Another Article Against Geocentrism

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There is a doppler (red) shift as stars and galaxies appear to move outwards in an expanding universe. ( I could go to Setterfield and the decreasing speed of light, but I have to get back to work.)

http://www.academia.edu/3189940/On_the_Geocentric_Nature_of_Hubbles_Law

This is only one of endless secular articles you can find on a google search about this doppler red shift and how it appears to show a geocentric universe with a earth at the center of the big bang theory. I am not kidding, the sites are apparently endless, like the universe. However, they know that can't possibly be true, so they try to rescue Hubble without falling into geocentricity, and the twists and turns and hypotheses get more convoluted all the time. I can't copy and paste from this download, skim it yourself. The obvious answer to this doppler red shift is geocentricity.

That is not what I am referring to, please read my quotes. I am referring to the light measured from one star as we move towards it and away from it six months apart. The velocities of the light do not add and subtract. Stop saying I am making this up. This is not the doppler red shift of stars expanding. The lack of velocity "c" change, proving the earth at rest, became the impetus for relativity. Einstein's theory would not have been needed if early experiments measuring the light speed from a fixed star, with earth's rotational and annual revolution velocity, showed an increased and decreased speed.

I beg you again- go to my link and read the quotes from Einstein and his buddies. Every measurement you refer to proves geocentricity as much as heliocentricity......unless one accepts a firmament and classic Newtonian physics, in which case only geocentricity can be proved.

Are you aware that with radar and sound we add and subtract the velocity of a moving object to the speed of the wave? With light in a vacume of space according to Einstein, we do not. It appears the same to all observers everywhere- the one on the earth moving towards the star today and the one in six months moving away from the star. This is relativity, sort of. Its gotten tweaked and sub tweaked and altered in various ways when it didn't fit classic electricity or magnetism or time or mass. But it is a simple explanation.

Here, this is all about relativity, you will like it. It is your choice to accept time constants, mass constants, and constant wave behavior, or go with this. I choose Newton and a firmament/ether. My model works perfectly. Yours needs all sorts of counterinutitive and illogical assumptions, as well as rejection of the firmament. Suit yourself, but stop saying I make false claims. You do not know what you are talking about.

Special Relativity

Another assumption on the laws of physics made by the SI definition of the metre is that the theory of relativity is correct. It is a basic postulate of the theory of relativity that the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames. This can be broken down into two parts:

The speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer.
The speed of light does not vary with time or place.
To state that the speed of light is independent of the velocity of the observer is very counterintuitive. Some people even refuse to accept this as a logically consistent possibility, but in 1905 Einstein was able to show that it is perfectly consistent if you are prepared to give up assumptions about the absolute nature of space and time.

In 1879 it was thought that light must propagate through a medium in space, the ether, just as sound propagates through the air and other substances. The two scientists Michelson and Morley set up an experiment to attempt to detect the ether, by observing relative changes in the speed of light as Earth changed its direction of travel relative to the sun during the year. To their surprise, they failed to detect any change in the speed of light.

Fitzgerald then suggested that this might be because the experimental apparatus contracted as it passed through the ether, in such a way as to countermand the attempt to detect the change in velocity. Lorentz extended this idea to changes in the rates of clocks to ensure complete undetectability of the ether. Einstein then argued that those transformations should be understood as changes of space and time rather than of physical objects, and that the absoluteness of space and time introduced by Newton should be discarded. Just after that, the mathematician Minkowski showed that Einstein's theory of relativity could be understood in terms of a four dimensional non-euclidean geometry that considered space and time as one entity, ever after called spacetime.

The theory is not only mathematically consistent, it agrees with many direct experiments. The Michelson-Morley experiment was repeated with greater accuracy in the years that followed. In 1925 Dayton Miller announced that he had detected a change in the speed of light and was even awarded prizes for the discovery, but a 1950s appraisal of his work indicated that the most likely origin of his results lay with diurnal and seasonal variations in the temperature of his equipment.

