"Proof of a heliocentric system" Topic

Scarily there appear to be people who really do think like this

fixedearth.com

The question is: What is the proof for the sun-centred solar system?

If the universe rotated round the earth, then the paralax movement of stars could be explained (at least by this guy) as that.

we are living on the back of a great cosmic tortoise.
I have proof so its scientific!

Gotta love the phrase "Kabbala based Big-Bangism".

"[To purchase]"

Yep. Some guy and his wife selling their book(s).

The wonderful thing about evidence and facts and proof is that you can ALWAYS think of an alternate explanation, to believe in if you wish….

In this circumstance, "my fist" would suffice as proof.
-Kle.

Well, if you decide that the Earth is a fixed point, then voilá!— everything does revolve around the Earth. Okay, so most of the Universe seems to be a little off center…

Parzival is right of course.

Designating the Sun as the centre just makes things much, much easier to visualise. The Ptolemaic system was hellishly complex, but it 'worked'. It just became nearly infinitely complex in describing things that are quite simple to understand in a heliocentric system.

I could mathematically describe my trip to work I terms of me staying fixed and the earth moving around me (actually I couldn't, bus someone could). It would not be 'wrong'. Just hellishly and unnecessarily complex, especially when you have to factor in other people moving as well.

I understood one of the things heliocentric system is that it solved the need for infinite epicycles on the planets.

Other than it is simpler, are we saying there is no actual proof? Really?

'Proof' comes from a number of things, including direct observation from space – though mathematical confirmation came a long time before humans sent objects into space.

All I – and I think Parzival – is saying, is that technically there is no centre to anything in space. Small objects orbit around large objects, but large objects also orbit around small – they both have gravity which affects the other. The Sun is no more 'fixed' than the Moon or the Earth – except in relation to the rest of the solar system

It is quite possible to create model which describes this movement in terms of the Earth being static and the Universe orbiting it.

Neither 'are' reality – they merely describe it.

Such a model would be crazy – as clearly is the writer of the linked article – but it would be possible.

Precisely. The "proof" of a heliocentric system comes in determining the mechanism behind it— that is, why things behave as they do. Sir Isaac Newton offered the proof by discovering the Law of Gravity. Prior to that, no one really had a reasonable explanation as to why the planets and stars moved as they did. Ptolemy could claim they were in nested crystal spheres attached to some sort of invisible gear work, but even he would have to have admitted that was pure speculation at best and nonsense at worst. But Newton determined that all objects with mass are attracted to each other, drawn together by the force of gravity. Combined with the laws of inertia, this revealed the mechanism by which the heliocentric system worked, thus proving that the heliocentric perspective, already preferable due to simplicity (and Occam's Razor), was essentially the scientifically correct one. No need for spheres or gears or even aether (as we later learned); just movement and gravity.

The whole geocentric model isn't really based on anything except an assumption about the nature of the universe which is false, namely that because I am looking up at everything else, I, and the place I live, must be at the center of it all. Which implies that the first to conceive of this description of the Universe were clearly teenagers.

I'm not arguing, I'd just never really thought about proof. Reading the site I realised there is nowhere we can stand and say 'it moves like this' – everything is maths. Course its pretty funny how he claims a) the lunar landings are impossible and b) a picture of the Earth from the moon proves geocentricity. The rants are the typical anything that disagrees with my religeon must be wrong.

Just thought. If Newton is wrong, what stuff wouldn't work in 21st century life?

"Just thought. If Newton is wrong, what stuff wouldn't work in 21st century life?"

Satellites. GPS systems. Anything involving ballistics. Computerized sports systems which use gravity based ballistics to establish the proper body motions for throwing/hitting objects.

Just for starters.

Given the problems I have with sports on the computer I have decided to become a Geocentrist. I'm not crap- the physics are wrong.

That would also explain why I can't dance I bet, Last Hussar, I'm running with your idea.

Just thought. If Newton is wrong, what stuff wouldn't work in 21st century life?

Well, first, as you dounbtless know, he is wrong -- Eistein and Heisenburg put paid to the philosphical underpinnings of Newton's understanding of how the world works. It's just that the world we experience acts pretty much in line with Newton's (and Kepler's, and Galileo's) equations.

If the low-relative-velocity human-perceivable-scale world didn't agree with Newton's equations of motion and gravitation? I really doubt we could exist.

Well, first, as you dounbtless know, he is wrong -- Eistein and Heisenburg put paid to the philosphical underpinnings of Newton's understanding of how the world works.

Actually, I think you mean Planck and Heisenberg, who dealt on a quantum level.

However, when you shoot a rocket to the Moon you are still using Newtonian, Keplerian and Galilean physics.

Ralph

And it is abit unfair to Newton. A bit like sneering at a Mark V tank, because it's not as good as an M1. You have to start somewhere.

Indeed Last Hussar.

As to epicycles, some people have the same problem with the string and brane theories – If they run across a problem, all they do is add another dimension until the math works:)