative.

For kicks we debated Heliocentrism vs. Geocentrism. My own favorite was Tycho Brahe's innovation: that the sun revolves around the earth but all the other planets revolve around the sun. I assume this is also easily disproved by observation, but it would be an interesting second article.

God bless.

They were all wrong.

Heliocentrism (as championed by Galileo) predicts that everything (including other galaxies) orbits around the sun. This was as disproved by observation as much as the other examples in this post.

Did they ever explain why the planets had epicycles in the geocentric model?

By Daniel J. Andrews (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

@16: I was under the impression they had no concept of *other galaxies* at that time.

I'd like to know the figures for Venus, corresponding to the aphelion/perhelion figures for the sun.

And yes, I drive past Tycho Brahes lab every day to work:
http://bit.ly/alVCJj

By Joffemannen (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Amazing article!

Because in the old geocentric model, sometimes Venus is on the same side of Earth as the Sun (and appears new), and sometimes it's on the opposite side (and appears full).

Ethan, on the simple geocentric model in your illustrations this is flat wrong: Venus was thought to be always between Earth and the Sun (and, of course, Venus is never on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun).

Hence the observation of the full cycle of phases was sufficient to rule out that model.

As other commenters have pointed out, there were more sophisticated versions around, such as Tycho's, which wouldn't have this defect (and I suppose you could make Venus' epicycles loop right around the Sun). The limit of this approach is to create a kind of geostationary relativity in which the earth's motion is subtracted from that of all other bodies.

Christ! You scientists! Always trying to cram logic into everything.

The explanation is simple. Venus does not behave like a conventional planet. Instead imagine it as a huge inflatable beachball. As the planet moves around one side of the Earth, God blows it up and as it moves around the other side, God deflates it.

Obvious now isn't it!

;-)

By Yossarian (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Anyone pervesely interested in reading their arguments for geocentrism can find them at http://www.catholicintl.com/articles.html - there's lots about theology and evolution in their too ('Dinosaurs in ancietn Israel!').

And funnily enough, Joffemannen, I walk past Tycho Brahe's grave every day on the way to work.

Sean: Cool! Praha?

For me it's actually more "if I stop on the freeway and extend my telescope I can see the Tycho Brahe observatory, if there are no leaves on the trees"

By Joffemannen (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Translational motion is always relative. There is no way to tell whether it's the Sun that revolves around the Earth or the other way around without first establishing a reference frame.

Heliocentric model is only preferable because it is much simpler and therefore more practical, not because it is "more true."

Nice article Ethan but it contains a couple of inaccuracies, you write:

But the heliocentric explanation was a little more elegant, and didn't need these epicycles or "circles-upon-circles" at all.

The original geocentric model as presented by Copernicus actually used more circles-upon-circles than the current Ptolemaic geocentric ones. It was only with the elliptical astronomy of Kepler that the geocentric model became simpler

You also claim that the discovery of the phases of Venus proves the geocentrism. This is not true as they are also consistent with the geo-heliocentrism of Tycho, which was the system adopted by the majority of astronomers after 1612 as there were still serious problems with the physics of geocentrism that were first solved during the 17th century.

Since some problems with the physics of geocentrism for 17th century scientists were already mentioned, I'd like to add a question into the conversation regarding heliocentrism that I can't find an adequate answer to.

How is it that the Earth moves ~1,000 mph into the East and yet we do not feel the speed of comparable winds on the ground?

By mentat1973 (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

I really have to be skeptical of the statistic you cited at the top of your post (79% agree with the heliocentric model). The statistic really shows that 21% of poll respondents like to have fun when asked stupid questions.

I think it says 42% of the people surveyed were randomly guessing. What proportion of the public could even say what "heliocentrism" and "geocentrism" mean?

They were all wrong.

Heliocentrism (as championed by Galileo) predicts that everything (including other galaxies) orbits around the sun. This was as disproved by observation as much as the other examples in this post.

Posted by: Heuristics

Too simple. A better view of right vs. wrong in science:

"[W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

Isaac Asimov (1989). "The Relativity of Wrong." The Skeptical Inquirer, 14(1), 35-44. Fall 1989.
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

By Nick (Matzke) (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Ethan: It's better than you imagined. From Sean's link go down to "New Evidence Earth is Center of Universe."

It's a Word document. The new evidence is . . . (wait for it). . . the appeals to . . . DARK ENERGY! "Dark Energy or Geocentrism? Modern Science at a Crossroads"

By Physicalist (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Mentat1973...my nephew asked me that same question last night. I was showing him Jupiter through my telescope, and he wanted to know if the earth is moving why can't he feel it. He is seven. I struggled to find a good answer I could frame so that he'd understand--think I did okay, and on our next car trip I'll have him toss a ball while we're accelerating, decelerating and driving at a constant speed (no, I won't be driving). -dan

By Daniel J. Andrews (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Just when you think something is pretty simple (at least in hindsight) people start wanting to make a controversy out of it. Then again, wacky get-togethers are always fun. You don't think those people REALLY BELIEVE what they're spouting. And why did they limit it to Catholics? I'm surprised any number of fundies as well as the Flat Earth Society didn't join in with them. Fools! The Universe revolves around ME!

Just for fun, check out some of the backgrounds of the speakers for this get together such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sungenis
wherein it is mentioned that his own Bishop once directed Sungenis to stop using "Catholic" in his organization's name (which directive he apparently ignored).

On second thought, any further consideration would be like watching a bad rerun of "The Simpsons".

re 27:
The greatest winds should be at the equator...... this area is actually the opposite - the doldrums. Ooops.
Eastward rotation should produce westward winds - wrong again, jet streams are eastward...
For an aether vortex model on a static Earth - no conflicts

re #7 Cruithne, the difficult challenge?
The alleged GC simulation has the Sun and Earth stationary, ignoring the Sun's daily orbit around the Earth, which easily solves the difficult challenge - a strawman model of GC. The Sun orbits Earth every 24 hours, so Cruithne must orbit it ~364/365*24 hours.
btw: the location of Cruithne is determined by Earth-, not solar- located observatories - agreed? The scientific method requires validation of claims for theories like HC by experiment. Has any HC test been performed on the Sun... or will there be?
As Popper would say: HC is unscientific, because it's unfalsifiable/untestable. This reasoning only applies to those who use the scientific method.... scientists!
GC does have an inverse square law of attraction - the LeSage pushing gravity, an ideal gas of ultramondane aether particles. Because it is inverse square, this predicts conic section motion, as does Newton. Unlike Newton, LeSage provides a mechanism for attraction, a cause and effect relationship, which is missing from the spooky AAAD empirical gravity law of Newton. Even Aristotle knew that 'from nothing, comes nothing'.

re 13: The parallax proof is circular reasoning - the Earth is proven to move by assuming the sun and stars do not...
The neo-Tychonian model predicts the same annual parallax observed, if the stars orbit the Sun, not the Earth. A modern aether version attributes the parallax to an annual cycle in the sidereal day, caused by an intrinsic dependence of stellar period on distance.

re 15: The Tychonian model is a linear translation, a mapping of the HC system's origin of rest to the Earth's center, preserving all motions. Conceptually, consider a 3D model of the HC system, with the Sun pinned so it cannot move. Now move that pin to the Earth , without disturbing the motions of the model.
If the disproof of the Tychonian model is easy, where can it be found?

Ethan, I don't know about anyone else, but if you were to set up a donation fund for ticket price, travel and accommodation, so you could go tear these guys a new one at question time, I'd donate.

#33:

The Tychonian model is a linear translation, a mapping of the HC system's origin of rest to the Earth's center, preserving all motions. Conceptually, consider a 3D model of the HC system, with the Sun pinned so it cannot move. Now move that pin to the Earth , without disturbing the motions of the model.

You can't, unless you can explain the sudden violation of gravity where Earth is concerned. Unless the Sun suddenly has less mass than the Earth...

I look at it this way.......... The Catholic Church also believes that it's OK for their Priests to Rape & Molest young children! Ask Poop BennyDick. That's how much Credence you can put on the Church's Geocentric view of the Universe..........

By ZarathustraMike (not verified) on 15 Sep 2010 #permalink

@27: To lowest order, the atmosphere corotates with the Earth. There must be some such layer because the piece of atmosphere immediately adjacent to the Earth's surface cannot move with respect to that surface (this is what's called a boundary condition, and it's a consequence of the nonzero viscosity of air). The region of corotating matter extends to several Earth radii in the equatorial plane, due in part to the Earth's intrinsic magnetic field; similar but larger regions exist around Jupiter and the Sun (in the latter case, it extends to nearly 100 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth).

