Talk:Modern geocentrism

To test your astronomical computer - get it to do all solar system calculations based on Earth as the fixed point (or a satellite orbiting the Moon if you are really annoyed with the computer). &mdash; Unsigned, by: 82.198.250.70 / talk / contribs 17:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

...But the Earth is the immoble center of the Universe...
...from a very specific non-inertial reference point.
 * Changing a reference frame doesn't alter the reality, some references can just be wrong. It's an important thing that people usually forget, as if switching to the rotating frame in magnetic resonance spin dynamics suddenly causes the universe to rotate at 400,000,000 times per second. Scarlet A.pngbomination 23:00, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, no. A reference in which the universe rotates at 400,000,000 times per second is just as valid as any conventional reference frames we tend to use, it's just not as useful. Nullahnung (talk) 17:33, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you might be missing Armondikov's point. The laws of physics don't change in different reference frames; that's true. However, a rotating reference frame introduces "fictitious" forces that change the dynamics of a system. For example, any object in a rotating reference frame will undergo a "fictitious" centrifugal force such that it is always pushed away from the centre of rotation. Similarly, a moving object will undergo a fairly well known "fictitious" force called the Coriolis force that "skews" its motion towards the centre of rotation. These forces are called "fictitious" because they are constructs of the rotating reference frame required to make Newton's Laws valid on a local scale (remember that Newton's Laws are only valid in non-inertial reference frames, and a rotating reference frame is most certainly not non-inertial). In other words, these forces have no physical origin; electromagnetic forces are caused by electric/magnetic charges, gravitational forces are caused by any bodies with mass, etc. - fictitious forces have no such physical cause.
 * As an example, the Earth's rotation causes a fictitious Coriolis force that causes air currents in the upper atmosphere to rotate; to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. From the vantage point of an observer in this non-inertial reference frame, such as someone on Earth's surface, these forces are unexplainable and have no obvious origin. If we zoom out a bit and look at the wider picture (an inertial reference frame with Earth simply rotating), we can see that there is no Coriolis force at all, and the appearance of skewed motion is simply an inertial effect. You can see this if you graph out a ball moving on the surface of a rotating plate: if you're standing on the plate rotating with the ball, it looks like it curves in towards the centre of rotation; if you're standing off the plate, the ball appears to track out a straight path as one would expect.
 * This is relevant because calculating forces in a non-inertial reference frame requires these additional corrections to make things work. Kepler's Laws, for example, are mathematically different in different reference frames. The fact that we can use standard Keplerian orbital mechanics (meant for use in a non-inertial reference frame) to successfully navigate the solar system tells us that at least on the level of the solar system, the universe is not, in fact, rotating at any appreciable angular velocity. - Grant (Talk) 17:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Right, I have learned about fictitious forces and I do admit to missing Armodikov's point. However, in my annoyingly pedantic nature it was specifically the bit about some reference frames just being wrong that I took issue with, and I expressed that (not very smartly). If he were to reply, we would likely get into a semantics debate about what "wrong" is, and none of us really want that. Nullahnung (talk) 18:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Question for astrophysicists/rocket scientists
...Or anyone who knows more about it than me: I know when we send probes outside the Earth's orbit (e.g., Mars, Saturn, Mercury, etc.) the scientists have to time the launch and set a trajectory that compensates for the fact that both the Earth and the target planet(s)/planetoid(s). In a purely geocentric universe (e.g., per Ptolemy, but without the crystal spheres that the probes would crash into), the plan for such a trajectory would fail if that assumption is programmed in and the probes would miss their targets entirely. In modern geocentrism, with Earth being fixed but the other non-Earth objects orbiting the sun, would the same planned trajectory still work? -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it would not work. Тy ILAB 19:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Any particular reason why, the motion of all the other planets being the same in the modern geocentric model vs. reality (or, is that not the case? what am I missing?) And if it's not, then wouldn't the fact that we've landed stuff on Mars and taken fly-by shots of Saturn be evidence enough against modern geocentrism to refute it altogether (e.g., if modern geocentrism is a hypothesis, it has been proven false)?  -- Seth Peck (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ECIt's hard to see how it would work as the geocentric model suffers from the rather important problem that it's wrong. Would it be possible to create a geocentric model of sufficient complexity and with sufficient manual tweaks to make it usable?  I rather think not.  Indeed, it's my impression that the increasing complexity which real observations imposed on the model was one for the main reasons for abandoning it. --Weirdstuff (talk) 20:07, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * EC In geocentrisism the earth remains stationary, as the sun revolves around the earth there is no need for the earth to rotate. As the planets would be orbiting the earth rather than the sun, their orbits would be along different paths. The whole thing is a bloody mess and doesn't work at all. Тy ILAB 20:12, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ty, that's in geocentrism, not modern geocentrism. The sun revolves around the Earth, and the other planets orbit the sun.  Look at the picture in the article (it reminds me of a Spirograph).  -- Seth Peck (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Derp. Alright, Coriolis and centrifugal forces are still fucked up. Тy ILAB 20:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If Earth was defined as the center of everything then an object moving freely outside the solar system would not move in a straight line. Usually you'd expect objects to move straight unless disturbed. You can certainly define it like that but it's far from as neat as sane physics. --83.84.137.22 (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sherlock Holmes
Some mention should be made of Sherlock Holmes' not caring how the Earth, Moon and Sun orbited each other. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Geocentrism. It's irrelevant to this article, anyway.--ZooGuard (talk) 15:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Evidence to rotation of Earth
I am not particular to my arguing for the rotation of Earth. Here is another way of presenting the same case:

