I was simply pointing out how those arguments come up. I don't think it's right to use arguments you know to be flawed just becuase your opponents can't refute them. But if someone says they don't accept GR but instead believe in absolute space and time and an imobile earth, is not acceptable to ask "well if you believe that then how do you explain the parallax?"

__________________
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

Astronomy wrote:

I don't know if it is unscientific. The theory that the earth is just another planet in the solar system falls into this category, also. A stationary earth with the sun and its satellites (the other 8 planets) circling a fixed earth is just as feasible as the heliocentric alternative. The use of the heliocentric system is a preference. Is this unscientific? It is difficult to test these ideas.

I do not think that any astronomer, astrophysicist, or cosmologist today would believe in the Ptolemaic ideas. The impossibility of having all of those massive objects in the Universe whizzing around the earth daily at such great distances would rule all of that out. We would need to give up all of our present science in order to imagine Ptolemaic ideas being possible. Of course, nothing is to prevent anybody from believing anything. Having such outlandish ideas considered possible is another matter. I do not think that Ptolemy's ideas will now be of much (other than historical) interest.

ljbrs #-o

__________________
"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

One thing I have noticed is that frequently those who show preference toward a geocentric model for the solar system also show preference toward certain faith based belief systems...just an observation.

__________________
An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

Not astronomers, astrophysicists, or cosmologists, but just physicists, eh?

Then what's the point of making it?

Astrophysics is a branch or type of Physics.

The idea of having all of those celestial objects whizzing around the universe with Earth at the center would never appeal to any real physicist.

This kind of outlandish idea concerning an Earth-centered Universe would only appeal to somebody without the faintest understanding of physics. Ptolemy had some interesting (if wrong) ideas for his time, but he was not a physicist as we would understand such a scientist today.

ljbrs #-o

__________________
"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

The geocentric frame is an illusion. We know this because all points in space are equally applicable to the interpretation of a geocentric frame-of-reference. A man in Tokyo sees himself as the center of the universe. You see yourself as the center of the unvierse. A man on Mars sees himself as the center of the universe. That's WHY we use the term "frame". It's a frame of reference, a point of view, a unique perspective based on location, rotation and velocity.

The frame described in Geocentrism (the theory that Earth is at the physical center of the universe) DOES EXIST! But only as one of an infinite number of geocentric frames. The theory of Geocentrism insists that this is a preferred frame but that is incorrect. Preferred frames are in direct contradiction with every day observations.

So yes, Science has indeed established which model is correct. The Acentric model of the universe and Heliocentric solar system. The universe has infinite geocentric frames and you cannot establish which one is preferred. If the universe has infinite centers then another way of interpreting that is that the universe has no center at all. Any theory that requires a center (such as Geocentrism) is wrong by default of the fact that we cannot establish a center. It may not mean that the particular frame-of-reference doesn't exist, or can't exist along with other frames. What it does mean is that no matter what path of logic you use to legitimize the theory of Geocentrism, you're left with the unescapable result of validating ALL frames. Therefore the universe must be Acentric and we are left with two equally valid possibilities... either nothing exists at the center of the universe, or *everything* exists at the center of the universe. And as it just so happens the latter possibility agrees with a very popular theory describing the birth of the Universe. 8)

On a side note: The more of these sorts of philosophical arguments I read the more I understand that science is as much a test of will and perseverance as it is the gathering of objective evidence. This particular debate for example has been successfully argued against for litterally hundreds of years and yet people still continue to bring it up and debate it. It's not necessary to understand why. But it is necessary for real science to persevere and not give up on such debates because if history is any indication I expect people will continue to argue in favor of theories like Geocentrism for centuries to come.

__________________
"Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time... and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

Quartermain says:

I have said not much more than this in the context of the quote. I do not accept the illusion allusion though.

What I originally said after the quote is:

Quartermain continues:

per GR, this is correct. GR foundationally disallows centers (though today scientists are looking for "preferred frames", probably because acentrism is hard).

Scientists want to make the CMB a preferred frame.

Quartermain cont.:

Science has stated its preference for a heliocentric solar system within the postulated acentric universe.

Quartermain Cont.:

And this is where the underlying assumptions of GR leave you.

Quartermain cont.:


Because the assumptions (the foundational structure of all your proofs) have excluded the possibility of having a center. This does not prove a center may not exist.

Quartermain cont.:

I was not using this path to legitimize Geocentrism. I do not need to legitimize it, and GR based science can only dismiss it by pointing to its assumptions. I am not aying that someday empirical observations may not be able to dismiss it (or prove it), but this has not yet occured to my knowledge.

Quartermain cont.:

Per the assumptions opf GR, but not necassarily reality.

Quartermain cont.:

Popular, yes. Correct, TBD.

Quartermain cont.:

Translation: science is 50% dogma and 50% gathering proof to maintain the dogma?

Quartermain cont.:

Maybe because there is some substance to it?

Quartermain cont.:

Even against large bodies of opinion...