The winds we feel are local departures from corotation. The predominant source is convection: near the equator warm air rises and is pushed toward the poles, where it sinks and then is drawn equatorward. In reality, there are three convection cells (Hadley cells) in each hemisphere, with the middle one having the opposite rotation to the other two. These winds are then subject to Coriolis force, yielding the correct prediction that trade winds (prevailing surface winds in the tropics) blow east to west, while in the middle Hadley cell where we live, the jet stream blows west to east.

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 15 Sep 2010 #permalink

General relativity says that inertial frames of references occur only when object are traveling at constant velocities. However, dont all planets speed up (accelerate) or slow down as they approach the sun or move away from the sun respectively. So arent the frames of references are distinguishable?

Nick (Matzke), you beat me to it! That is such an excellent article to help people understand the tentative, yet convergent nature of scientific progress. So few people seem to understand that sure, Newton was "wrong" in some sense of the word, but it was very nearly right. (Horseshoes & hand-grenades, thermonuclear weapons & science.)

There are a few comments that mention translational motion and the lack of an absolute frame of reference with respect to space(time). However, the observed motion of celestial bodies within the solar system are indisputably rotational motions (whether helio or geocentric), and unlike translational motion, the absolute rate of rotation as well as the center of rotation can be measured, though I'd doubt there are any instruments sensitive enough to measure the centripetal acceleration due to Earth's orbit.

Besides all the other mounds of evidence, and the enormous predictive power of Newtonian (and even more so Einstein's) model of gravity, how might the Geocentric model explain the Greeks and the Trojans? And do they have any sort of mathematical model at all? Could it predict the positions of Ceres or Neptune given limited observations of the time? And is that model anywhere nearly as simple or powerful as F=G*m1*m2/(r^2)?

And why do people complain about action at a distance? It's not as if the situation with electricity or magnetism (i.e., all of chemistry & physical "contact") were any different; there is no such thing as anything but action at a distance!

Nothing new to add here, just wanted to add my praise for one of the best-written things I've read on the web recently.

Somehow Ethan managed to turn a simple debunking into an enjoyable lesson in both history and the scientific method. And with pretty pictures. Kudos.

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 15 Sep 2010 #permalink

Excellent article. Even scientists sometimes lose track of the fact that all we really have to go on is the accuracy of falsifiable predictions that are made by competing theories.

So it makes sense that the geocentric model was still used long after the Copernican one came along, because it worked better until the other model caught up. In science, truth = utility.

By the way, I live in Ohio, and if I squint really hard, on a clear day I can see Tycho Brahe's lab in Denmark. Or at least I think I can.

Total fail.

I mean, they're kooks, but is that an excuse to use such a blatant strawman? They don't push the Ptolemy model, they use Brahe's model, as pointed out to you above. And don't try to wiggle out of this by saying that it makes no sense either, that's not the point. The point is that you distorted their position.

Very nice summary.

79% of people are right; but few can explain why. 21% of people who are wrong; but few try to explain why their view is correct.

But the fanatic few, who believe that their view is fundamentally profoundly and absolutely correct, are the enemy of science; even if they are scientists.

Eddington's use of his prestige to abuse the idea of a black hole (i.e. Chandrasekhar's view) did more to stiffle scientific progress than modern day geocentrists.

By AngelGabriel (not verified) on 16 Sep 2010 #permalink

Hi all, this is my first time posting on any of the science blogs though I've been following them for a while.

I have two comments. First, are you sure this is for real and they're not just taking the p***? Do people really believe this so much they could organise a conference on it?

Second (and I'm not trained in any science, just a reader of popular science), if the heliocentric model is so very wrong how are we able to correctly calculate the current and future positions of the planets so as to be able to send probes to them, and use gravitational sling-shot assistance on the way?

Hope this is not a silly question!

Because "the sun" is really just Apollo in his golden bling-bling Escalade cruising through the aether.

Nice recap of the story of how you get from seeing a geocentric solar system to a heliocentric one be making observation and measurements. New data can lead to some profound reevaluations. Thinking of this makes me wonder whether dark energy/matter are the epicycles of our time.

Way back @ 14, that doesn't surprise me. We've had numerous more serious examples of this from Latin America, where right-wingers who think of themselves or at least proclaim themselves as good Catholics order or participate in killings of clergy when the church condemns their oppression.

33: You can't, unless you can explain the sudden violation of gravity where Earth is concerned.
Newtonâs spooky gravity is immediately replaced by LeSage particles in the neo-Tychonian model.

37 @27: To lowest order, the atmosphere corotates with the Earth.
Then the air must be rigid like steel, to form a co-rotating column 10,0000 miles high, moving at 1000 mph.
Karl Popper showed that a theory must be abandoned or corrected as soon as shown to be inconsistent. By allowing contradictions, anything can be âprovenâ true. In #32 the MS atmospheric model was shown to be inconsistent.
If the mid-latitude air column speed is 700 mph eastward at the surface and 0 at the top of the atmosphere(relative to space/Sun), then it is 0 mph at the surface and 700 mph WESTWARD at the top of the atmosphere(relative to earth).
How then to explain the mid-latitude jet stream , which moves at 100 to 150 mph EASTWARD?
38: General relativity says that inertial frames of references occur only when object are traveling at constant velocities.

SR then applies only to cosmic objects traveling at constant speed, in one directionâ¦such as ? !

39 â¦how might the Geocentric model explain the Greeks and the Trojans? And do they have any sort of mathematical model at all? â¦.. And is that model anywhere nearly as simple or powerful as F=G*m1*m2/(r^2)?

If the trojan asteroids obey the inverse square law , then the Lesage theory explains their motion.
Same equation â different parameters.
And why do people complain about action at a distance? It's not as if the situation with electricity or magnetism (i.e., all of chemistry & physical "contact") were any different; there is no such thing as anything but action at a distance!
Yes, Sherlock - bound states of aether can be particles, so the aether explains gravity and EM AAAD.
41 So it makes sense that the geocentric model was still used long after the Copernican one came along, because it worked better until the other model caught up. In science, truth = utility.
How does the Copernican model work better than the neo-Tychonian?
43 But the fanatic few, who believe that their view is fundamentally profoundly and absolutely correct, are the enemy of science; even if they are scientists.
How about those fanatics whose use Baconâs scientific method and Popperâs logic?
44 First, are you sure this is for real and they're not just taking the p***? Do people really believe this so much they could organise a conference on it?
Come and seeâ¦. Yes.
if the heliocentric model is so very wrong how are we able to correctly calculate the current and future positions of the planets so as to be able to send probes to them, and use gravitational sling-shot assistance on the way?
All the above can be predicted using GC and LeSage. The HC model:
1) conflicts with relativity(a preferred frame).
2) cannot be falsified by testing (Popper rule).
3) contradicts the Sagnac exp
45 I'm intrigued by the physics of an object as massive as the Sun locked into a gravitational orbit around the Earth.
The Sun can be modeled as carried by the Earthâs aether vortex, like a boat in a river.
46 Because "the sun" is really just Apollo in his golden bling-bling Escalade cruising through the aether.

Another mainstream theory?

AMDG

Mentat1973, you asked an excellent question: "How is it that the Earth moves ~1,000 mph into the East and yet we do not feel the speed of comparable winds on the ground?"

Because the atmosphere and the oceans and you and me are glued by gravity to the Earth, and we move through space along with it.

This was in fact a huge question for Galileo, and to answer it he had to come up with the principle if relativity. Legend has it he observed a horseman riding along, tossing and catching a ball. To the horseman, the ball was moving only up and down; Galileo observed the relative motion of the horse, rider, and ball.

As someone else suggested, go for a ride in your car and play catch with your son while someone else is driving in a straight line. Then, for fun, try it again around a curve.

Indeed, understanding this puts you a good deal of the way toward understanding Ernst Mach and then Albert Einstein. :)

By Timberwoof (not verified) on 17 Sep 2010 #permalink

@timberwoof
"Then the air must be rigid like steel, to form a co-rotating column 10,0000 miles high, moving at 1000 mph."

But air is not hard as steel. That is why Earth has the weather patter it has. Read more about the coriolis effect.

"SR then applies only to cosmic objects traveling at constant speed, in one directionâ¦such as ? !"

Rotational motion, while it can have a constant speed, cannot have a constant velocity. An object in a rotational motion is being accelerated towards the center, in this case, by gravity. Therefore, such objects are non inertial frame of reference.

"If the trojan asteroids obey the inverse square law , then the Lesage theory explains their motion.
Same equation â different parameters. "

Can it explain the Lagrange points, though? Trojan asteroids are there because gravitational fields cancel out at 60 degrees ahead and behind the planet. And elegantly, solving the gravitational field: sum(mG/r^2) allows one to arrive at the solution of those points.