Let's say that the length of the day February 28, 2014 is observed to be one millisecond (1 ms) longer than the day January 28, 2014. This observation is made seeing that seeing that selected stars arrive at their selected location 1 ms later at the selected time. Other astronomers will see that their target stars also arrive late at the expected place at the expected time. This will happen to all the stars - and all of the planets, too.

This interpreted by heliocentric astronomers that the Earth slowed slightly in its daily rotation.

What does a geocentric interpret as happened? What must have happened is that all the heavenly bodies had to change their daily motion about the Earth at the change time.

But it's even more complicated (and, may I say, less believable) than that. The stars are at long distances from the Earth, and it makes some time for their light to reach the Earth. So the stars made their coordinated shift in motion before we, on Earth, could the result. And this had to have happened before the planets make their their same shift. And different stars at different differences have to make their shift in their corresponding times.

And it's even more complicated than that. The heliocentric rotation of the Earth makes a different change. More than only the speed of spin change, there is a small in the direction of spin: The axis of rotation varies, so that the poles are not the usual geographical North and South Pole. The geocentric description requires that all of the stars have to make new path in their daily orbit of the Earth. And, of course, these new paths made to be coordinated times, according to their distance from the Earth.

Evidence to rotation revolution of Earth
Other thoughts which have occurred to me:

