“ Often the simplest of observations will have the most profound consequences. It has long been a cornerstone of modern science, to say nothing of man’s cosmic outlook, that the Earth attends a modest star that shines in an undistinguished part of a run-of-the-mill galaxy. Life arose spontaneously and man evolved on this miscellaneous clump of matter and now directs his own destiny without outside help. This cosmic model is supported by the Big-Bang and Expanding Universe concepts, which in turn are buttressed by the simple observation that astronomers see redshifts wherever they look. These redshifts are due, of course, to matter flying away from us under the impetus of the Big Bang. But redshifts can also arise from the gravitational attraction of mass. If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! The argument advanced by George Ellis in this article is more complex than this, but his basic thrust is to put man back into a favored position in the cosmos. His new theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations, even though it clashes with the thought that we are godless and making it on our own. ”
—Editor of Nature Magazine, Paul C. W. Davies. (Nature, 273:336, 1978.)
At the end of each year, and the beginning of the new year, many people reflect on the past, present and look to the future… Maybe someone will be able to reflect and provide me, and possibly others, with the answer to this question:
Why is there so much deception in the world of science?
Allan Miller,
Jocks says mathematical centers are arbitrary. Go figure.
I thank him for the link.
Where did I say I’d read it???
J-Mac,
What, after saying time is short you link an entire book? Einstein’s maths does not support geocentrism. It does not create a frame in which the sun orbits the earth. Or if it does, what page is that on?
Some are, some aren’t. The ‘centres’ of the circumference of a circle, or the surface of a sphere, are arbitrary. Of course, one could point to the non-arbitrary centres of the entire object, but then you’re just denying the arbitrary by pointing to something non-arbitrary.
Not really, because the middle of the balloon is not on it’s surface, so it can’t be the middle point of the surface of the balloon.
Right, because we are simply ignoring one dimension of that object, that is the point. In a circle if we ignore the interior of the circle (you know, like where the middle is!) then there is no longer a middle. If we have a sphere, and ignore the center of the sphere, guess what, no center. Shedding dimensions at will.
That’s the silly game Jock is playing. Only he doesn’t even seem to realize it.
Allan Miller,
You know a cube also has a center. Unless you pretend the center doesn’t exist. Then it doesn’t have a center.
You can do the same thing with a square. Just make space disappear.
Doughnuts, however, do not require suspension of disbelief.
There you go again. ‘I refute geometrical arbitrariness by pointing to something nonarbitrary’. Genius.
Allan Miller,
What is arbitrary about a circle?
When the Hubble is pointed in opposite directions in the sky, and left on for a few weeks each time, it sees much the same thing either way – very young star forming regions, from billions of years ago. So we appear to be ‘looking back’ in time, concentric spheres of younger and younger space as their apparent diameter gets bigger and bigger. And yet we also see redshift – the universe is expanding, in all directions, as time moves on. So the young universe we see at the greatest distances was smaller than it is now. At the limit, whichever way you look, you ‘see’ the singularity of the Big Bang.
How to resolve this paradox, classically?
Huh?
Actually, it is not.
I fully recognize that phoodoo will NEVER be able to comprehend issues regarding the different possible topologies of space. I have avoided that conversation; instead, I have been trying to explain to phoodoo a simple grade school geometrical fact:
Let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that the universe is a finite sphere expanding uniformly into a euclidean void, and that the universe therefore has a unique, unambiguous “middle”. Okay?
Here’s my point: phoodoo has no way of knowing where this “middle” is. To assume that it is near phoodoo is merely hubris. How does this state of affairs come about? Two facts:
1) phoodoo cannot see the outer edge.
2) phoodoo cannot measure “absolute” motion.
So for starters, phoodoo, do you agree with facts (1) and (2)?
Pardon?!
After you, Bruce, Corneel and others, accused me of not digging deep enough by reading abstracts, no you would like one of the book??? 😉
The more profound question is: Does Einstein’s math allow it???
Just tell me where it says it, or I say you’re bluffing.