"Yes, Sherlock - bound states of aether can be particles, so the aether explains gravity and EM AAAD."

Yeah, any evidence that the aether exists?

"How does the Copernican model work better than the neo-Tychonian?"

We don't use the original Copernican model anymore. We use the elliptical model, and with that, magic happened. Suddenly, everything was simpler. In a way, both models should work almost similarly, except one of the model is wronger than the other. Plus, observation of the universe as a whole shows that a)all planets (there are the extrasolar ones, you know) revolve around their parent stars, and b)the theory of gravity is valid. Oh, and as Ethan asked above, explain the orbit of Cruithne with it.

Invoke LeSage all you want, observations don't fit his theories. In the end, by using relativity in order to make Earth be at the center, you are contradicting yourself, since according to the theory, there is no right reference frame. In that case, any planet could be a reference frame. Worst of all, with general relativity, they are all non inertial reference frame, so the sun has to be almost to the center. Plus, Newton's theory is a special case of general relativity, when the field of gravity is not superhuge, and so various simplification can be made. Even with Galilean relativity, it wouldn't work. Earth's frame of reference is non inertial.

Oh, and I forgot one more thing. By using the Tychonian system, explain the stellar parallax. Please, do. In fact, historically, that is the reason this model was dropped.

Whichever way you think, central body of a planetary system is a moving body. It is simple mechanics that no free body can orbit around another moving body in geometrically closed path. Every astronomer knows that real orbital paths of planetary bodies are wavy in shape, about the central body's path. [Stable galaxies have no translational motion]. Yet everyone insists on describing a planetary orbit as circular/elliptical path around the central body. What is described in this manner are the apparent orbits, which we observe. Apparent orbits may be around any one of the bodies in the planetary system. Hence, geocentric or heliocentric orbits are equally valid. An apparent orbit is assumed in relative frame of reference with the central body in imaginary static state. Apparent orbits are convenient only to determine relative positions of bodies in the planetary system. Considering real orbital paths of planetary bodies can solve many of current mysteries.
See; http://vixra.org/abs/1008.0010

@myself
Oops, sorry, the comment was not for timerwoof, it was for AMDG.

@nainan
Well, more precisely, all objects orbit around a center of mass. It just turns out that the center of mass of the solar system resides in the sun.

.....the air must be rigid like steel, to form a co-rotating column 10,0000 miles high, moving at 1000 mph."
But air is not hard as steel. That is why Earth has the weather patter it has. <\i>

Non sequitur.

An object in a rotational motion is being accelerated towards the center, in this case, by gravity. Therefore, such objects are non inertial frame of reference.<\i>

And therefore, SR applies to none of the cosmic objects in the universe.

Can it[LeSage] explain the Lagrange points, though? ...<\i>

Can Newton? .... Both use inverse square forces

"How does the Copernican model work better than the neo-Tychonian?"
We don't use the original Copernican model anymore. We use the elliptical model, <\i>

LeSage theory includes elliptical motion.

Oh, and as Ethan asked above, explain the orbit of Cruithne with it. <\i>

We did.... the simulation is a red herring of the GC motion. Both Sun and Earth don't move.

Invoke LeSage all you want, observations don't fit his theories. <\i>

Easy to say - hard to prove. Which observations don't fit LeSage theory?

In the end, by using relativity in order to make Earth be at the center, you are contradicting yourself, since according to the theory, there is no right reference frame. <\i>

But we are free to take the Earth at rest and still uphold the laws of physics... else relativity is rubbish... Horrors!

In that case, any planet could be a reference frame. Worst of all, with general relativity, they are all non inertial reference frame, so the sun has to be almost to the center. Plus, Newton's theory is a special case of general relativity, when the field of gravity is not superhuge, and so various simplification can be made. Even with Galilean relativity, it wouldn't work. Earth's frame of reference is non inertial. <\i>

As we said before- SR does not apply to any cosmic object.

51 ..... By using the Tychonian system, explain the stellar parallax. Please, do. In fact, historically, that is the reason this model was dropped. <\i>

Don't need Tycho's help. The mainstream argument using stellar parallax is a tour de farce.
Both the Sun and stars are assumed at rest. If the earth was at rest then nothing would move! So the earth must move!
Classical circular reasoning... the premises force only one conclusion.
We can play the game, too: Assume the stars and earth are at rest...... then the Sun must be moving!

53 ..... Well, more precisely, all objects orbit around a center of mass. It just turns out that the center of mass of the solar system resides in the sun. <\i>

You must include all the sources of attraction in the universe to calculate the center of mass - Mach's principle.
When the Great Attractor and Great Wall are included, the solar system center of mass is 150 million light years from the Sun....

54 If NASA has a video depicting the Earth's orbit around the Sun, then isn't this debate over? <\i>

Yes, IF...
What fixed point in the universe would this video be taken from?

AMDG

Yeah, any evidence that the aether exists?<\i>

Aether tests:
Foucault pendulum 1851 - Rotation caused by Earth's aether vortex
Global Positioning System 1993+ E-W delays caused by Earth's aether vortex
Atmospheric circulation - pattern contradicts rotation model
Stellar Aberration 1727 transverse aether flow
Fresnel 1818-30, Fizeau 1851 aether drag by water
Faraday Rotor (Homopolar) Generator 1831Faraday found there is an induced current if a conductor and a magnet are joined together and rotated, having no relative motion to each other, but only to the aether.
Geometrical Parallax 1838 each star has a specific aether vortex
Airy 1871 Water in telescope causes no change in aberration ==> deflection occurs in transit â sideways aether flow
Depalma- 1977 spinning ball drop DePalma took two steel balls and catapulted them into the air at equal angles, with an equal amount of force. The only difference was that one ball was rotating 27,000 times per minute in the aether and the other was stationary. The rotating ball traveled higher into the air and then descended faster than its counterpart, which violated all known laws of physics.
Gyro Drop 1977 Observations of a falling gyroscope reveal a slight enhancement of inertia - the aether - by the gravitational field. A rotating mass will fall more rapidly - with greater acceleration than an equivalent non-rotating mass. Classical physics cannot explain this.

Yeah, any evidence that the aether exists?<\i>

Aether tests:
Mirabel and Rodriguez 1994 In 1994 a galactic speed record was obtained with the discovery of a superluminal source in our own galaxy, the cosmic x-ray source GRS1915+105. Several separate blobs were seen to expand in pairs within weeks by typically 0.5 arcsec.

Aspden Effect 1995This experiment involved a gyroscope whose wheel was highly magnetic. The energy required to spin up to maximum speed was 1000 joules. For up to 60 seconds after the gyroscope stopped rotating, it would take ten times less energy to return it to the original velocity - only 100 joules. Aspdenâs gyroscopes would retain their hidden aether energy for a full 60 seconds.

Marinov Plasma Tube 1996A cylindrical magnet is cut along an axial plane and one half is turned upside-down (the magnetic forces themselves do the rotation). Around this magnet is a trough filled with mercury in which a copper ring floats. A current from the battery causes the ring to rotate. Working either as a motor or a generator, there is no opposing torque to the direction of rotation. As long as power is drawn from it, it will power itself. Demonstrates the torsional energy of the ether.

Casimir Effect 1997Two mirrors facing each other in empty space are mutually attracted to each other by the vacuum electro-magnetic field. The Casimir effect is due to aether resonance in the intervening space between objects.

The 'debate' should have been over after the first handful of interplanetary research probes started hitting their targets. Obviously the engineers and scientists programming their trajectories are basing their numbers on reality, not some church-addled fantasy. Who knows where the heck our 'bots would end up if we had to follow heliocentrist idiots? We wouldn't know a hell of a lot about the planets or their moons, that's for sure. There would be reams and reams of info about void and vacuum though, something that seems to flow without measure between the ears of the helio-nuts.

By McCthulhu (not verified) on 22 Sep 2010 #permalink

@AMGD: so how exactly do you get Earth to affect Sun so much more than the other heavenly bodies except the Moon? If Sun affects Mars so much more than Earth that Mars orbits the Sun instead of Earth, how come the Moon is affected so much more by Earth than by the Sun that it orbits the Earth? Note that postulating a gravitational law specifically for the effects of the Earth that is decreasing faster than inverse-square would give farcically large estimates for the masses of essentially everything we see except the Moon (on which the theory would obviously need to be calibrated) and explain why we don't see this effect on the near-Earth satellites and probes.