Modern instruments could easily detect any ether drift if it existed. Earth moves around the Sun at a speed of about 30 km/s, so if velocities added vectorially as newtonian mechanics requires, the last 5 digits in the value of the speed of light now used in the SI definition of the metre would be meaningless. Today, high energy physicists at CERN in Geneva and Fermilab in Chicago routinely accelerate particles to within a whisker of the speed of light. Any dependence of the speed of light on inertial reference frames would have shown up long ago, unless it is very slight indeed. Their measurements are actually made in a non-inertial frame because gravity is present. But in the context of the measurements, this non-inertial frame is almost identical to a "uniformly accelerated frame" (this is actually the content of Einstein's Principle of Equivalence). And it turns out that a measurement of light's speed made in a uniformly accelerated frame directly by someone who is very close to the light will return the inertial value of c—although that observer must be close to the light to measure this value.

But what if we pursued the original theory of Fitzgerald and Lorentz, who proposed that the ether is there, but is undetectable because of physical changes in the lengths of material objects and the rates of clocks, rather than changes in space and time? For such a theory to be consistent with observation, the ether would need to be completely undetectable using clocks and rulers. Everything, including the observer, would have to contract and slow down by just the right amount. Such a theory could make exactly the same prediction in all experiments as the theory of relativity; but it would reduce the ether to essentially no more than a metaphysical construct unless there was some other way of detecting it—which no one has found. In the view of Einstein, such a construct would be an unnecessary complication, to be best eliminated from the theory.

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When we wave goodbye to an astronaut who is about to make a high-speed return journey to the nearest star, it would be wrong to maintain that the slowing of his clock is nothing more than an artifact of a coordinate choice. It isn't: when the astronaut returns, he will have aged less than we have, and there's nothing illusory about that. (lynnie edit. You are a Christian. Do you believe this about time? This is where we get philosophical and Rev Winzer starts throwing in bible verses. This concept is necessary for relativity. Isn't it far more sensible to hold to a firmament and fixed time? Your opinion is up to you).

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
 
That is not what I am referring to, please read my quotes. I am referring to the light measured from one star as we move towards it and away from it six months apart. The velocities of the light do not add and subtract. Stop saying I am making this up.

Aha! I finally understand. You keep saying the velocities of light do not add and subtract. This makes no sense and that's what was throwing me off, I thought you were referring to a Doppler shift six months out of the year in one direction, and the opposite the other six months, which does exist.

Okay, so they don't add and subtract, but why would they? And how could you possibly measure that? Besides, no other waves behave that way that I know of.

Are you aware that with radar and sound we add and subtract the velocity of a moving object to the speed of the wave?

I didn't want to flash credentials but my MS degree was in Electromagnetics and I work in radar every day. What you said here, is wrong. When I am flying a plane with a radar attached to it, it doesn't magically make the EM wave travel at c + jet speed. In radar we know the velocity by the Doppler shift, and we know the range by the amount of round-trip time for the pulse, which is at the speed of light. If the velocity of object was additive to the wave, the range would be completely ambiguous because we wouldn't know whether the pulse got back quicker because the object was moving really fast toward us, or because the object was close to the radar. It is NOT additive.

The same is true of sound. That's why a plane can go faster than the speed of sound, if the velocity was added or subtracted, how could it? The sound would always just go speed of sound faster than the plane. It doesn't make the sound travel faster if the plane goes faster, the limit of the medium is what matters here, just like the limit of light in a vacuum.

The Doppler shift has nothing to do with the speed of the wave. It has to do with the perceived frequency shift.
 
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Logan- If apparatus is supposed to measure something, and every scientist in the world at the time and after until Albert expected the apparatus to measure something- it can be the speed of a hamster running on a wheel- and all of the scientists expect a certain result, and they end up with a nil result when they are sure the conditions will yield a measurable result....

...and they are left scratching their heads for a couple decades until Einstein throws out classic Newtonian physics and comes up with a new theory that says the speed of the hamster wheel will always look the same even when it should measure faster or slower depending on which hamster is in the wheel.....

...and they also toss time as a constant, and they toss a lot of things.....

we end up where we are right now. I may not know how radar works the way you do, but I know that what scientists expected to happen with light waves did not happen. Hence relativity and the tossing of the ether/firmament, 3D space, and so much more.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.
 
The Doppler shift has nothing to do with the speed of the wave. It has to do with the perceived frequency shift.

Yes. Bad semantics on my part perhaps. But when one expects to see the perceived shift by all known laws of physics and does not, the shift is not happening....unless we resort to relativity.