There are several centers of motion in a Tycho model: The Earth is a center for the motion of the Sun and the Moon; The Sun is a center for Mars and the other planets; Mars is a center for the motion of its moons (and correspondently for the other planets and their moon). Consider the motion of a rocket which is launched from the Earth and lands on Mars. It begins, while on Earth, with Earth as its center of motion. While it is traveling in interplanetary space, just like a planet, with the Sun as its center of motion. And as it nears Mars, it is moving with Mars as its center of motion. The question is when and how the rocket changes its center of motion. What changes the rocket from an Earth-centered object to a Sun-centered object to a Mars-centered object? Where or when can we see this discontinuity taking place? TomS TDotO (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I corrected the title of this.  TomS TDotO (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The "centers of motion" are an approximation. Gravitational forces exerted by a body become increasingly relevant as you get closer to it; there comes a point where one body dominates (as in a low orbit of Earth). But at e.g. an Earth-Sun Lagrange point, neither body is a "center of motion"--their joint pull holds a satellite in place relative to both bodies. Kimberly (talk)
 * To expand on what Kimberly said, there is no discontinuity at all. At any point in space, a rocket will experience gravitational forces from every body in its environs. The concept of centers of motion is useful when we're talking about stable orbits around single bodies, but for more complex systems (e.g. the Lagrange points Kimberly mentions), this view isn't so simple. It's more accurate to consider the equation of motion of the rocket as it travels. If the only force acting on the rocket is the gravitational force imparted on it by other bodies (i.e. it is adrift), then its equation of motion will be determined by the net gravitational force exerted on it. Technically this means everything in the entire universe, but because gravitational force falls off very quickly with decreasing mass and increasing distance, it's a useful approximation to ignore any bodies that don't appreciably contribute to the effect. - Grant (Talk) 22:25, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Addendum: Note that this also isn't true for objects massive enough for objects large or fast enough to make relativistic effects non-negligible, nor for objects small enough for quantum effects to become non-negligible. Kepler and Newton provided some wonderful tools to calculate gravitational forces on classical scales, but that approximation fails under relativistic and/or quantum limits. - Grant (Talk) 22:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You are explaining it in a heliocentric framework. The geocentric says that there is no motion to the Earth, and the rocket (being part of the Earth as it starts out) - when does it start feeling the pull of the Sun and Mars? TomS TDotO (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I'm explaining gravitation. Whether the Earth moves or not does not change what I stated above. Consider moving into a reference frame that rotates with the same angular velocity as the Earth, and accelerates along the same orbital trajectory. In this picture, the laws of gravitation would remain the same (and thus what I stated above would not change a bit). Rather, two new terms would appear in the equation of motion of the rocket: an additional centrifugal force term (owing to the rotating reference frame), and an additional drag term oppposite the direction of the Earth's motion (as a result of the acceleration of the reference frame). Newton's Laws may not apply in non-inertial reference frames, but classical mechanics continues to function just fine.
 * Now, of course, there are obviously big problems with geocentrism. However, the notion you've raised about "discontinuities" in centers of motion is not one of them, as you can see if you move into the reference frame I described above. The bigger problem, of course, would be explaining the existence of these other force terms in the equations of motion of the rest of the universe, since the equations of motion of the planets would become far more complicated. It would also require explaining away some other problems, like relativity, for example. - Grant (Talk) 02:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I am removing the argument from the main page. As far as the problems that you suggest I couldn't think that the geocentrics find those any problem at all. I don't that they accept relativity. Thank you.
 * Right; there are indeed a lot of arguments geocentrics ignore. For example, moving into the reference frame I suggested above requires adding these correction terms to Kepler's Laws as well, which would make orbiting another planet very different. If you want to make a point about this stuff in the article, I suggest pointing out that Kepler's Laws have been used quite well to launch satellites and rockets. Keep in mind that a reference frame in which the Earth is stationary is equivalent to one in which the universe is rotating against the Earth's rotation, and accelerating against the Earth's acceleration. I've seen rudimentary calculations of Kepler's Laws in a rotating frame (even forgetting the acceleration for now), and it's not pretty. Orbits do not take on the nice, pretty conic shapes they do in an inertial reference frame. - Grant (Talk) 16:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

A New "Documentary"
I need at least nine more faces and eighteen more palms to properly react to this news. An anonymous editor on its imdb page characterizes it this way:
 * "New astrophysical data of astonishing significance has emerged. Human civilization is on the brink of a multifaceted shift in perception, philosophy, science and metaphysics that is simply unprecedented in recorded history. THE PRINCIPLE is Chapter Two in the drama of mind versus matter that began over a century ago with the chaotic unfoldings of quantum physics. The Universe hasn't finished speaking. An Event Movie of epic proportion for 2014."

Fortunately, someone else wrote the description that is seen first by visitors to the page:
 * "Another ill informed attempt at reversing the knowledge of the human race. Am curious to see the reaction to the scientists quoted in this film, I am assuming, unknowingly."

I imagine the editing of those interviews will make James O'Keefe sick with envy. Godless11B 's gonna die the way he lived. 10:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The Principle has been on the To Do list for some time, enough to get buried by newer suggestions. Apparently nobody noticed it until Star Trek got involved...--ZooGuard (talk) 11:18, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Moving a bunch of stuff
General de-bunking of the astrophysics involved belongs in the geocentrism article. This article is for revealing the people who believe this stuff. TeenageWasteland (talk) 15:33, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I wonder whether there is a place for an article on modern geocentrism. Should it be included in the geocentrism article. (Obviously, modern geocentrism is as important as flat-earth-ism, so it should be discussed somewhere.) But, wherever it is discussed, I think that stuff which is about modern knowledge (relativity, Mach's principle, rockets, Chandler wobble, ...) pertains to modern geocentrism.  TomS TDotO (talk) 16:55, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Upon reflection, I actually think this article should be a redirect to a section in a one-stop-shopping geocentrism article.TeenageWasteland (talk) 17:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this. The geocentrism article already has a section on modern geocentrism which is about as long as this article, and is oddly placed at the beginning of the article before the stuff about the Bible, Copernicus, Gallileo, etc.  The whole thing could do with tidying intto a more coherent order.  17:57, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * One more vote for merging, perhaps even article history merging.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)