As stated by Max Born in his famous book,"Einstein's Theory of Relativity",Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345:

According to GR, we cannot distinguish between a geo or helio / acentric system. The forces require a different formulation, and the universe would need to be configured to support geocentrism, but this can not be ruled out by any evidence we have at this point.

This doesn't sound like news to me.

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Why not get it from the horse's mouth: "The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS 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 CS."

I like the frame in which the universe revolves around me, personally.

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Nice Quote (A Thousand Pardons):

There are many others from other disrtinguished scientists, but I particularly like Born's because he also offers Thirring in the same quote to give some physicality to it.

I am amazed at how many people try and disprove geocentricity using abberation, parallax, and other observations, as though these would not be the same in a geocentric system. They basically have to be the same. A coordinate transform does not change relative observations (nor does it prove the matter, of course).

In another part of your link, you say:

What is your view of those who say the CMB is a preferred reference frame?

Abberation, parallax, and other observations are not used to show that there is no relative frame of rest for the Earth. They're used to show that there is no absolute frame of rest for the Earth.

There's a huge difference in saying that only the g/Geocentric frame is valid and all frames are valid.


Edited because I'm incapable of conveying meaning today.

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

I disagree. I think the huge difference comes into play when one says "the geocentric reference frame is the only valid frame". After all, if all reference frames are valid, then surely the geocentric one is also valid.

That's what I, I guess unsuccessfully, tried to say. I suppose I forgot an "only" in there.

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

Not as preferred reference frame, necessarily. After all, to use the CMB to construct such a frame, we create a frame in which the CMB is homogenous--but that is not entirely possible.

Well, the "preferred" frame would be one where the dipole anisotropy in the CMB is zeroed; the other variations in the CMB wouldn't be relevant.

I asked a few times on geocentrism threads, but nobody answered: how do geocentrists explain the dipole anisotropy in the CMB anyway?

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Except to indicate that variation does occur.

Demigrog asks:

I am not clear on where all the measurements took place (some in space some on earth). In either case, when taking the measurements / launching the vehicles, one makes an assuption that the earth is translating and rotating.One then makes an assumption about the final configuration relative to a "fixed" star system. The dipole isotropy is removed by transforming out these assumptions. According to the Einstein's equivalence principle (the basis of the Born quote in the initial message), all reference frames are valid, so if one assumed what I said, it equally could be the case that the earth is staionary and the universe is spinning. Presumably in this case this would include the CMB rotating. In fact the experiments were likely all done on a geostationary basis anyway!

And there we get to the center of the problem: What is your definition of "geocentric"?

I can't help but notice that JPL does not seem to be showing a geocentric (or any other planet as the center for that matter) in the solar system model on their site.

(emphasis mine)

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I know I saw somewhere there where the Sun rose this morning, but I'll be d*nged if I can find it again.

Was this from a mainstream science site? (Last I checked JPL was considered pretty "mainstream").

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N C More wrote (emphasis mine):

Remember this is the "Against the mainstream" BB! [-X

Well, it's not JPL, but this NASA page says, "As the sun rises . . . and sets . . ."

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SeanF

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Which obviously means we should in no way, shape, or form consider what the majority think on the issue.

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

Yes, it certainly is! However, the argument has been that the "any frame of reference is equally valid" notion of general relativity is the mainstream manner of viewing the solar system and that a heliocentric solar system model is somehow the outdated crack pot notion of viewing the solar system. The viewpoint at JPL seemed to contradict this thinking. Now do you see why I worded it that way?

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