the geocentrism challenge

[fyodoros]

The Geocentrism Challenge
CAI will write a check for $1,000 to the first person who can prove that the earth revolves around the sun. (If you lose, then we ask that you make a donation to the apostolate of CAI). Obviously, we at CAI don't think anyone CAN prove it, and thus we can offer such a generous reward. In fact, we may up the ante in the near future.


information.

 

[Illuminatus]

Fyodoros, please tell me you're just posting this and you don't really support it.

 

[Sagan_Disciple]

The Geocentrism Challenge
CAI will write a check for $1,000 to the first person who can prove that the earth revolves around the sun. (If you lose, then we ask that you make a donation to the apostolate of CAI). Obviously, we at CAI don't think anyone CAN prove it, and thus we can offer such a generous reward. In fact, we may up the ante in the near future.

Johannes Kepler validated the heliocentric model with both observations obtained from Tycho Brahe and celestial mechanics that he had developed on his own. See Astronomia Nova published in 1609.

 

[Iron Sun 254]

It's silly. Any true proof they'll eliminate by cliaming it does not fit their criteria. There's no way to explain the motions of the universe in a geocentric model without throwing out science as we know it today.

 

[simplicity]

I'm not actually interested in the cash prize although I would like to participate in your challenge. I would like to know what constitutes adequate proof. There is so much support for the heliocentric model. I suspect you have a position that discounts all of the scientific data. I'll do my best to argue for heliocentrism.

 

[billwald]

It doesn't. They revolve around each other.

 

[Sagan_Disciple]

It doesn't. They revolve around each other.

Indeed,

The earth and sun revolve around the system's center of mass with minor deviations induced by the gravitational and thermal tides, oblateness due to centrifugal forcings, and microgravity anomalies induces by internal distribution of material in both bodies.

 

[arunma]

The Geocentrism Challenge
CAI will write a check for $1,000 to the first person who can prove that the earth revolves around the sun. (If you lose, then we ask that you make a donation to the apostolate of CAI). Obviously, we at CAI don't think anyone CAN prove it, and thus we can offer such a generous reward. In fact, we may up the ante in the near future.


information.

You have got to be kidding. Well, whatever...

I'll take a stab at it. How do you explain paralax?

 

[chilehed]

I'm familiar with this challenge and have been part of a number of lengthy threads about it on another website. The gist of the argument revolves around some theoretical papers written about 90 years ago, and the fact that reference frames are relative so you can transform the equations of orbital mechanics to any center you desire without losing mathematical validity. The hook is that Sungenis doesn't need to prove geocentrism, but that the challenger needs to prove heliocentrism.

Given some of his misunderstandings of basic physics, I've come to the conclustion that Sungenis doesn't really understand it any better than your average reader of Scientific American. I had a number of specific questions about the math but never got any good answers.

However, and I admit this with some chagrin, I reread "Mr Tomkins in Paperback" by George Gamow this week and the bit about measurements on a rotating turntable made me think that I need to be less skeptical.

Sungenis' big concern doesn't seem to be about heliocentrism as much as it is about the way the Galileo affair reflects on the teaching authority of the Church. But since I don't see that the Church ever made an infallible declaration that the universe revolves around the earth (which I had also pointed out and got no good reply to), it seems to me to be much ado about nothing.

 

[arunma]

How does the geocentrist explain the Foucault Pendulum?

 

[chilehed]

The theory is that the rotating universe drags the space frame along with it, and there's a resultant force (somewhat analagous to a gyroscope) that fixes the earth in place so that it does not rotate.

I'm an engineer and have no formal training in cosmology, so I'm trying to not be too closed-minded. However, I do have some background in physics and numerical methods, and any third-year engineering student should be able to tell that lot of the stuff Bob says is just flat-out wrong.

 

[whatiswatanabe]

The Geocentrism Challenge
CAI will write a check for $1,000 to the first person who can prove that the earth revolves around the sun. (If you lose, then we ask that you make a donation to the apostolate of CAI). Obviously, we at CAI don't think anyone CAN prove it, and thus we can offer such a generous reward. In fact, we may up the ante in the near future.