You tell me. Page number, or I’ll settle for chapter. I mean, you must have read it, else why link it? You might as well link a picture of a library. “It’s in here” 🤣
Relativity is no challenge to the heliocentric model of the Solar System, and indeed rotational frames in general give ludicrous results if one insists that all observer viewpoints are equal.
That doughnuts are good for you, does.
The model is wrong?
Nope, neither is the necessity that Earth is the center of the Universe.
Per the analysis in the study, decreased it.
My ‘Hubble’ post above started out intending to address that point, but morphed into a query about the apparent paradox retaining classical intuitions when time is added.
Here’s my original point:
Hubble has taken Deep Field pictures in opposite directions. We might imagine sticking another Hubble at the most distant point in each direction and doing the same, looking out and back. Would either or both of these see ‘us’ in one direction, and darkness in the other? If both do, we’re near the ‘centre’ in one plane, but that doesn’t guarantee centrality in all others. And of course it’s perfectly possible (in this Euclidean universe) that only one, or neither, has a ‘dark side’. If only one does, we’re not in the middle. If neither does, it’s either infinite or we have to keep going to find the ‘edge’ before we can tell how far away from it we are.
And of course, if we got to the edge and kept going, would that space be infinite, even if matter wasn’t? 🤔
Take a piece of string. Tie the two ends together. You now have a circular piece of strings. Where is the center?
Is it a challenge to geocentrism??? It seems to me you don’t want to provide a clear answer…for some reason…
Aha! Finally! You don’t like the coordinate systems that relativity allows…
Now, give me one reason why I should make copies of Einstein’s book that gives more respectability to the geocentric view, than heliocentric, if you already suspect, or even know, both coordinate systems are fine? You are just calling the one you don’t like ludicrous…for obvious reasons…
As you see it?
I think I have been very clear. A geocentric solar system requires undemonstrated forces to account for planetary and cometary motion. A heliocentric solar system needs only gravity.
No, I’m fine with it. It’s just not applicable to a solar system a few light-hours across, with rotating reference frames.
You appear to have a burning need to get a point across, but become coy at the point of actually doing so. Do I have to give you a reason to post?
Yes, for obvious reasons. A heliocentric view makes sense of the Solar System’s observed motions, a geocentric one makes a nonsense of observations.
When he failed to notice the rick-rolling, J-Mac claimed that
Challenged to provide a link, he offered up an Einstein book that is explicitly NOT a mathematical treatment.
I suspect that he read something somewhere about SR and “all frames of reference being equivalent”, and failed to understand that the statement was restricted to inertial frames.
I think y’all are over-estimating these chaps.
As they see it:
“Now, Daniela Saadeh and Andrew Pontzen, cosmologists at University College London, and colleagues have ruled out special directions with the most stringent test yet. They also use measurements of the CMB, this time taken with the European Space Agency’s Planck spacecraft, which collected data from 2009 to 2013 and provided far more precise CMB maps than WMAP. Instead of looking for curious imbalances in the CMB, they systematically worked the other way around. They considered all the ways that space could have a preferred direction and how such scenarios might imprint themselves on the CMB. Then they searched for those specific signs in the data.”
https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01024
So you never saw a doughnut before,huh? You should check em out.
Sometimes they make them by taking a piece of dough and tying the ends together.
Maybe they have pretzels where you live.
That the middle of a sphere is arbitrary? Interesting. Cool!
I live in the middle of the Earth’s core. Gonna put that on me driver’s license.
Sounds more like a roll than a donut.
OK, so let’s say the middle is ‘non-arbitrary’ (if the earth was a uniform sphere!…). I want to go somewhere non-arbitrary for my holidays. Where should I go?
FWIW, it’s true in GR too — ie it includes accelerating frames. That is, the laws of nature are the same, regardless of what frame of reference you use to study them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_covariance
If you are just predicting future trajectories, choose the reference frame that is easiest for your problem.
But if you want to say something about what the world really is like, as opposed to what is convenient for calculation, then AFAIK you have to resort to the usual standards for picking one frame as truly depicting the real world, such as simplicity, as you noted in another post.