Yeah, any evidence that the aether exists?<\i>

Magnetic Memory 1997Donald Roth discovered that, after first placing a fixed magnet close to a hanging magnet to attract it, then moving the magnet much farther away from the hanging magnet after five days, the magnet still attracted the hanging magnet the same way. This simulation of both a memory and amplification by aether is known to the Russians as âvacuum structuringâ.
This shows another face of the ether â
â¢a relationship with magnetism,
â¢a retention of magnetic locations and
â¢the ability to redirect ether flow.
â¢the ability to intensify magnetic effects
â¢proof that magnetism is a movement of energy outside the magnet itself

Wang Super-luminality 2000Lijun Wang shocked the scientific community in 2000 with the results of a one-way speed of light test that measured propagation speeds of 310 c (c = speed of light) by supplementing and extending prior quantum tunneling experiments.
Light pulses were accelerated to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,000 miles per second. In his test interpretation light will arrive at its destination almost before it has started - leaping forward in time and severely violating causality. Special Relativityâs postulate of constant c is disproved, if the experiment is valid. Light is not moving at 310c; the aether carrying it is.

Gravitomagnetic London Moment 2006Just as a charge in motion creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. â the effect is much larger than General Relativity expects.

Dayton Miller 1921 Proposed a modified ether model of partial drag/entrainment. Obtained positive results for a net aether drift of about 10 km/s towards the galactic North pole. This daily or seasonal effect destroys the foundation of the theory of relativity.

Yeah, any evidence that the aether exists?<\i>

Silvertooth 1986A first-order test of a one-way laser beam interfering with a standing wave initiated by the same laser. The standing wave nodes shifted position when the equipment direction was changed. One wave was phase modulated with respect to the other, creating phase differences that were measured with a photomultiplier tube of special design. Silvertoothâs results demonstrate that the wavelength of light varies with the direction of its propagation. The experiment was repeated in 1992, with the same results.
Silvertooth claimed his interferometer detected the absolute motion of the Earth with respect to the ether.
Silvertooth's velocity vector points in a different direction, with twice the speed, of Miller's ether velocity, but agrees with Mullerâs ether velocity. He always found a preferred direction in the direction of the constellation Leo, traveling at a velocity of 378 km/sec.

CMB dipole 1996NASAâs COBE satellite sky-mapping project revealed a dipole temperature anisotropy in the cosmic background radiation (CBR), indicating that the solar system is moving through this unique inertial frame at approximately 390 +- 60 km/s in the direction of Leo.
According to relativity we can also say that aether from the Leo direction is moving toward a stationary earth at approximately 390 +- 60 km/s.

Galaev 2002Aether verification and measurement of velocity and viscosity with millimeter radio waves, by the gas phase method.
Demonstrates ether exists, is dynamic, has viscosity, a cosmic source, and depends on latitude and altitude.

Pioneer 10,11 anomaly 1972 - 2004 Ranada and Tiemblo solved the mystery of the Pioneer extra acceleration. There are 2 independent aethers, which cause atomic and astronomical time to flow at different rates.

Roland De Witte 1991 Used RF coaxial cable tests to detect the Leo motion of the aether.

59 .....Who knows where the heck our 'bots would end up if we had to follow heliocentrist idiots? We wouldn't know a hell of a lot about the planets or their moons, that's for sure.....

your opinions?.... mucho
your evidence?...... nada!

60 @AMGD: so how exactly do you get Earth to affect Sun so much more than the other heavenly bodies except the Moon? If Sun affects Mars so much more than Earth that Mars orbits the Sun instead of Earth, how come the Moon is affected so much more by Earth than by the Sun that it orbits the Earth? Note that postulating a gravitational law specifically for the effects of the Earth that is decreasing faster than inverse-square would give farcically large estimates for the masses of essentially everything we see .....

AMGD = AMDG??
Aether vortices determine the orbits observed.. Feynman(RIP) rejected the aether vortex of Descartes because of drag, but the objects don't move through the aether.... they move with the aether flow, like a boat in a river...
Even the best - fall like the rest....

LeSage is exactly inverse-square, not faster/greater than inverse-square....... Red-herring alert.

AMDG

Sorry for mixing up the letters (unexplained acronyms tend to do that to me).

Saying "aether vortices!" does not change my question at all. Why is the "aether vortex" of Earth powerful enough to carry the Sun around, but is way too weak to carry any other celestial body around in an amount significant enough to detect alongside the standard, inverse square gravitational effects (regardless of what you call them)? Note that Venus, for example, gets significantly closer to Earth than the Sun does, and we don't see an anomaly in its movement anywhere near (like, ten units of magnitude near) comparable to the anomaly of the Sun in the geocentric model.

By the way, the LeSage mechanism cannot exist without drag because otherwise you lose the inverse square law - if you move with the flow, what are other masses shielding you from?

65...... Why is the "aether vortex" of Earth powerful enough to carry the Sun around, but is way too weak to carry any other celestial body around in an amount significant enough to detect alongside the standard, inverse square gravitational effects (regardless of what you call them)? <\i>

The aether is extremely dense, far more than any material object. In effect, the Sun floats in its aether ring.
There is no gravitational mass in the Newtonian sense... aether ring currents determine all observed orbits; LeSage particles determine inverse-square motion between cosmic objects.
The Earth has two aether rings - for the Sun and Moon. The planets are in secondary aether rings surrounding the Sun. Their moons are in tertiary aether rings around the planets ... see the neo-Tychonian hierarchy model.

Note that Venus, for example, gets significantly closer to Earth than the Sun does, and we don't see an anomaly in its movement anywhere near (like, ten units of magnitude near) comparable to the anomaly of the Sun in the geocentric model. <\i>

Venus follows its own aether orbit centered on the Sun.... This orbit is always less than the 90 megamiles AU.

....the LeSage mechanism cannot exist without drag because otherwise you lose the inverse square law - if you move with the flow, what are other masses shielding you from?<\i>

LeSage particles use the ideal-gas paradigm - there is no drag/friction in matter interaction , only absorption - which produces the inverse square law locally.

66 We home teach our children and came across your site today, very informative

Informative, yes, but with the right stuff... or wrong stuff? <\i>

The Earth has two aether rings - for the Sun and Moon. The planets are in secondary aether rings surrounding the Sun. Their moons are in tertiary aether rings around the planets ... see the neo-Tychonian hierarchy model.

You could have saved a lot of words by just saying "magic". If everything moves like it does because the aether currents send it where they flow, and they can basically flow anywhere ... where's the predictive power?

LeSage particles use the ideal-gas paradigm - there is no drag/friction in matter interaction , only absorption - which produces the inverse square law locally.

No drag/friction, only absorption? First, that is not an ideal gas (particles elastically scattering off whatever you put into it). Second, you still get drag in your model due to velocity distribution in front of an object being different from the velocity distribution behind your object.

Casimir Effect 1997 Two mirrors facing each other in empty space are mutually attracted to each other by the vacuum electro-magnetic field. The Casimir effect is due to aether resonance in the intervening space between objects.

Like the rest of your Gish Gallop, this is a desperate attempt to reinterpret successful predictions of other theories. The Casimir effect was predicted by quantum physics (more precisely: Heisenberg's uncertainty relation) before it was observed, and the observation fits the prediction.

The exact same holds for your misunderstanding of the tunnel effect. The light in that experiment did not have 310 c, it had no velocity at all, because it never was between the ends of the tunnel. It was localized at one end, then it delocalized, and then it was localized at the other end, because Heisenberg's uncertainty relation allows it. This is also why radioactive decay is possible (it contradicts classical physics, because the particles that come out of a decaying nucleus never have enough energy to escape it the classical way).

The basic thing you have missed in your attempt to turn all of physics back by over 100 years, there is ultimately no such thing as collision. It's electrostatic repulsion. There is, ultimately, no such thing as mechanics. There are no forces in this universe that do not reduce to electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, gravity, or the expansion of the universe.

Parsimony, man. We don't need an aether. You, on the other hand, haven't even explained the experiments by Michaelson and Morley yet!

Oh, and, just to repeat what so many people have already said, uniform motion is relative, but acceleration is not, and rotation is a form of acceleration because it's a change in the velocity vector. According to relativity, you cannot tell how big the vector is, but you can tell when it changes!

By David MarjanoviÄ (not verified) on 30 Sep 2010 #permalink

27 .......In one word: does the earth move?
According to the scientific method and logic, no. But this is a question you should ask yourself, using the same epistemics, not us.
As objective science is based on empirical evidence, this inductive method will eliminate any theory with its the first contradicting result.
In science all we can ever say is our worldview is only our best current thinking.

28 .... Nobody has ever proposed a mechanism that could explain the Earth's shape except that it rotates on its axis.

Then we are nobody - because we - and others - have the mechanism.
First, Mach's principle of relative rotation gives the theory - either rotation of Earth or of stars produces the same dynamic inertial forces - centripetal, Coriolis, etc.

