Geocentrism: Failing More Basic Physics...

This is a continuation of my response to the comment stream placed in this blog post by Mr. John Martin.

Mr. Martin's claims quickly become more bizarre due to the fact he has built them on of many of the false premises he made, which I addressed in my first response (Geocentrism: Failing Basic Physics...).  Mr. Martin claims he has had some physics and is an engineer, yet it appears he is incapable of doing even the basic math and geometry which he would need to understand, and correct, his misconceptions. 

Questions referenced in this comment.

Dr. Bridgman said – “Sungenis' 'evidence' consists of selective interpretation of the geometric fact that you can move your coordinate origin to any convenient location - including the Earth - and ignoring the fact that this trick applies everywhere. He completely ignores the dynamical aspects of the problem that make these coordinate systems different when actually moving from planet to planet. The really funny part is he is basically using a relativistic argument to make his case, then tries to prove relativity wrong.” JM- Sungenis’ evidence for geocentrism is all encompassing and shows the science experiments used to determine the motion of the earth through space are all consistent with a stationary earth surrounded by an aether flow. Furthermore, the large scale structure of the universe also points to the earth being at the center of the universe. Combining these evidences, a powerful case is made for a stationary earth at the center of the universe, just as it was made by the See more... creator. I invite you to review your position on this matter as a matter of scientific truth. Dr. Bridgman said – “I've seen no evidence that his 'theory' can answer any of the questions that must be dealt with by satellite designers and astronauts.” JM- What are these problems and why is it not possible to address them with a stationary earth? Please present evidence for your claims.

It is not impossible.  It can always be done by transforming to heliocentric coordinate systems when needed, but that can be done from any point in space or planet - it does not favor the Earth in any way.  If you want to do the entire calculation in a geocentric system with some 'aether' to account for the coriolis and other forces, then supporters of geocentrism must demonstrate that this works from first principles. 

Basically, Geocentrists need to produce the algorithm that enables us to compute the forces this 'aether' creates at any given position and time.  Then they need to demonstrate that this can produce the same paths we observe for planets, and design for spacecraft.

Everything I've seen from Geocentrists is a cheat, trying to take someone else's heliocentric solution and then moving the origin to the Earth.  They don't appear to have the competence, or courage, it takes to actually transform the known equations of motion, Newtonian gravity and acceleration, well-tested in everything from laboratories to mechanics to spacecraft, to a reference frame where the body of the Earth is not rotating (Wikipedia: Frame of Reference, Non-inertial frames).  Once you can compute the forces at any point, particle positions and velocities at any time can be computed.

Evidence for my claims - yeah - no one is using Geocentrists methods (whatever they actually are) to successfully navigate to other planets.

Q1 - Why is it that Newtonian mechanics requires instantaneous action at a distance to account for gravity and this is taken seriously by science?

Q1: Newton was uncomfortable with “action at a distance“.  He eventually adopted the solution of noting that his gravitational force law gave predictions to planetary motions that matched observation and left it to others to figure out further details of how it worked.  This is common in empirical science.  The gas laws (wikipedia) were used for years before we knew about molecules and statistical mechanics.

Q2- What is the mechanism proposed by science what is consistent with Newtonian physics to permit the force of gravity to be effective instantaneously over large distances?

Q2: I don't know.  Magic Pixies?  Angels?  Not really relevant to the fact that the force equation works.  Others have proposed theories for a finite speed of gravity.  Einstein's theory subsequently provided a model for the 'speed of gravity' (wikipedia).

Q3 - Relativity says gravity is caused by a completely different mechanism of a bending of the space time continuum. As this mechanism is very much unlike the Newtonian mechanism for gravity, why are the two mechanisms routinely acknowledged within modern science?

Q3:  and yet in the limit of weak fields, the central-force problem derived from Einstein's field equations reduce to Newton's equations for motion by gravity.  i.e. it works.  If you don't believe it, do the mathematics yourself.  The process is also outlined in many introductory textbooks on general relativity.

Q4- Why is it that the notion of the barycenter is fundamentally flawed and yet it is taken seriously by modern science and is routinely used in planetary flight path calculations when using Kepler’s laws? For example a planet is said to obey Kepler’s laws by taking an elliptical flight path around the sun as one of its foci, yet that same planets is also said to travel around the solar system barycenter as one of its foci, which is not at the center of the sun. This singular inconsistency seems to be routinely ignored by modern science, yet Kepler’s laws are routinely stated to be compatible with Newton’s laws and reflective of real planetary flight paths. Please comment.

Q4: The concept of a barycenter (center-of-mass) is a fundamental concept of mechanics and a consequence of Newton's Laws (wikipedia) and applies to far more systems than celestial mechanics.  Ever seen a see-saw?  Ever used a lever?  Do you know why a bridge is stable (or unstable)?  What about an automobile or an aircraft or a rocket?  You claim to have some physics background, but it is  painfully apparent that you don't understand even these basic concepts.