As far as I can tell, J-Mac does not subscribe to the standards used by the scientific consensus; he seems to prioritize biblical literalness (creationism, geocentrism) when it comes to cosmology.
ETA: To be specific, one thing you have to do is introduce fictitious forces. Now we have a deep understanding of forces and why there are only four of them (counting gravity as a force). So I think you have to deny a lot more than standard cosmology to get where J-Mac wants to go.
Interesting article by Scott Alexander on his encounters with the complications of the scientific consensus.
Allan Miller,
Well, that’s easy, just don’t go to the places that don’t exist . The only problem is, those places that don’t exist, no signs.
Well, they may actually have signs, but you can’t look at them.
“Edge of the universe in 25 miles…”
Thanks Bruce! 😉
This means DNA_Jock wrongly assumed how inertial frames apply in GR without reading about it… somewhere… This is the problem with the biased views of the applicability of relativity in heliocentric universe…
I guess you know something I don’t?
Where does the Bible literary talks about geocentrism?
John Harshman might know…He’s actually read the Bible…:-)
What? I thought you’d said there is a scientific consensus, just to put it in your own words: “…the standards used by the scientific consensus…”
Are you trying to tell me that there is no solid, mathematical proof to support the scientific consensus? Please clarify!
Josh. 10:13 “So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”
And? What was the evidence of the considered scenarios?
How the big bang cosmology that had predicted uniformity in the background radiation and no special direction in the iniverse now predicts with opposite?
How does one of the scenarios now predict that hat the CMBs should aligned with the Earth’s equator and the Sun-Earth ecliptic?
Good for you, newton! 🙂 It’s amazing how many atheists are familiar with the Bible…much, much more than many self-proclaimed Christians, like Samidass…
I don’t think I have ever thought of this verse as supporting geocentrism…
In my view, even if geocentrism is true, I don’t think the Sun and the Moon literary stood still…
Why not? The impulse required is delivered to each heavenly body every four hours, according to you. Seems pretty easy-peasy to speed that up a bit, no?
So you are using non-arbitrary as a synonym for ‘exists’? That’s even more confused. Where’s the middle of ‘what exists’ then? Your house?
One would hope that by now someone would at least check the Wikipedia for some clues regarding relativity and geocentrism… I thinks I have given the supporters of the heliocentric universe enough clues to look that up…
It seems Bruce is the only one who has done some reading, rather than insisting on ones worldview, and seems to understand that relativity allows geocentrism:
”Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld wrote in The Evolution of Physics (1938): “Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS (=coordinate systems), not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? If this can be done, our difficulties will be over. We shall then be able to apply the laws of nature to any CS. 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. Could we build a real relativistic physics valid in all CS; a physics in which there would be no place for absolute, but only for relative, motion? This is indeed possible!”[48]
Despite giving more respectability to the geocentric view than Newtonian physics does,[49] relativity is not geocentric. Rather, relativity states that the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, Jupiter, or any other point for that matter could be chosen as a center of the Solar System with equal validity.[50] For this reason Robert Sungenis, a modern geocentrist, spent much of Volume I of his book Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right critiquing and trying to unravel the Special and General theories of Relativity.[51]
Relativity agrees with Newtonian predictions that regardless of whether the Sun or the Earth are chosen arbitrarily as the center of the coordinate system describing the Solar System, the paths of the planets form (roughly) ellipses with respect to the Sun, not the Earth. With respect to the average reference frame of the fixed stars, the planets do indeed move around the Sun, which due to its much larger mass, moves far less than its own diameter and the gravity of which is dominant in determining the orbits of the planets (in other words, the center of mass of the Solar System is near the center of the Sun). The Earth and Moon are much closer to being a binary planet; the center of mass around which they both rotate is still inside the Earth, but is about 4,624 km (2,873 mi) or 72.6% of the Earth’s radius away from the centre of the Earth (thus closer to the surface than the center).