Lense&Thirring and Barbour&Bertotti have provided quantitative proof for both classical and GR physics.
Lense, J.; Thirring, H. (1918). "Uber den Einfluss der Eigenrotation der Zentralk?rper auf die Bewegung der Planeten und Monde nach der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie". Physikalische Zeitschrift 19: 156â163.
Mach's Principle and the Structure of Dynamical Theories 1982 J. Barbour & B. Bertotti

As a crude demo consider 2 washing machines - one with a rotating hub and static tub, the second with the reverse. The first is the HC model.... water and clothes spin out from the center and stick to the tub wall. The second, the GC model? .... the same!

An aether model would use the greater speed at the equator and Bernoulli's principle to show that pressure drops at the equator compared to the poles....

BTW: Using the polar radius and the earth's [alleged] angular velocity, what does mainstream physics predict for the bulge size at the equator over land.... over water? That would be a quantitative proof, not the qualitative MS description.

29 Rotation is absolute. Uniform motion -- straight, no change in direction, no change in speed -- is relative, but acceleration is not, and rotation is a form of acceleration, because it's a change of the velocity vector.
Agreed, rotation is absolute , with respect to the lab frame.
Relativity of motion means that Va,b(t) = - Vb,a(t) for any frames a,b.
The rate of change of this equation gives the acceleration: Aa,b(t) = - Ab,a(t)
So velocity and acceleration are relative...... in relativity theory .

Falsification and parsimony are the two parts of the scientific method.
Falsification, of course..... parsimony, no. Bacon gave the latest update to Aristotle's method; It includes
certain false notions or tendencies which distort the truth, called "Idols" :
"Idols of the Den", which are peculiar to the individual;
"Idols of the Marketplace", coming from the misuse of language; and
"Idols of the Theatre", which result from an abuse of authority.

When 2 or more falsifiable but unfalsified hypotheses explain the data equally well, those of them that require the fewest extra assumptions must be preferred. What else would you do? ....
Relativity is unfalsifiable, geocentrism is unfalsified. Premise does not apply.
Do more experiments, that's what we would do.....

Then we are nobody - because we - and others - have the mechanism.
First, Mach's principle of relative rotation gives the theory - either rotation of Earth or of stars produces the same dynamic inertial forces - centripetal, Coriolis, etc.

OK, perhaps you misunderstood me. What I meant was that nobody has given a coherent explanation. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

If the movement of stars produces the earth's bulge, then why is it that this "dynamic inertial force" is felt only by Earth? Shouldn't other planets have bulges in exactly the same plane? Why is it that other planets, and the sun, have bulges that coincide with their own rotational axes? Do you attribute this to coincidence?

As a crude demo consider 2 washing machines - one with a rotating hub and static tub, the second with the reverse. The first is the HC model.... water and clothes spin out from the center and stick to the tub wall. The second, the GC model? .... the same!

Um, no. In your analogy, the hub itself--not the water or the clothes--corresponds to the earth. If we make the hub out of sufficiently plastic material, it will have a different shape in the two cases you describe. If your analogy were valid, then all the planets and the sun (the water and clothes) would be rushing headlong towards the stars. I don't think they are.

BTW: Using the polar radius and the earth's [alleged] angular velocity, what does mainstream physics predict for the bulge size at the equator over land.... over water? That would be a quantitative proof, not the qualitative MS description.

I don't know, but I suspect that quantifying the bulge would require a detailed knowledge of the earth's interior, especially WRT viscosity profiles. Does the (presumed) inability of earth scientists to predict the bulge quantitatively lend any credibility to the GC model?

By Tim DeLaney (not verified) on 03 Oct 2010 #permalink

Let's see, the Earth rotates once every 24 hours, that's angular speed around 2*Pi/24*3600 = 7,27E-5 rad/s. Centripetal acceleration on the equator is thus around 6,4E6*(7,27E-5)^2=3.4E-2 m/s^2, compared to the standard gravity of 9,8 m/s^2, you have a 3.5E-3 part contribution. Assuming that matter of the inside of the Earth is distributed roughly the same under the poles and the equator, you should have the equatorial radius roughly 0.35% larger than the polar one, that is 6.4E6*3.5E-3=2.2E4 m, about 22 kilometers. What do we see in measurements? Equatorial radius: 6,378.1 km, polar radius: 6,356.8 km, difference: 21.3 kilometers. See, a back-of-the-envelope calculation predicted the equatorial bulge well within its accuracy (by the way, it does not matter whether it is measured over land or over water apart from the tiny effect of a layer of water decreasing the average density of the column of matter to the Earth's core); now let me see you do this with the gravitational or aethereal effect of stars rotating around Earth.

By the way, I'm still waiting for the explanation of "aether votrices" that would set them apart from magic and make them produce predictions that could be checked experimentally. Oh, and stop them from predicting weird stuff with respect to the Langrangian points, which are perfectly accounted for by the usual theory of gravity without an aether vortex messing it all up along the orbit of the main body.

Thorny:

I stand corrected. I'm not sure what I was thinking about (if anything) since the earth's bulge is static and cannot have anything to do with viscosity. That said, my math is not up to the task of actually calculating the magnitude, so I'm glad you weighed in.

[Note to self: confine your comments to that which you have some knowledge.]

By Tim DeLaney (not verified) on 05 Oct 2010 #permalink

71 ..... If the movement of stars produces the earth's bulge, then why is it that this "dynamic inertial force" is felt only by Earth? Shouldn't other planets have bulges in exactly the same plane? Why is it that other planets, and the sun, have bulges that coincide with their own rotational axes? Do you attribute this to coincidence? <\i>

The Earth has an aether ring around it, rotating once a sidereal day. This ring causes a pressure drop wherever the velocity is greater(toward the equator)...Bernoulli's Principle.
Each planet has its own aether ring .

As a crude demo consider 2 washing machines - one with a rotating hub and static tub, the second with the reverse. The first is the HC model.... water and clothes spin out from the center and stick to the tub wall. The second, the GC model? .... the same!<\b><\i>

Um, no. In your analogy, the hub itself--not the water or the clothes--corresponds to the earth. <\i>

The hub corresponds to the solid rigid earth. The water corresponds to the oceans and atmosphere.

If we make the hub out of sufficiently plastic material, it will have a different shape in the two cases you describe.<\i>

The centrifugal forces will be equal in both cases... see Lense & Thirring, Bafour & Bertotti on rel;ative rotation.

If your analogy were valid, then all the planets and the sun (the water and clothes) would be rushing headlong towards the stars. I don't think they are.<\i>

The analogy applies only to the rotating aether envelope around the Earth. Each celestial object may be wrapped in its own aether envelope.

..... Does the (presumed) inability of earth scientists to predict the bulge quantitatively lend any credibility to the GC model?<\i>

NO. The lack of a quantitative prediction based on Newton or GR just diminishes the credibility of the HC model

72 By the way, I'm still waiting for the explanation of "aether votrices" that would set them apart from magic and make them produce predictions that could be checked experimentally. <\i>

Well, we are waiting for the weather bureau to predict the creation and location of future atmospheric vortices, like tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones. Let's wait together.
Fortunately the cosmic rings are stable - based on astronomical records. So we predict the Moon and Sun will stay in their aether orbits around Earth, and the planets and stars around the Sun. If you haven't guessed yet, the aether rings are the neo-Tychonian orbits.

Oh, and stop them from predicting weird stuff with respect to the Langrangian points, which are perfectly accounted for by the usual theory of gravity without an aether vortex messing it all up along the orbit of the main body.<\i>

We predict that the Earth's aether ring will not affect the Lagrangian points, since the Lagrangian points are beyond the aether's atmospheric ring.
By the usual theory of gravity, you must mean the LeSage pushing gravity by ultramondane particles, which produces an inverse square law.

"74 We predict that the Earth's aether ring will not affect the Lagrangian points, since the Lagrangian points are beyond the aether's atmospheric ring."

Ok I'll bite. Could a geocentric system with various ether rings actually have predicted the Lagrangian points, or is this just an afterthought system that can supposedly account for them after the fact? Because from where I sit your aether rings look a lot like a wax nose that can be tweaked around to cover for what look to be actual discrepancies in your system.

And you know some of this is kind of interesting, but I just saw on another blog that not only does Sungneis have a phony PhD as I mentioned above but one of the guys they have presenting on teh Scientific Evidence for geocentrism at that conference is a high school drop out! http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/07/no-ones-perfect-scientific-error…

Well, we are waiting for the weather bureau to predict the creation and location of future atmospheric vortices, like tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones. Let's wait together.