I find that when I talk to people what it usually boils down to is that they just can't accept planets and stars rotating that fast. They just can't accept that the God who made it all could spin it every 24 hours.

It is interesting to compare the solar system with one atom. (Now I know the old Bohr model with electrons as little orbiting points is no longer the model. We now have a nucleus grain of sand in the middle of picturing a big puff of smoke, which can be a sphere or doughnut or dumbbell, and the electron is a probability wave of quantum physics now. So don't jump on me.)

If our sun and the nucleus of a gold atom were each scaled to one foot long, the outer electron of the gold atom ( or edge of the uncertainty shell) would be past Pluto. (The earth would be 215 feet out.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=per...ei=r7H7V_naOsXme4egpOAN#imgrc=Nc2FckaS9bkClM:

So using a classical Bohr model, every second that electron with an orbit out past Pluto spins 1.7854*10^20 revolutions per second around the sun. Can you imagine Pluto spinning around the sun 1.780,000,000,000,000,0000,000 times every single second?

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090103143328AAI2BrN

Yet people think the universe could not spin every 24 hours. (and see Setterfield on the speed of light decay for why the universe size is far smaller than you've been led to believe).

People accept the structure of an atom without giving it a single thought. Yet the same God who can make an electron spin (or do its uncertainty principle wave motion thing)the equivalent of Pluto spinning around the sun 1.780,000,000,000,000,0000,000 times every single second can't make the planets and stars spin every day?

Relativity says that if a spaceship is moving at speed v towards earth, and a stationary observer measures a beam of light (c) from the spaceship, he will not see it at the speed of v + c, but only as c.

You can believe that, and dismiss absolute time and space and mass and the firmament to have heliocentricity, or you can believe classic physics and Genesis and geocentricity. Both models work to predict all the phenomena we see locally with planets and so forth. But one requires relativity, and one does not.


Before this thread ends forever, let me suggest a good book for laymen, with a basic guide to both geocentricity and the problems with relativity (there are so many).

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Agrees-Bible-Malcolm-Bowden/dp/0950604240 (he is better known for his work on fossils and evolution, but includes more Creationist subjects in this book).

I think the subject matters, especially for inerrancy. Just my opinion. I have found geocentricity to be a wonderful subject worth studying, and have enjoyed the thread.
 
MW said:
Metaphysically the earth must move. There is only one unmoved Mover. If the earth were absolutely unmoved it would be unchangeable, and that is not possible for a creature. The fact it changes is evidence of motion. But the geo-static question concerns relative motion. If it is relative it is not going to address the issue from an ultimate standpoint; and given Mach's equivalence principle there doesn't seem to be a single answer at any rate.
Sounds good. That is the part of the geocentrist understanding of Scriptures that I found most difficult to see. Mach's principle isn't really standard science though, so far as I am aware, and modern science contradicts some of it. On the other hand, it hasn't been completely disproven either.

MW said:
Your five points are a good summary statement.
Given these admissions, I don't really have anything with which I disagree, with the exception that heliocentrism or acentrism require a mediocrity principle to arrive at them from the scientific data. That has been the case historically though, and I do agree that it is a large driving factor in the present day. However, there are empirical reasons for not holding the earth to be at the center. Lynnie has brought up some counter-evidence that purportedly shows the earth is near the center, and although I have investigated it before, I am not ready to say it is entirely wrong (or correct).


MW said:
Given that science at its best is relative, any description of motion is only going to be relative to the system in which it operates. Natural science has no theory of everything. If it had a theory of everything one would have to question the verifiability of it, since there would be nothing left by which to verify or falsify it. This allows the sciences to enjoy a relative degree of experimental confirmation, but when you start trying to unite them they conflict. Incidentally, this also has a providential benefit in that the hindrance of unification disturbs the momentum of Babel-builders.
As I was reviewing relativity in preparation for the class I TA, I was seeing this much more clearly than I did before. The reason the earth is said to be rotating (and moving) based on classical physics is because of a theory of motion (based on reference frames) that metaphysically declares some motion to be absolute because no known causes for the forces that appear can be found within the reference frame and those forces disappear when one switches to a reference frame not undergoing absolute motion. I also noticed that "absolute" needs to be carefully defined: with regards to reference frames, "absolute" quantities (such as motion) are those that observers in all reference frames agree on, while "relative" quantities change their value when observed from different reference frames. Nevertheless, there does seem to be something based upon common-sense and critical observation in this sort of reasoning about motion. Perhaps it would be helpful to ask: How do you distinguish the case for the earth's motion from the case of a projectile or merry-go-round?