What the principle of relativity points out is that correct mathematical calculations can be made regardless of the reference frame chosen, and these will all agree with each other as to the predictions of actual motions of bodies with respect to each other. It is not necessary to choose the object in the Solar System with the largest gravitational field as the center of the coordinate system in order to predict the motions of planetary bodies, though doing so may make calculations easier to perform or interpret. A geocentric coordinate system can be more convenient when dealing only with bodies mostly influenced by the gravity of the Earth (such as artificial satellites and the Moon), or when calculating what the sky will look like when viewed from Earth (as opposed to an imaginary observer looking down on the entire Solar System, where a different coordinate system might be more convenient).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model
Here is the reference to Einstein’s book. It’s on page 212;
https://archive.org/details/evolutionofphysi00eins/page/212
If someone thinks Einstein’s relativity math allowing geocentrism is wrong, and can prove either by math, or an experiment, that the Earth is around the Sun, he can make $1,000 or even
$100 000
Sungenis “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). cairomeo@aol.com.
J-Mac,
If one wants to make calculation much harder, one could of course choose an alternative reference frame. But the earth has no privilege in that regard. If people are trying to rescue geocentrism through Einstein, they’re dropping a brick on their foot, since Einstein says there is no privileged position. That includes Earth.
I’m a big fan of the Ganymedecentric Model myself, though we do fall out with the Martians.
J-Mac:
Just to emphasize what Allan M and others have said:
You are mixing two things which have to be separated:
1. Choosing a convenient way to solve some problems in physics.
2. Deciding how the world really is.
As I said in previous post: As best I can tell, you prioritize consistency with a literal interpretation of the Bible as the way to decide what is real.
ETA: On reading further, I see you possibly question this guess at your justifications in another post:
A Google search of “geocentrism and the bible” finds a lot of site that say it does, and back that view up with quotes (but it also finds some that deny the literal bible support geocentrism).
If that is not your reason for appearing to believe in geocentrism, then fine. It does not change my view on the futility of arguing with you for many other reasons, which I have provided in posts on eg QM.
I am suggesting that space expanding into places that didn’t exist is arbitrary.
Its part of the whole business of science that makes things up that it can’t ever prove. From the same people who feel speculating on the existence of God is pointless.
That certainly wasn’t apparent from discussions of geometry. Granting a Euclidean frame in which the concepts make sense, I conceded that the centre of a sphere may be considered non-arbitrary, if you like. But granting that, where else in that solid is similarly non-arbitrary? Where’s the middle of the surface, for example?
The business of the opposition appears to be to obfuscate.
Does relativity allow it?
Yes or No ONLY!
You don’t have to answer it… as you, and others, will only continue to move the goalposts…
No. Science of relativity does not.
As I understand it, the balloon analogy is very limited. When you blow up a balloon, it expands into the air around it, space that already existed without any balloon in it. When space expands, there is no “place” into which it is expanding. The expansion creates the space, which ONLY exists inside the expanding universe. The universe has no “outside”.
There is a crucial difference here that you carefully evade. Science isn’t “making up” the evidence itself, science is proposing possible explanations for that evidence, and testing those explanations to the extent possible. I suppose you could say that these proposals are “made up”, but NOT the evidence they attempt to explain.
Contrast this with your god, which is precisely the inverse. Your god is a solution in search of evidence that there is a problem (and not finding any). Science starts with the evidence and searches for an explanation. You start with an explanation and go in search of evidence. And the utter lack of ANY suitable evidence doesn’t deter you, or anyone else whose convictions do not rest on evidence.
Really… 😉
So, what were the problems in physics you were so reluctantly agreeing to?
You don’t have to answer that because we will be back where we started… 🤗
You, Allan and Dna_JOCK should try to make some money and prove that the Earth is moving around the Sun… I will pay you the same amount CAI offers if you do…
By the same token, you will prove Einstein’s statement wrong, which would be a big deal…Unfortunately, you won’t because it can’t be done… It’s shame…such a good and convenient idea 🤣
“The possibility of solving these difficulties depends on the answer to the following
question. Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all coordinate
systems, not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily,
relative to each other? If this can be done, our difficulties will be over. We shall
then be able to apply the laws of nature to any coordinate system. 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
Who gets to render the judgment? The preconceived notions? Because?
So, you were wrong…