N C More says:

There is no difference between a model (or coordinate transform) and what you see on those sites. It is assumed by the people who maintain those sites (as it has been for most of the world for the last few hundred years) that the earth and planets orbit the sun. That is why they model it that way. It really proves nothing. In the Tycho Brahe type system, the planets revolve around the sun, too, but the sun revolves around the earth.

Like I said before, evidence for GR is evidence against Geocentrism.

This is precisely why...
If they're really trying to disprove geocentricity then you're right, their arguments don't hold, according to current theory any frame of reference can be considered to be stationary. But usually I see these arguments made against Geocentricity. If you doubt GR and relativism and want to have an absolute physics where it can be said that the earth frame really is stationary then you do have the problem of explaining the motions of all the bodies in the universe. Newtons laws work pretty well for any system of bodies if you consider the center of gravity to be stationary, the center of gravity of the solor system is most definitely not the earth though. And in a Newtonian universe, the earth is observed to move and rotate.

Using GR to support geocentricity and then denying GR to allow an absolute frame is contradictory. You can't have it both ways.

That would be very interesting indeed. But as this is a GR effect, for a new theory to not be falsified before it was even published, it would need to agree with GR in every way so far tested. A theory that did this while retaining absolute space and time would be a very tall order indeed.

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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.

Ockham's Razor is a logical tool, not one that can be driven by religion.

We've had this over and over again on these forums. GR was not simply invented to explain away the Michelson-Morley result. It explains much more than that. It makes dozens of predictions which are routinely confirmed.

So Geocentrism is your comfort-blanket. Well, go ahead. But it's not supported any more than as-yet-undiscovered-distant-planet-centrism. Regarding Tegmark, If I stand in a field in a thick fog, I can see perhaps 30 feet in all directions before my vision is obscured. It does not make me the centre of the fog, or the centre of the field.

How far away do you think the Moon is?

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

You did, in this post.
I did not say you did. The qualifications that I was talking about were the ones that you personally were using to accept or reject models.

I didn't "reject" it but rather pointed out the derivation of the colloquialism, "sun rise and sun set". Which, BTW, is correct. Historically people did embrace geocentrism and the language reflected that belief. By using this phrase as "common language" I did not see JPL as actually embracing a geocentric model per say. I can't seem to find any statements therein that say the Sun is orbiting the Earth.

As to what criteria I'm personally using? Let's just say I'm content to throw in my lot with NASA and Cornell's astronomy department. I usually tend to go with a trusted expert opinion. Just a peculiar trait of mine, I guess.

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

Of course most Tychonian apologists neglect the fact that the Sun orbits the Earth-Moon barycenter, not the Earth itself. In fact, the only things in this system that directly orbit the Earth are the Moon and our artificial satellites. Not a very geocentric system at all!

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

A question for trth_skr:

Do you believe that the Bible ought to have any weight at all as scientific evidence for a particular cosmological model?

Fact? could you elaborate? Thanks, CM

Excellently phrased question. A follow-up (or, perhaps, the same question rephrased):

Assuming trth_skr's characterization of Einstein's dilema is correct (I'm aware of its shortcomings...) What basis would Einstein have for choosing #1?

I wasn't aware that he "chose" at all but rather stated that there is no preferred frame of reference. Am I mistaken in this thinking?

BTW, here's an interesting article from The Skeptic Tank. Just to let everyone know, The Skeptic Tank is well, very skeptical and not known for diplomacy, ie...extremely blunt (some would go so far as to call it rude).

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

The BA frowns upon links to sites with strong language, but I don't follow the logic either. The passage which starts "here's the train wreck" and ends with "good grief" doesn't do much but present the ICR point of view, and the "argument" against it is mostly contained in the "good grief".

Well, I just re-read the article and couldn't find any "dirty language" therein. I said that the Skeptic Tank was blunt and rather rude but I felt the author pointed out some of the real short comings when one tries to utilize science to "prove" faith based beliefs. We see the other side of this argument here all the time, just felt the flip side should have some "air time" so to speak.