Fortunately the cosmic rings are stable - based on astronomical records. So we predict the Moon and Sun will stay in their aether orbits around Earth, and the planets and stars around the Sun. If you haven't guessed yet, the aether rings are the neo-Tychonian orbits.

If your vortices are stable, why the allusion to real-life vortices of air? Anyway, you are just saying that there is something that has enough force to make everything go around Earth at exactly the same angular velocity, but is otherwise undetectable - it does not interfere with gravity or electromagnetic radiation. Except that it pulls up things on the surface of Earth via Bernoulli's principle, but does not carry the same things with itself due to not interacting with matter ... so how does it exert its pressure and pull things up with the pressure gradient?

Exactly the same problem with the LeSage mechanism; again, if a fluid/gas interacts with the matter immersed into it (enough to cause gravity), it will slow down the same matter when it does not move synchronously with it. In particular, we should see a deterioration of orbits of satellites like Cassini, orbiting Saturn, a very massive planet with an extremely stable orbit (hence it must move synchronously with the aether around it).

74 .... Could a geocentric system with various ether rings actually have predicted the Lagrangian points, or is this just an afterthought system that can supposedly account for them after the fact? Because from where I sit your aether rings look a lot like a wax nose that can be tweaked around to cover for what look to be actual discrepancies in your system.

LeSage gravity is an inverse-square law like Newton's theory. It has the same solutions for the 3-body problem as Newtonian theory.
From where we sit the attempted application of relativity to the Sagnac experiment looks a lot like a wax nose that can be tweaked around to cover for what look to be actual discrepancies...

And you know some of this is kind of interesting, but I just saw on another blog that not only does Sungneis have a phony PhD as I mentioned above but one of the guys they have presenting on teh Scientific Evidence for geocentrism at that conference is a high school drop out!

And another speaker was a clerk at a patent office... Oh wait, that was the revered genius of the relativity ruse.
It never seems to fail - when scientific arguments on content are useless, the focus switches to ad hominem digressions.

76 ...... If your vortices are stable, why the allusion to real-life vortices of air?

Rings of air can be stable, like the jet stream or river eddies. Or the gulf stream, in water. These are analogs of the orbits of Sun, Moon, planets and stars.
A rotating ball of air is an analog of the atmospheric ball of rotating aether.

Anyway, you are just saying that there is something that has enough force to make everything go around Earth at exactly the same angular velocity, but is otherwise undetectable - it does not interfere with gravity or electromagnetic radiation.

If you believe the Earth rotates, then what makes it continue? Or what started it rotating? Don't be surprised if your own questions come right back at you.
If aether exists at Planck dimensions, then its density is orders of magnitude greater than any solid material...

The aether has been detected... but ignored. Besides Sagnac, Wang and Michelson-Gale - here's some other experiments supporting aether.
Foucault pendulum 1851
Stellar aberration Bradley 1727
Fresnel drag 1818-30
Airy failure 1871
Depalma- spinning ball drop 1977
Depalma- Gyro Drop 1977
Quantum red shifts Tifft 1984
Mirabel and Rodriguez superluminality 1994
Aspden Effect 1995
Marinov Plasma Tube 1996
Casimir Effect 1997
Roth Magnetic Memory 1997
Lijun Wang Super-luminality 2000
Gravitomagnetic London Moment 2006
Dayton Miller aether drift 1921
Joos c anistropy 1930
Pound-Rebka c anistropy 1959
Jaseja & Champeny Spinning Mossbauer disc 1963
Silvertooth c anisotropy 1986
DeWitte coax cable anistoropy 1991
Galaev aether properties2002
Pioneer 10,11 anomaly dual aether 1972 - 2004
Faraday Rotor Generator 1831
Michelson-Morley c anistropy 1887
Shapiro Venus radar anistropy 1969
CMB dipole beam 1996
Global Positioning System vortex 1993
Atmospheric circulation aether pattern

It should be clear by now - The LESAGE PARTICLES ARE THE SOURCE OF PUSHING GRAVITY!

Except that it pulls up things on the surface of Earth via Bernoulli's principle, but does not carry the same things with itself due to not interacting with matter ... so how does it exert its pressure and pull things up with the pressure gradient?

The difference in aether density and pressure between the ground and aether flow above reduces the normal pressure.... according to Bernoulli's principle.
Aether does interact with matter... weakly. Where was this stated otherwise?

Exactly the same problem with the LeSage mechanism; again, if a fluid/gas interacts with the matter immersed into it (enough to cause gravity), it will slow down the same matter when it does not move synchronously with it. In particular, we should see a deterioration of orbits of satellites like Cassini, orbiting Saturn, a very massive planet with an extremely stable orbit (hence it must move synchronously with the aether around it).

Please google the LeSage theory to correct your confusion - Gravity is caused by the absorption of LeSage aether in cosmic objects, causing a constant reduction in aether pressure on the bottom of surface objects.

Cassini is floating in a ring of aether that forms its orbital path. Ditto for Saturn. They are not moving through the aether flow but floating with it - like a log in a river. Moon and planet are co-moving with their aether rings..... no friction - no energy loss - no deterioration of orbits.

If you believe the Earth rotates, then what makes it continue? Or what started it rotating?

It is rotating in a vacuum, relatively far from other masses, so there is nothing to take its angular momentum, just as a flywheel in a vacuum sheath keeps going. The tidal forces from the Moon slow it down somewhat, but that is quite a subtle effect. It was "started" by the planetary formation mechanism, when a significant proportion of collisions that eventually formed Earth were off-center and hence changed the angular momentum of the proto-Earth.

The aether has been detected... but ignored. Besides Sagnac, Wang and Michelson-Gale - here's some other experiments supporting aether.

Links, please. The Casimir effect, for example, is a well-described quantum phenomenon and has nothing to do with aether.

Aether does interact with matter... weakly.

If it interacts enough to observably influence matter via Bernoulli's principle, it should interact enough with matter to produce drag whenever something is moved through it. That is not observed.

Cassini is floating in a ring of aether that forms its orbital path.

So, as the Cassini arrived on its orbit, it instantly created its corotating aether ring without any extra energy expense. Yet you claim that partially absorbing aether flows is very much observable, as that is what creates gravity. As they say in Britain, "that is very ... interesting".

"77 LeSage gravity is an inverse-square law like Newton's theory. It has the same solutions for the 3-body problem as Newtonian theory.
From where we sit the attempted application of relativity to the Sagnac experiment looks a lot like a wax nose that can be tweaked around to cover for what look to be actual discrepancies..."

No, you didn't really answer my question. Look, we are talking about two different sets of orbits here, one for a heliocentric solar system and another for the geocentric solar system. I do not think they would have the same Lagrange points. But our solar system has Lagrange points that correspond to the heliocentric orbits. It seemed like you utilized the ether to explain that (away), but maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I do not think the Lagrange points would be the same for both systems.

I did not mean to be harsh in my post above about high school dropouts. It is just that especially in today's world you do have to decide who you are going to believe. That Sungenis fellow passes himself off like some kind of expert but then you find that his doctor "degree" is as phony as a three dollar bill. And he is involved in all sorts of other shady shenanigans. Then you find out that one of the science presenters at this conference is a film producer and high school drop out. The whole thing just looks fishy to me. Sorry that is just my opinion. Especially with all the crap out there in the Web you have to decide who is credible and who is not. To me these guys are not.

Fortunately the cosmic rings are stable - based on astronomical records. So we predict the Moon and Sun will stay in their aether orbits around Earth, and the planets and stars around the Sun.

Except, of course, for the "æther ring" of Mercury, which precesses around the sun ... for no particular reason, right?

Is the speed of light constant in your looney-tune kookverse?

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 08 Oct 2010 #permalink

"81 Except, of course, for the "æther ring" of Mercury, which precesses around the sun ... for no particular reason, right?"

Well yeah and all the other planets rotate around their axis but not the earth? Why? Because its the center of the universe. Other planets in other solar systems go around their sun and the planets in our solar system go around our sun. But the earth does not go around the sun. Why? Because its the center of the universe of course. I'm not trying to make fun, but this does not make sense to me.

Don't forget that the stars go around the sun, too! From Alpha Centauri, 4 ly away, to the most distant stars several billion ly away -- all going around the sun.

In 24 hours.

And for some strange reason, the apparent axis of rotation appears to go through the north pole of the Earth rather than the sun because of ... Look! The Wingéd Victory of Samothrace!

And the planets, which supposedly orbit the sun in the Tychonian system, appear to also go around the Earth, too, because those damn "æther rings" are more like "æther cycloid-epicycles", no doubt whirling around because of ... magical æther bunnies.

And space probes launched from the unmoving Earth start spinning around the Earth exactly the same as everything else going in æther cycloid-epicycles, because ... they are sprinkled with æther pixie dust by the magical æther bunnies.