You are right about science and philosophy. They cannot be seperated. Not even "real science".

ljbrs says:


Maybe they are not "whizzing" around. Maybe they are embedded in a shell largely made up of less than Planck length particles (i.e., dark matter, space foam, aether) which is rotating. Maybe the relative velocity of the celestial objects to each other within this shell is << "whizzing". 8)

Not much. Which is why I asked the question, and I don't see an answer yet. I know what I mean by "Geocentrism." What is the definition of "geocentrism"? Is it as meaningless as I suggested?

Umm, wouldn't that shell then be whizzing around? Aren't you just moving the problem instead of removing it?

A problem I see with Geocentrism (amongst many others) is that they not only want to use the Earth as the centre of the universe (which can, with a large stretch of the imagination, be defended in GR), but also and even more as the centre of the Solar System. And that is one thing GR says nothing about (about the centre: it says a lot about other aspects of course), but Newtonian physics does. And the center is the gravitational centre, not really the Sun but close. There is not one law of Nature (or physics or whatever) that can make the Sun turn around the Earth while the Earth stands still. They both move around a common centre, but the impact of the sun is much bigger. So you can say that the centre is the Sun, or you can be really precise and say that the centre is the baryonic centre (spelling?). Else you not only have to throw out GR but almost everything science ever produced, and just start from scratch, without any reason why it would be so.

__________________
Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

I was trying to make a joke, sorry. "geocentrism" on this board is basically Geocentrism without the restriction that other reference frames are invalid. It is not meaningless.

And maybe they are not there at all.

Any maybe this rotating shell of Planck particles is centred on the Sun. Have you evidence to distinguish between these three scenarios? Put the Bible down. It is not a science book.

__________________
"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

I was just referring to the quotes from the physicists.

Amen!

__________________
An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

Ahem, aperson!

__________________
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

Ahem,

amen :P

__________________
"I'm making wheatloaf. It's like meatloaf, only with wheat"
"Isn't that just...bread?"

My simplistic take on the issue.

Bot heliocentric and geocentric theories are wrong.

Both the earth and the sun are moving, neither is static.

In larger scale the whole solar system is rapidly moving so it makes no sense to claim that anything there was static. In smaller scale, heliocentric theory seems to make more sense since calculating different planet's location over time in our local systems coordinates gets a lot easier, the formulas in geocentric case would get a lot more complicated.

That said, it is to be noted that neither the sun or any planet is the gravitational center of the solar system, since the gravity of the planets also wobbles the sun somewhat.

So a "gravitycentric" system would be a more exact term. Everything in our solar system seems to go around a point in space that is our solar system's gravitational center, it turns out this point is somewhere close to the center of our sun but not at that exact spot. Again, in larger scale the gravitational center is also on the move in our galaxy so it is not static either, also the galaxy is moving so there we go...

Fram says:

The shell acts as a matrix, and is postulated to be less than Planck dimensions. It is basically an aether, and yes the matrix is rotating, but none of the baryonic matter really "feels" the rotation (though the gravitational effect may be felt).

Fram says:

This may be the case if all the planets were thrown into a solar system sized vacuum, but not necassarily in the real universe. This would violate Mach's principle, which itself is embedded in GR. The earth could be the center if the rest of the universe was correctly configured.

Yorkshireman says (referring to the Geocentric aether):

This is also in the realm of possible. Modern cosmology does posit that 96% of the universe's mass is composed of dark energy and dark matter, which is posited by most scientists to be less than Planck level (nonbaryonic). It seems evryone has some interest in non-baryonic matter.

Yorkshireman says:

No, and neither do you. The amazing fact is that this is the situation we are in.

Astrronomy says:

It has to. GR is formulated as an acentric system. If it said otherwise, it would not be internally consistent.

Astronomy says:

Sure it does. All reference frames are equivalent in GR.

Astronomy continues:

From an absolute reference frame they would look different, but GR posits there is no absolute reference frame. We could make models, and the models would look different, but models are referenced to an absolute reference frame (whioch per GR does not exist).

Astronomy says:

Okhams Razor (and related statements) is not science and is countered by other philosophical principles. See Mario Bunge, The Myth of Simplicity (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1963).

I wouldn't even call it close to the center of the Sun, since it is outside the Sun, and the Sun is 700 thousand kilometers in radius.

I also said:

__________________
"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

I'm horribly confused.

Everyone seems to be in general agreement that there is no prefered reference frame. GR says they're all valid.

So, what's the controversy?

__________________
"I'm making wheatloaf. It's like meatloaf, only with wheat"
"Isn't that just...bread?"

What's the confusion?

Why do we keep having these geocentricity threads that come to the exact same conclusion every time?

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Search me, ToSeek. It seems like an awful lot of navel-gazing. :-?
I think I can guess trth_skrs agenda, but I don't see why I should have to guess. I wish him/her to actually state their point.

__________________
"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

If you're confused about that, I've got a couple forums to show you.

Well, I don't really see that everyone's coming to the same conclusion...there's the rub, so to speak. The theoretical physicists are focused solely on GR and it's arcane meaning. I'm focused on the fact that JPL and every university astronomy dept. that I've googled up uses a heliocentric solar system model and I think trth_skr is focused on somehow using GR to support some type of faith based belief for geocentrism. Now, I could be wrong as it's beginning to confuse me as well, now that I really think about it! :roll:

__________________
An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!