Or maybe, suppose that you were inside a large metal dome on earth that moved around a large object and rotated on its axis, although it does so in such a way that you are carried with the motion and do not feel it with your own senses. You can see nothing outside the dome except the stars and the large object in the sky rising and setting. You perform various experiments and notice that according to Newton's laws (which you already knew before being placed in the dome), the area in which you inhabit exhibits the unique characteristics of rotation. Indeed, if you do not take the rotation into account, you are unable to aim some projectiles with proper accuracy. You also notice by measurements that the large object in the sky must be larger than your metal dome: so large, that by Newton's laws, your dome is moving around it. You are eventually let outside of your dome and you notice it to rotate and move--just as you thought it would. Do you doubt that the object rotates and moves? Is the only difference between this and the earth is that God has said something about the relative motion of the earth and sun, whereas there is no divine revelation concerning your metal dome (incidentally, is this why you would accept the earth is round? Because empirical observation indicates this, whereas there is no word to the contrary in Scripture)?


NaphtaliPress said:
Re-opened; but consider at nearly 250 posts if this one's rather done.
I'm just about done.
 
Lynnie has brought up some counter-evidence that purportedly shows the earth is near the center, and although I have investigated it before, I am not ready to say it is entirely wrong (or correct).

The "evidence" is rejected on the homogeneous principle, and nullified by the big bang. An expanding universe which is accelerating and looking the same in every direction can have no centre; and even if it did it could never be ascertained by an empirical method, which would mean any contradicting phenomenon must be an "anomaly" the science hasn't figured out as yet; and the science would only figure it out by postulating a larger space in which they suppose the same phenomenon will exist in unexplored space.

The mediocrity principle as a metaphysical commitment allows the practitioner to effectively nullify any evidence which points in the direction of "significance." If earth holds any distinguishing characteristics it only suggests to the mediocrean that there must be other worlds with the same characteristics.

You are eventually let outside of your dome and you notice it to rotate and move--just as you thought it would. Do you doubt that the object rotates and moves?

Where am I when I am let out of my dome? Am I on a spinning earth, around a spinning sun, around a spinning galaxy, ad infinitum? It begs the question. According to inertia, force is required for something to stay at rest or remain in motion. If I found that the dome was rotating I would have to investigate why it is rotating around something at rest. Were I to find an answer I could only say my findings are relative to something else, which are relative to something else, which are ultimately relative to something I don't know. If I were to come back to something absolute I would be looking into God Himself, which is impossible without the doctrine of emanation. If emanation were true I would not be able to properly distinguish between the one and the many, which would only render any investigation of the matter an illusion.
 
MW said:
The "evidence" is rejected on the homogeneous principle, and nullified by the big bang. An expanding universe which is accelerating and looking the same in every direction can have no centre; and even if it did it could never be ascertained by an empirical method, which would mean any contradicting phenomenon must be an "anomaly" the science hasn't figured out as yet; and the science would only figure it out by postulating a larger space in which they suppose the same phenomenon will exist in unexplored space.

The mediocrity principle as a metaphysical commitment allows the practitioner to effectively nullify any evidence which points in the direction of "significance." If earth holds any distinguishing characteristics it only suggests to the mediocrean that there must be other worlds with the same characteristics.
Ah, I see what you are saying. As I noted earlier, there is some evidence of homogeneity (although it is ultimately an assumption), but those are some good points.