And that's more "scientific" than all of modern astronomy, cosmology, and physics.

I'm not trying to make fun

I strongly urge you to reconsider your position on this. The kooks spewing this bullshit have no respect for reason or science, and their bullshit deserves none in return.

but this does not make sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to AMDG et al., either, but they simply do not care about making sense.

By Owlmirror (not verified) on 08 Oct 2010 #permalink

I just stumbled across this blog while searching for some good images to use in my talk on Copernicus as a plagiarist of medieval Islamic astronomers (it's true!). :)

Overall, you give a nice summary of the arguments, but you do have a couple of things wrong. First, Copernicus' model DID require epicycles. And it required as many as or more than Ptolemy's model did because Copernicus was not trying to reject geocentrism so much as he was trying to reject Ptolemy and his equant which contradicted the Aristotelian notion that celestial movement is made of constant circular motion about the center of the universe, i.e. the earth. To Copernicus, it was better to have the sun in the center (with the universe being so large that the earth APPEARED to be in the center) with all the planets rotating about that center than it was to have the equant with a center of constant motion being empty space. One of the main reasons no one cared about Copernicus' theory early on is because it was no better than Ptolemy's model when it came to prediction.

The other error is this idea that Galileo was right about everything. If you read his Dialogue, you'll see that his main argument in favor of the heliocentric theory is his theory of tides, a theory which is WRONG, violating his own laws of physics which he had set up (laws which were, by and large, correct). When it comes to astronomy, Galileo had the benefit of using a telescope to see interesting things (an invention he selfishly kept to himself, ignoring Kepler's numerous requests to use it), and he had the benefit of a wealthy patron, allowing him the ability to write a text like the Dialogue and disseminate it to a large audience. If he hadn't been so full of himself, he might not have been in such trouble with the Church, especially when the Pope himself was Galileo's patron for a time.

You also missed one of the big weaknesses of Ptolemy's universe: the lunar model. In order to track the moon's position accurately, Ptolemy was forced to sacrifice accuracy of distance and the moon, under Ptolemy's model, actually varies by a distance of between 33 and 64 earth radii! That means that the moon should appear twice as large at various points in its orbit. Something it never does. This is an error which was noticed by the Muslim astronomers and is something they tried to correct.

Anyway, just correcting some of your historical facts. :)

THOSE COMMENTS BY AMDG AT 32,33 ff ARE RIGHT ON TARGET. THIS INDIVIDUAL IS A REAL HUMAN HC SLICER AND DICER MACHINE. IS ETHAN STILL STANDING OR HAS HE TOSSED IN THE WHITE TOWEL?

JAMES PHILLIPS

By JAMES PHILLIPS (not verified) on 24 Dec 2010 #permalink

Sphere Coupler states at #14: "I am truly mystified that these people do not even believe their own church." He then refers to a ridiculous piece from an extreme anti-Catholic propaganda rag as if to prove his point.

To set things straight -- that article is spewing out half truths at best. Fact of the matter is the Catholic Church has formally condemned heliocentrism a number of times and has never -- I repeat NEVER -- recanted on those condemnations. Window dressing with a Galileo statue or informal statements with no Magisterial backing at the Vatican means nothing in terms of true Catholic teaching. But, of course, The Times will never let facts stand in the way of spreading their anti-Catholic venom.

James Phillips

By James Phillips (not verified) on 24 Dec 2010 #permalink

Looks like James Phillips stopped reading the comments after #33.

AMDG hsa left the field with tail tucked safely, after responses #79 onwards were too hot to handle :)

Somethings bear repeating so please bear with me as I repeat what some including Galileo may not wish to hear. It's the simple truth and doesn't take a rocket scientist to discern it. It's a matter of public record -- so here goes.

Sphere Coupler states at #14: "I am truly mystified that these people do not even believe their own church." He then refers to a ridiculous piece from an extreme anti-Catholic propaganda rag as if to prove his point.

To set things straight -- that article is spewing out half truths at best. Fact of the matter is the Catholic Church has formally condemned heliocentrism a number of times and has never -- I repeat NEVER -- recanted on those condemnations. Window dressing with a Galileo statue or informal statements with no Magisterial backing at the Vatican means nothing in terms of true Catholic teaching. But, of course, The Times will never let facts stand in the way of spreading their anti-Catholic venom.

James Phillips

By James Phillips (not verified) on 29 Jun 2011 #permalink

Sungenis has won the argument, resoundingly. My advice; read his argument before offering any rebuttal. As for the anti-Catholic element that has posted here; it is evident you are seething to see your false ideas being challenged. Ha ha!

By Tony Cooper (not verified) on 09 Jul 2011 #permalink

Answer me this scientists - where is Uranus on your models?

By Javante Curry (not verified) on 29 Feb 2012 #permalink

It's behind you.

You may need both hands to find it, mind.

there is little enough to be learned about astronomy in the article originally posted. the progress of the commentary to the article is *enormously* informative about the current state of the war to the knife that has always existed between established power and information.

when you devote your life to a palpable lie, spending your days developing and promoting supporting lies is only natural. normal people fail to realize this.

By misanthropope (not verified) on 24 Sep 2012 #permalink

Y the heck would it be geocentric and where is the planet Uranus

oh and it was copernicus who said the Earth was Heliocentric not Galileo

Hello!

Greetings from Mumbai, India

We, at BBC Worldwide, are producing a series involving human-interest stories, based on history and mythology, where the storytelling style is modern docu-contemporary. The series is essentially an unprecedented, definitive list of the people, moments and stories that have contributed to India as we know it today. This list covers the most iconic faces, incidents and things in Indian history, across different categories.

We would like to use some material we found online, as visual support for this series. Please do let us know if you hold the rights for the following images and if yes then please let us know how we can proceed on acquiring this visual as well as getting permissions to use the same. We will, of course, provide an acknowledgment/credit/ footage courtesy on the show.

Link:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/09/13/geocentrism-was-gali…

Hope to hear from you at the earliest. We really appreciate the help.

Thanking you,

Warm Regards,

Tangella Madhavi

Researcher
BBC Worldwide
manzilechar@gmail.com

By Tangella Madhavi (not verified) on 24 Aug 2013 #permalink

Great article! The YouTube video "Geocentric Model with Sun and Venus over 165 Years" shows Venus phases with accurate sizes. This also explains the venus phases. The crescent being large and the full phase being small in size. That's a good answer for heliocentrists who forget about Ptolemy's epicycles . Copernicus did not include them in his model. Now with Mars retrograde motion we can see that Ptolemy was more ahead in his time, whereas Copernicus was influenced by Pope pleasers, who worked on the sun centred system to satisfy sun worshipping Roman priests at the time. Also, Copernicus only had a formal education in religious law. When his theory was presented to the Pope at that time, he was so pleased that he offered a gift. And everyone wants to spit about Galileo?!

Kat from commentary 25 is right. Citing Eisntein

""The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems". - Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, 1938.

Of course that do not menas Geocentrism is right. THat book is just nosense.

@Andres #103 (and Kat #25): Kat's first statement is correct ("Translational motion is always relative,") but is not relevant to the heliocentricity question. It is the Earth's _rotation_ which induces an apparent motion of the Sun about the Earth. That rotation is directly observable, and cannot be waved away with sophistic "relative motion" arguments.

Specifically, the precession of a Foucault pendulum can only occur in a rotating frame of reference. If the Earth were not rotating, then such a pendulum would not precess.

By Michael Kelsey (not verified) on 09 Apr 2014 #permalink

@ Michael 104

Foucault pendulum does not have to do with the rotation aroudn the sun but with the rotation around its own axis.

According to GR, the sun si a more conveniently system of refence because (due to his large mass) is more closely a inertial frame. But not because there is a fundamental diference.

Do not get me wrong, Moder geocentrism is just sillyness.

@Andres #105: You're quite right, that the Foucault pendulum tests (and demonstrates) the rotation of Earth about its axis. That's rather the point, of course! Geocentrism posits that the _daily_ visual motion of the Sun is caused by a true movement of the Sun around the Earth, along with slower motions of the Sun about the Earth to induce the annual periodicity. Heliocentrism posits that the Sun is "at rest" (locally), while the Earth and other planets move around it, each one rotating all the while.

GR and Newtonian gravity make essentially identical predictions (Mercury's precession being the largest observable difference), and identical claims about relative ease of use, with respect to geo- vs. heliocentrism. We certainly _could_ do celestial mechanics to high precision in a geocentric frame, but it would be extraordinarily awkward and complicated.

