Geocentrism: Failing Basic Physics...

John Martin attempts a 'Gish Gallop' (RationalWiki) of comments in response to this post (Geocentrism: Does NASA use Geocentrism?).  These questions, and some additional, also appear to be available on John Martin's blog. Most of the comments demonstrate a very poor level of understanding of topics ranging from basic geometry to physics.  This commonly occurs if someone bases their scientific understanding on interpretations of press releases with an incorrect or incomplete understanding of the more fundamental physical concepts. 

It's not clear how many of these were Mr. Martin's own thoughts or some regurgitation of material from another source.  However, considering how many of the answers I readily found online, it is clear that Mr. Martin was incapable of doing even the most basic of research.

Q's referenced in this comment

Dr. Bridgman You asked questions concerning lagrange points and space flight paths using geocentrism. It seems to me that if relativity is correct and the earth can be considered as moving, the calculations are then performed in the usual way and then a transform is completed to a stationary earth inertial reference frame. This would enable the flight path and lagrange points to be calculated. Alternatively a mathematical model of a geocentric universe would have to be constructed and the forces caused by the rotating universe included within the calculations to directly calculate the lagrange points and flight paths. According to GWW such mathematical models have been constructed by physicists.

Let me get this straight, you want to do all the calculations in the appropriate (heliocentric) frames, then use a coordinate transformation (a technique valid between ANY locations) to transform to a geocentric frame.  So far that is okay.

But if you want use this technique to claim that it supports the Earth as a favored position in space, that would be a lie.  This technique will work for any object, whether it be a planet or spacecraft.

Some other implications of Mr. Martin's suggestion:

• This type of ploy also brings to light the fact that the heliocentrists can work in ANY convenient coordinate system, but the Geocentrists cannot do squat without the heliocentric techniques.  Mr. Martin has basically admitted that Geocentrism claims are useless for any practical problems.
• This tactic is also used by Geocentrists and other pseudoscientists to evade doing any actual work themselves that would be required of real science.  They want to get by with just saying “We use the heliocentric results done by others and then transform the results to an Earth-centered system and this makes the Earth a favored position“.  This is equivalent to stealing the work of others and trying to re-label it as your own. 

Geocentrists, like many other pseudo-scientists I've confronted on this blog, seem to be nothing but posers.  They want credit and recognition for achievements they have not done.

Many of the questions below erroneously invoke Kepler's Laws.  This is disturbing since Mr. Martin claims a degree in engineering yet apparently could not comprehend how many of these issues were covered in the previous post, Geocentrism: Does NASA use Geocentrism? Some of these errors are equivalent to using idealizations of a round earth and invoking the fact that the Earth actually deviates from perfectly round as a basis for claiming that the Earth is flat, or trying to claim the Gas Laws (wikipedia) are incorrect by applying them to the thermal expansion of liquids and solids.

Kepler's Laws (Wikipedia) are actually a special case of Newton's laws and gravitation LIMITED TO THE CASE OF ONLY TWO BODIES (Wikipedia).  The instant the question involves more than two bodies, Kepler's Laws become, at best, an approximation.  In the case where the system is dominated by a large mass with additional bodies of much smaller masses (such as the Sun being the dominant mass of the solar system), it is still possible to develop perturbation expansions where the orbit is close to Keplerian, but the Keplerian orbital elements (wikipedia) undergo a slow variation with time.  This is the method used in algorithms such as VSOP87 (Wikipedia)

If relativity is correct at least according to inertial reference frames, then a rotating and moving shell of stars will produce the same forces on a body as a rotating and moving earth against the fixed stars. Some questions for your consideration –

Q1 - according to Kepler’s first law, See more... “The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.“, yet the center of mass of the sun is always moving around the solar system barycenter. Therefore, as the foci of the planets ellipse moves, does this therefore invalidated the first law, or does the entire ellipse move with the moving foci at the center of the sun?

Q2- If the planet actually orbits the solar system barycenter, why then does Kepler’s first law say otherwise?

Q1, Q2:  Failure to understand basic mechanics to the two-body problem (wikipedia).

Q3 - Doesn't the solar system barycenter exclude the center of the sun as being a foci of the planets elliptical orbit?

Q3: Failure to understand basic geometry.  It is not a problem when the 'centers' can also move, including the Earth's center.  Even Ptolemy's model did this.

Q4- If Kepler’s first law is used in planetary flight paths, this means the solar system barycenter must be ignored, which thereby seems to invalidate Newton’s laws of motion around a common barycenter. Please comment.

Q4:  Failure to understand basic mechanics of the Two-body problem (wikipedia). 