However, if the BA wants to remove the link then obviously he can.

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

Sorry about that, my mistake. I must have misread "frocking"

On the other hand, I think my point--that he avoids the issue--between the "train wreck" and "good grief" is a good one.

Yorkshireman says:

True, but after the fog lifts I can see what's beyond the 30'. Tegmark's statement about what lies beyond is only by faith in a theory.

Tom Ames asks:

question for trth_skr:

Not in the context of strictly physical roof. I am not the one who brought it up. Someone asked if it was apart of my "motivation" to study the issue. I gave an honest reply.

rus_watters asks:

See this message:

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...=392963#392963

Einstein and most all modern scientists (documented here) will automatically dismiss any observation of earth as a center as a matter of dogma.

I said:

I want to say, also, this is not meant to be an attack on Tegmark. Rather it is a common occurence where theories are invlolved. Very few people would automatically consider geo or Geocentrism.

So since the math of solar system dynamics and orbits is simpler in a heliocetnric frame, God must have not wanted the Earth at the center of the universe, by this rationale.

So what you're really wary about is the gauge invariance of electromagnetism. This is curious, because these concepts are what allow for you to, for example, have a computer screen.

Truth Seeker hasn't read the biography obviously. The truth is, Einstein didn't hear about M-M until well after the fact and then wasn't really surprised by them at all, sort of asking people "what did you expect"?

By the way if you buy into luminiferous aether, you'd have to have a pretty strangely coincident frame for it. If the result isn't null and luminiferous aether exists, then geocentricity is false absolutely since the aether frame of rest would be different from that of the Earth's.

Just a little interesting paradox in geocentric logic that gets missed.

And interesting idea, but one that's a bit too anti-pragmatic for my liking. If redshifts are not measuring sticks then why do redshift dependent effects look like measuring sticks? Why do we see Lyman-alpha forests? Why do we see structure behave in the way it does? Why the finger of God effect? Why redshift structure distortion? Why the results of time dilations associated with SN-light curves?

To adequately come up with a new and alternative explanation for redshifts, one has to answer these questions, not just trumpet skepticism.

Sorry for the late reply, had forgotten about this one.
Let me ge this straight: if you encapsulate a large object (planet, star, ...) in 'matter' of less than Planck dimensions, you eliminate the properties of that object with reference to the rest of space? So such a shell acts as an antigravity device, and perhaps as a faster than light travel device as well? Can someone explain if this makes any sense at all, because it's looks very dubious to me, but I'm not well grounded in these subjects.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

You know, I think I understand where trth_skr is coming from, and I kind of agree.

A couple hundred years ago, people believed, based on rather flawed evidence, that the Sun revolved around the Earth and Earth was at the centre of the universe. Then Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler came along, and gradually scientists rejected that view in favour of one where Earth revolved around the Sun and the Sun was at (or near) the centre of a solar system comprising all the known planets.

Initially, the argument in favour of the heliocentric model was simply Occam's Razor, but later classical mechanics seemed to provide the tools to show that it was the correct picture of the actual motions of the planets and the Sun.

But then Einstein showed up with GR, establishing that such tools were illusory, and the question was meaningless, for there was no unique centre to the universe. And yet people are still taught and trained to regard the pre-Einsteinian conception of the solar system as true and proven.

You can say that it's "convenient for computations", or that it "makes the math easier", but that sounds a bit like backpeddling. It evades the original question, which was "What are the actual motions of the Sun, the Earth, and the planets like?" Actual motions, not computational conveniences. Can we say that the honest answer today is "According to GR, it's impossible to know how the Sun, the Earth, and the planets actually move"?


Let me also commend trth_skr for engaging in actual conversation, reading what others have to say and replying to it, unlike (cough, cough) other geocentrists we've had in this forum before.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Impossible to know their absolute movements yes, because it's meaningless, according to GR. But isn't that what we've all been saying all along?

Hear hear =D>

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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.