By Michael Kelsey (not verified) on 20 May 2014 #permalink

Most people of faith I know would accept heliocentrism as a common-sense fact of science that does not create a conflict with the bible. "The sun rose" is not the same thing as "the earth is fixed in space as the center of the entire universe" ... duh. But apparently, as I learned a couple of days ago in a tiny little church I was visiting, there is a minority who seem to want to die on the hill of "geocentrism is not only true, it proves that science is corrupt!"

To those who believe the Earth does not rotate on its axis: How do you explain geosynchronous satellites?

While it's true that we can map one frame-of-reference coordinate system onto the other, it's another thing entirely once we start talking about *gravity* and trying to get the sun screaming around the Earth 584 million miles every day. (Not to mention the farthest stars!)

I believe in God, but I can't see why He would design the universe in a way that looks simple and elegant and brilliant on the surface but behind the scenes is actually Goldbergishly convoluted and unfathomably energy-wasteful — all just to have the luxury of prophets writing about the sun rising and setting without making any lexical absolutists upset? It's ludicrous.

Good grief, people ... God gave you a brain; use it! Stop fighting a stubborn and foolish battle thinking you are somehow protecting the bible. You're only hurting the cause for those who sincerely work to reconcile all the wonder of this amazing universe that is delivered to them through their faith *and* through science. This is not a war God wants you to wage.

If the universe revolves arround the earth in 24 hours the distant stars would be traveling arround the earth at many times the speed of light. Does not modern science say that this is impossable.

Geosynchronous satellites! Are you for real? We can do anything. Have a careful think about what would be required from a practical perspective, taking into account ALL the alleged heliocentric dynamics and then have a look at those tin cans. And then the triangulation precision of the GPS? Sure thing, here's a picture of a pile of hair with a sign "Nazis did this". Vain imaginings.

"I am also interested in any scientific evidence which could disprove it."

I doubt it.

The Mars Rover is an example of how the geocentric model is wrong. It was piloted with the heliocentric model and fuelled for it.

Yossarian is correct!
see #22
The enormous beach ball theory is clearly correct.
It furthermore explains coronal mass ejections, when God releases the air from the beach ball it blows them off of the Solar surface.
This also explains Sunspots, he accidentally blows temporary holes in the Solar disk with air from the deflating beach ball. (after all the Sun like the Earth is flat)
You may object and ask how this explains the phases of Venus? That is simple. When the ball is blown up it's larger volume enters the shadow of the sun which only gives the impression of phases. (and you thought only the moon had a dark side.)

If one were on another planet whether it was associated with our particular star or on a planet circling another star you would from your vantage appear to be at rest and the universe including the earth would appear to be rotating about you. You would see the earth rotating and orbiting the Sun.

The problem that geocentrists have is why according to their "theory" only on earth is this illusion reality and on all other places it is not.

If I drop a ball from my hand is the universe rising to meet it or is the ball falling to earth? While they appear the same, one seems ludicrous and the other reasonable. One follows demonstrable physics and the other a fanciful notion.

All geocentric arguments apply equally to Marscentrism, Venuscentrism, Jupitercentrism etc. on out to the furthermost galaxies.

What test do the geocentrists propose to ferret out the "true" center of the universe? It must be a test that yields positive for the earth yet negative when applied on another planet.

If there is no such test, does that mean everywhere is the center of the universe or nowhere? (This is what Einstein meant.)

This aether, it spins the universe yet leaves the earth unmoved?
How, why?

A geocentric universe means most of the visible universe was apparently spinning about the earths axis 10 billion years before the earth came into existence why? Is this reasonable?

So if this planet was off limits to the rest of the universe how did its matter manage to accumulate here? How is it meteorites break free from their aether bondage and fall to earth? If space bound objects are trapped in this aether goo shouldn't they suddenly accelerate upon leaving the aether and entering the atmosphere? Why isn't light bent traveling to or from aether free earth? Not the refraction of the atmosphere but a second refraction at the aether to the aether-free interface.

The laws of physics apply here as well as in the rest of the universe with the exception of a "static" earth? Is this reasonable? Is this necessary?

The aether was abandoned because it made no difference with or without it. The same is true for geocentrism. If it changes nothing and explains nothing where is the need for such a ludicrous proposition?

Louis XiV of France is quoted by Salvador Dali as saying "L'universe c'est moi" , "I am the Universe" . Thus the true center of the universe lies 3 inches behind the navel of the Sun King. I knew it all along.

Pardon me while i powder my wig. ... Where is my silver snuff box? I discern that the servants are in need of a good thrashing n'est-ce pas? I hope the doctor is bringing his leeches I feel my humors are imbalanced is it choleric or is it phlegmatic? I always get it wrong. It is probably sanguine then again it could be melancholic. Oh well, adieu mon ami.

P.S. On the question of geosynchronous satellites, they stay up because of large doses of Phlogiston of course. The property of levity thus endowed holds the satellites up, simple.

A geocentric universe means most of the visible universe was apparently spinning about the earths axis 10 billion years before the earth came into existence why?

Those pushing it want the bible to be correct, hence a universe that came into existence with the earth already there.

Geocentrism is purely a christian fundamentalist faith, and therefore immune to any logical explanation.

The aether is a magic wand to fix the remaining problems of the christian fringe faith of geocentrism and is likewise immune to rationality.

Of course they are immune to reason the aether has breeched their skulls and entered their brains causing an imbalance of the four humors. Leeches are the proscribed cure. Use most liberally. When the pressure is relieved all will become clear. I have it on the highest authority.

"If I wasn't Alexander, I would want to be Diogenes". Alexandros basileus. Corinth 336 BCE.

Mon dieu, I have made the most embarrasing error. "Leeches are the proscribed cure" should read "Leaches are the prescribed cure.". However with my Doctor one can never be sure.

Yeah Venus and all the planets and the sun and the moon and the entire 'universe' is a round ball of material that spins inside the 8000 mile in diameter CAVE that we all live in and affectionately call Earth. All the stars and sun and moon are all spinning the same direction the moon is slightly slower by 50 minutes and is used to keep the sun in proper positioning.

Not joking.
Not guessing.

wildeheretic.com

Learn....

"Yeah Venus and all the planets and the sun and the moon and the entire ‘universe’ is a round ball of material that spins inside the 8000 mile in diameter CAVE that we all live in and affectionately call Earth. All the stars and sun and moon are all spinning the same direction the moon is slightly slower by 50 minutes and is used to keep the sun in proper positioning"

Yeh. this. The entire universe is on earth. Astronomers use the Doppler effect to measure the distance of galaxies by their red shifted light. Red shifted light was proven to be an illogical method of determining distance based on particle chains between redshifted galaxies and non-red shifted galaxies. So the method for determining distance is wrong.

Also light speed is immeasurable, due to inconsistencies in time-keeping or clock synchronization, thus every measure of distance by light speed is an estimate/assumption. the objects in the sky, all of them, are much smaller and much closer to earth. And they appear that way, it is entirely possible the sun and moon are roughly the same size.

the entire universe is on earth, and is earth. a view of this is already imagined in science by the proposed 14 billion year 'light horizen' in all directions surrounding the planet. doesn that make earth the center of the universe?

By Yared Yahu (not verified) on 17 Mar 2015 #permalink

3,100 miles away from earth.. not 93 million.. any 6th grader could triangulate this.. to bad they are all brainwashed by then

By HIesler Jujubean (not verified) on 20 Mar 2015 #permalink

Red shifted light was proven to be an illogical method of determining distance based on particle chains between redshifted galaxies and non-red shifted galaxies.

Uhm, a tip for you. Claiming it isn't proving it.

It's not even *illogical* in any sense or form of the word, either. If you'd said "inaccurate", there would be at least some wiggle-room for you to defend that statement, but there's bugger all reason for your claim of "illogical".

We KNOW that the universe is bigger than you claim because we've sent a probe much much further than that.

Also light speed is immeasurable, due to inconsistencies in time-keeping or clock synchronization

Not true of time-keeping and therefore not true of light.

Sorry, you're the one brainwashed. This is what all cults do. The next step on the path is to turn you into a "martyr" by making you a murderer.

ISIS and you have almost nothing to differentiate yourselves from each other, other than you've not yet had the "opportunity" yet to be a killer.

Sanity check for the insane.

8000 miles radius cave? Since we know by actual driving a car or train, that Europe or the continental USA are over a thousand miles across, the error in pointing depending on where you are in those continents is of the order of 5 degrees.

Not to mention there's not enough room for an earth the size it is to exist inside that size sphere.

And if they're all on the surface of the cave, then there should be no annual shift of the stars that are "no closer" than the background stars.

Yet we do.

Moreover, the parallax is inversely related to the shift of light frequencies, and there would be NO REASON for that to be the case if geocentrism were correct and redshift were a shibboleth of scientists.