Q5 – Modern sciences understanding of the physical cause of gravity is not well understood. Why then is Newtonian mechanics and relativity theory used against geocentrism when such theories merely make assumptions concerning the mechanism for gravity and then produce equations based upon those assumptions? After all if those assumptions are not well established by science experiment, then objections to geocentrism are at best only objections, based upon models founded upon assumptions about the nature of gravity. Please comment. . . .

Q5: You have yet to demonstrate any operational knowledge of gravity, so it is clear that YOUR understanding of gravity (and mechanics) is deficient, as demonstrated by your claims above.  Modern science has sent humans and spacecraft to the Moon and other planets thanks to how well we understand gravity.  We launched satellites into orbit in spite of the fact we had no precision tests of Newtonian gravity between the surface of the Earth and the orbit of the Moon.  Talk about a GAP in a scientific theory!  Do Geocentrist models have any equivalent accomplishment? 

We don't “know“ what electrons are.  Does that make my 'Magic Pixie' model correct, or even a viable contender?  There is no "proof" that the Earth is round (and technically, it isn't)

"not well established by science experiment"???  According to whom?  You who has (knowingly?) misrepresented Kepler's Laws, and apparently cannot do basic geometry, trigonometry, or mechanics?  You've demonstrated that you can't even do the BASICS required for celestial navigation or travel, so why should I, or anyone else, believe you?

If our understanding of gravity was as poor as you suggest, we would have never made it into space. 

Your 'arguments' are, at best, an attempt to 'muddy the facts'.   You try to detour the fact that the language of modern science is mathematics (see Mathematics: The Language of Science) and not weak rhetorical games.  Science requires you to provide a demonstration that your Geocentrism claims are equivalent, in the language of science, or your claims are useless (see Crank Science: Worse than Wrong). 

Questions referenced in this comment.

Q6 – The Foucault pendulum is routinely used as apparent evidence for the moving earth. The pendulum is said to swing in a plane parallel to the fixed stars, whilst the earth rotates underneath the pendulum. How does modern science explain the force produced by the fixed stars that causes the pendulum to swing in a fixed plane relative to the stars?

Q6: It's called inertia, (Wikipedia: Inertia, Foucault Pendulum)

Q7 -Why does the pendulum apparently overcome the gravity fields of the sun and moon and not swing in a plane following those bodies and yet not overcome the gravity fields of the distant stars?

Q7: This reads like some distorted interpretation of Mach's Principle (wikipedia), which is a (hypothetical) explanation of inertia.   Compute the torque that would be produced by the Sun & Moon on the pendulum configuration.  What kind of precession rate would it produce?  What would it take to measure the effect?

Q8 - Why doesn’t a Foucault pendulum that points towards the earth’s center of mass continue to do so throughout the day when the pendulum is traveling along with the rotating earth?

Q8: Huh?  The local vertical of the pendulum will always point along the direction vector of the local acceleration of gravity.

Q9 - Why doesn’t a Foucault pendulum merely follow the rotating earth and continue to swing in a plane with the moving earth and thereby have no variation of the plane direction with the earth’s daily rotation?

Q9: Inertia.  Some of the mathematics for understanding it in a rotating frame is described on the Wikipedia page.

Closing Comments

I don't mind trying to clarify things that are not on the web or don't necessarily have a good explanation.  But as I have referenced above, there is loads of material online which Mr. Martin has apparently never bothered to read, or has read and decided to ignore (most likely the latter).  Some web searches indicate that very similar questions have been asked before on various science sites. 

Mr. Martin's remaining queries (here and here) have deteriorated into a series of questions that read more like homework problems for an undergraduate physics class.  When questions like this would appear in the USENET physics forums, the popular response was “we don't do your homework problems for you.  Learn the physics.”

Mr. Martin relativity 'problems' are set up trying to measure all the velocities relative to some cosmological reference frame, even though such a construction violates the principle of relativity.  This is an apparent attempt to claim these effects have only been measured relative to the Earth, but the fact is we have measured aberration effects from high-precision astrometric spacecraft such as Hipparcos (wikipedia) in a highly-elliptical orbit where the velocity is significantly different from the Earth.   Star-trackers flown on many spacecraft must include the effect of stellar aberration for precision navigation.  We HAVE measured stellar aberrations from locations other than the Earth (more goodies on this for a future post!).

Apparently Mr. Martin couldn't type “Planetary aberration” into Google (wikipedia). 

Like most advocates of pseudoscience, they often come up with ideas where they think that THEY are the first to think of it and then never do any actual research as to what others have done.  That is usually a bad bet for any science that has been developed for over 50 years (see Doin' Astronomy (and Science in General)...).

Some of the queries above, and most of the remaining queries, will be added to my collection of similar items for sorting into topics where I can deal with them in a more consolidated manner.

Some Relevant Resources

    •    "Spherical Astronomy" by Robin Green.  Particularly check out pg 193, “Planetary aberration”. 
    •    The best source I've used on introductory relativity that has problems like Mr. Martin describes is “Spacetime Physics” by Edwin F Taylor, John Archibald Wheeler.  This book is an excellent resource for understanding the nuances of special relativity.
    •    Good Math, Bad Math: Relativistic Crap from an IDist
    •    "Achieving better than 1 minute accuracy in the Heliocentric and Barycentric Julian Dates"