That's easy. Light arives in a slant because of the speed of the earth's revolution around the Sun. This is called the Aberration of light and moves the position of stars around slightly..

When can I get My 1000 Dollars?

I think your posting is a scam anyway.

Aberration of light (also referred to as astronomical aberration or stellar aberration) is an astronomical phenomenon defined as an apparent motion of the heavenly bodies; stars describing more or less elliptic annual orbits, according to the latitude of the star; consequently at any moment the star appears to be displaced from its true position. This apparent motion is due to the finite speed of light relative to the velocity of an observer on the Earth. It has three components: diurnal aberration, annual aberration, and secular aberration. Secular aberration is due to the motion of the Sun through space, whose rectilinear motion when combined with a star's rectilinear motion cannot be distinguished from the deflection due to light-time and is thus ignored. Diurnal aberration is due to Earth's rotation on its axis and does not exceed 0.32" (it is most pronounced for equatorial observers). The rest of this article concerns annual aberration due to the velocity of the Earth in its annual orbit about the Sun.

 

[whatiswatanabe]

The theory is that the rotating universe drags the space frame along with it, and there's a resultant force (somewhat analagous to a gyroscope) that fixes the earth in place so that it does not rotate.

Frame grabbing around the spinning earth is such a slight effect that it takes an atomic clock to detect it.

 

[whatiswatanabe]

It doesn't. They revolve around each other.

They revolve around the center of mass. Since the sun is a million times bigger than the earth that effectively puts the center of mass near the center of the sun. This tug of the planets on their star is waht allows astronomers to detect the presence of planets, even though they can't see them optically.

Note that the distance from the Sun's center to the center of mass of a two-body system consisting of the Sun and another celestial body, hence the size of the Sun's orbit around this center of mass, is approximately proportional to the product of the mass of that other body, and the distance between the two, even though gravity decreases with distance. That orbit is largest with Jupiter, its large mass more than compensates its smaller distance to the Sun than several other planets. If all the planets would align on the same side of the Sun, the combined center of mass would lie about 500,000 km outside the Sun surface.

 

[whatiswatanabe]

I'm familiar with this challenge and have been part of a number of lengthy threads about it on another website. The gist of the argument revolves around some theoretical papers written about 90 years ago, and the fact that reference frames are relative so you can transform the equations of orbital mechanics to any center you desire without losing mathematical validity. The hook is that Sungenis doesn't need to prove geocentrism, but that the challenger needs to prove heliocentrism.

No you can't do that transformation because it would require that the laws of physics be broken in both classical Newtonian and General Realtivity. Even the greeks were uncomfortable with the sky spinning because of the super high velocites of the planets and stars, even based on the much closer estemates that they had made. The only thing that kept them with the geocentric model was that they could never detect PARALLAX. Which you can't wihout a high power telescope and photography.

 

[Yamialpha]

Obviously, we at CAI don't think anyone CAN prove it, and thus we can offer such a generous reward. In fact, we may up the ante in the near future.

With that kind of attitude will any amount of compelling proof convince you of the heliocentric model?

 

[chilehed]

No you can't do that transformation because it would require that the laws of physics be broken in both classical Newtonian and General Realtivity...

Not if the reference frame of the universe is rotating with respect to the reference frame of the earth.

Sungenis references Misner, Thorn and Wheeler, "Gravitation", pg 1119. Haven't read it, GR was a bit thicker than I was up for but I've found a copy and it should arrive in a few weeks.

 

[fyodoros]

wow, i had completely forgotten i had posted this thread. no, i do not believe in the geocentric model. i happened upon the site i linked to and found it interesting that it had not been proven yet. i'm assuming, though, that they've established criteria that has made it impossible.

 

[Yamialpha]

How do you prove something to a group of people who don't want to believe?

 

[DailyBlessings]

Reminds me of Hovind's evolution challenge, in which the criteria make it impossible to win.