Perhaps in this thread, but it does not seem to be the popular perception.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

I wouldn't go that far: You didn't answer the question (and that earlier post doesn't contain any relevant evidence, seeing as how Einstein published SR in 1905). Indeed, if you had answered the question, you wouldn't need to fling more baseless rhetoric - you would have proven it!

So I ask again: what basis would Einstein have had [grammar corrected] for choosing #1? So again, what basis would you have for choosing one over the other?

Hopefully, you see what I'm getting at here: lack of specific disproof of something doesn't constitute proof. Again with the rediculous analogies: SR doesn't predict that there isn't an invisible purple elephant in my garage and no observations to date contradict its existence. So do you believe it exists?

edit: and let's go a little further: What you are accusing Einstein of is factually wrong: Since in 1905, established science held that there probably was an ether, Einstein's theory went against conventional wisdom, so it could not possibly have reflected a pre-existing dogma.

Regarding the specific points in that link, the explanation is simple: you're in the fog. Or, the horizon is equal distance in every direction from where you are standing. And the fact is, this explanation is far more plausible than the Geocentric one.

Actually, its stronger than that: "According to GR, the Sun, Earth, and planets have no absolute motion."

That's what I mean by "meaningless".

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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.

The heliocentric system is meaningless with regards to the universe: when you want to decsribe the solar system on its own, it's the correct system (I know, barycentric is better), and it describes the motions of the sun and the planets with regards to one another perfectly. And that's how most people use it, and how it is used in this discussion. With regards to the solar system, the heliocentric model is correct (not perfect), the geocentric isn't.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

I'm always amazed by the amount of heliocentric bashing I see in the Geocentric/Creationist propaganda - like they think that science teaches a Heliocentric model.

Heliocentrism: a Geocentric strawman.

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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.

What about relative motions? Can anything interesting about heliocentrism and geocentrism be said in terms of relative motions?

What do you mean by "correct"? From what I understand, a geocentric model for the solar system would be just as correct.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Lets keep it simple (well, otherwise you would notice how much I'm grasping around in the dark even sooner ): you have the Sun and the Earth. Three (basic) possibilities: Earth is center and the Sun circles around it, Sun is center and the Earth circles around it, or both circle around a third place.
Universally (GR) speaking, all three are correct and meaningless. But if we try to describe the Solar system on its own, in a way that is according to natural laws, the truly correct system is the third center (the barycentric system (spelling?), where the Sun and the Earth circle around their mutual centre of gravity. In reality, this centre is close enough to the Sun to take the second system (Earth circles the sun) and still get correct and consistent results. Furthermore, there is a reason why the Earth circles the sun instead of vice versa, i.e. gravity. The Sun has much more mass, so it attracts the Earth much more, and the only way the Earth can keep from falling into the Sun is circling very fast. There is no known law to describe why the Sun would spin around the Earth. And the Sun is older than the Earth and is the reason (the origin) the Earth exists and we are here.
Now, you can describe the Solar system as a system with the Earth at its centre, but the problems are that the formulas, the motions, get much much more complicated, and noone can give any scientific reason why the Earth would be the centre.
I can also describe the Earth as that thing that moves beneath my stationary car, but I cannot give a reason why all the Earth turns when I turn my steering wheel, except for 'it is so'. The opposite is just much more logical, predictable, and thus (in my view) scientific and correct.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

Good one!

I've been thinking further about the Michelson-Morley experiment that the Geocentrists set so much store by. If they claim 1, i.e. the Luminiferous Aether exists, and the Earth is the only stationary thing in it, then this postulate is testable. You simply do the Michelson-Morley experiment on another planet, one which is moving relative to the Earth. According to this page, Michelson-Morley is easily sensitive enough to detect an Aether drift of several miles per second.

Since we already have probes talking to each other around other planets (examples: MER / Mars Odyssey / MGS / Mars Express, Cassini/Huygens), would not any putative aether produce a measureable, and unexpected, frequency shift in their radio signals? Would they even succeed in communicating with one another?

I think the Geocentric-aether postulate for Michelson-Morley is falsifiable through these means. Leaving (2) as the only remaining explanation.

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