Q5- Why do Kepler’s laws assume all planets have an elliptical flight path, yet when we take into account the Earth-moon system, the earth moves around the Earth - moon barycenter every month whilst moving along its orbital path around the sun. If the trace out the flight path of the earth relative to the center of mass of the sun as the foci of the ellipse, the earth cannot possibly be traveling in an ellipse, but must move through “absolute space“ in a flower pattern centered on the solar system barycenter. As the earths flight path does not fit into the elliptical orbit pattern required by Kepler’s laws, how are Kepler’s laws used to accurately determine the flights paths of other planets relative to the earth?

Q5:  Misapplication of Kepler's Laws to a three-body system (Sun-Earth-Moon).  Failure to understand basic mechanics of the 2-body and N-body problem, basic geometry.  OrbitSimulator.com,
“Regular Keplerian motions in classical many-body systems“ by Eugene I Butikov

Q6 - If the earth is orbiting around the Earth-moon barycenter every month, why don’t we see the apparent motion of the sun around the earth vary in velocity as the earth gains and loses a velocity component due to its motion relative to the “fixed” sun? In other words – during the monthly cycle there is a time when the earth must orbit in a prograde manner relative to the sun, when orbiting the earth –moon system. Later during the month, the earth continues its earth-moon barycenter motion and must move in a retrograde motion relative to the fixed sun.

Q6: Trajectories look different in different coordinate systems, especially when those coordinate systems vary in time. LRO in Earth Centered and Moon Centered Coordinates

Q's referenced in this comment.

Q7- How are these relative prograde and retrograde motions of the earth on a monthly basis taken into account in the flight path calculations?

Q8- How are the calculations consistent with Kepler’s laws, when the earths flight path through space is not an ellipse, but a complex flower shape?

Q7, Q8: Failure to understand basic geometry.  This is a far worse problem if you try to do an interplanetary trajectory calculation in a 'Geocentric' frame.  That is the problem Geocentrists must solve.  Many references to how this is actually done were linked from the previous post (Geocentrism: Does NASA use Geocentrism?)

Q9 - According to Kepler’s laws, the earth orbits the sun every year in an ellipse. Accordingly the velocity of the earth varies from 30.287 to 29.291 km/s, yet the earths orbital velocity around the earth-moon system is approximately 0.012km/s. This means that if we take into account the monthly orbit velocity of the earth around the E-M barycenter, the earths velocity around the sun will vary from 30.287+-0.012 to 29.291+-0.012, which means the earths orbital velocity around the sun does not comply with Kepler’s laws. How is the flight path of the earth and planets relative to the earth calculated when the earths flight path around the sun does not comply with Kepler’s laws?

Q9: Misapplication of Kepler's Laws to a three-body system (Sun-Earth-Moon). 

Q10 – If the earth See more... moves around the E-M barycenter every month, why don’t we observe a monthly parallax of the sun?

Q10: Failure to understand basic geometry and trigonometry.  Barycenter offset of Earth-Moon system creates an angle of about 4,640 km / 149,600,000 km = 3.10e-5 radians = 1.78e-3 degrees = 6.40“ of arc.  Equivalent Earth rotation =  1.18e-4 hours = 0.426 seconds is the equivalent variation in time.  This is if you just consider the Sun, Earth & Moon.  While an angle and time of this size could probably be readily measured at a ground-based observatory for a point-like object at night, I invite you to measure this angle to the timing accuracy required, in daytime, with changing atmospheric conditions, for an extended object like the Sun.

Q11 – The sundial is constructed using the equation of time which excludes the motion of the sun around the solar system barycenter. As the sun moves quite a large amount over many years, as shown in this video, - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iSR3Yw6FXo why is the suns motion ignored in the equation of time? Please provide the calculations to demonstrate the suns motion around the solar system barycenter can legitimately be ignored in the equation of time.

Q11: The analemma and equation of time are perturbed due to motions of all the planets around the center of mass and they vary from year to year.  This means you cannot define a precise uniform time scale based on the motion of the Sun and why many of these equations refer to the motion of a mean Sun which ignores these variations.  Therefore we move over to time systems based on atomic clocks, calibrated for different frames of reference where appropriate.  A number of alternative time scales (with conversions and adjustments between them) have been developed to solve these problems:

• Why new time scales? 
• Lick Observatory: Time Scales
• NRAO: Astronomical Times
• Wikipedia: International Atomic Time
• Wikipedia: Universal Time
• Wikipedia: Terrestrial Time
• Wikipedia: Barycentric Coordinate Time
• Wikipedia: Barycentric Dynamical Time
• Wikipedia: Barycentric Julian Date
• Wikipedia: Equation of Time
• Analemmas
• Variation of the Equation of Time with the Precession of the Equinoxes

To be continued...