MW said:
Where am I when I am let out of my dome? Am I on a spinning earth, around a spinning sun, around a spinning galaxy, ad infinitum? It begs the question. According to inertia, force is required for something to stay at rest or remain in motion. If I found that the dome was rotating I would have to investigate why it is rotating around something at rest. Were I to find an answer I could only say my findings are relative to something else, which are relative to something else, which are ultimately relative to something I don't know. If I were to come back to something absolute I would be looking into God Himself, which is impossible without the doctrine of emanation. If emanation were true I would not be able to properly distinguish between the one and the many, which would only render any investigation of the matter an illusion.
It seems the difficulty is indeed the difference between "absolute" in physics and "absolute" in philosophy (I realize Newton had a concept of "absolute space" that complicates this proposed distinction a bit). The physicist would just say: Although all these things are relative to things that I don't know, I do know that observers in any reference frame would measure the same thing I am measuring, so by my definition of "absolute" the motion is "absolute." I was going to say the difficulty was Machain vs non-Machian understanding of accelerated motion (Newton's bucket example), but it seems that the "fictitious force" that appears in a "rotating" reference frame would be said to be relative to something we don't know. Yes?


As further questions to make sure I am understanding what you are saying: Do you investigate a projectile or merry-go-round in the same way? Or are there other things at work here (like our senses)?

After stepping outside the dome and finding it to be rotating relative to the earth and you thought about how you launched the projectile within the dome and had to take into account the rotation of the dome relative to the earth, what did you make of the fact that you had to take into account that rotation, if the rotation is relative, not absolute?

Finally, do you subject the observed roundness of the earth to the same analysis? Or is it accepted on other grounds? (I'm trying to make sure I understand the methodology being used.)
 
As further questions to make sure I am understanding what you are saying: Do you investigate a projectile or merry-go-round in the same way? Or are there other things at work here (like our senses)?

I think we have shown it is all counter-intuitive to our senses. By my senses I can feel a force; but then I am told it is only an apparent force, not real. At any rate, my senses give me a reference point by which I can develop a common sense approach to the world, and I need to trust my senses in order to make real, ethical, practical decisions. E.g., if I or others might be hurt by the projectile. You can only make sensible decisions based on your relative information being practically correct.

what did you make of the fact that you had to take into account that rotation, if the rotation is relative, not absolute?

Anything going outside the dome had to take into account the rotation as relative to the thing to which it was directed. If there were a counter-rotation anywhere it may have created equilibrium.

Finally, do you subject the observed roundness of the earth to the same analysis? Or is it accepted on other grounds? (I'm trying to make sure I understand the methodology being used.)

The Bible never says the earth is flat. The funny thing here is that you actually have flat earth measurements for some things. Also a flat universe is one of the models. Even space-time flattens things out into a motionless block. :)
 
Sorry for the delay in response. In part to finish up this thread and in part because I am getting very busy, I will likely need to finish this up without having finished discussing things through to my own satisfaction (i.e., I'm still not entirely sure why motion is held to be metaphysical). I think the metaphysical issues are slightly separate from the OP topic, so hopefully they will make a good thread topic on their own. Here are some (hopefully) final questions/statements in an attempt to make sure I understand what has been said thus far.

MW said:
I think we have shown it is all counter-intuitive to our senses. By my senses I can feel a force; but then I am told it is only an apparent force, not real. At any rate, my senses give me a reference point by which I can develop a common sense approach to the world, and I need to trust my senses in order to make real, ethical, practical decisions. E.g., if I or others might be hurt by the projectile. You can only make sensible decisions based on your relative information being practically correct.
Only the outward force pushing one away from the center of rotation is said to be fictitious; it is said to be fictitious because only an observer inside the dome feels it; an observer outside the dome or merry-go-round does not measure that force: that force disappears. The force you feel of being pressed against another object (a wall or floor) is said to be a real force and is measured by observers both inside and outside the dome or merry-go-round. The point though is that these fictitious forces only show up when an object is rotating, and it seems you do indeed analyze the merry-go-round or projectile in the same way as the dome.

MW said:
Anything going outside the dome had to take into account the rotation as relative to the thing to which it was directed. If there were a counter-rotation anywhere it may have created equilibrium.
As just noted, these fictitious forces only show up when an object is rotating. So one needs to take these forces into account when inside the dome. That is what I meant by taking into account the dome's rotation. I am not entirely clear what is being said here: Are you saying that the rotation only needs to be taken into account when one is outside the dome?

MW said:
The Bible never says the earth is flat. The funny thing here is that you actually have flat earth measurements for some things. Also a flat universe is one of the models. Even space-time flattens things out into a motionless block.
Okay. So it seems the main reason for holding to geocentrism is because it is divinely revealed? Hence, a flat earth is rejected, since that is not revealed but our observations show the earth to be round?


Perhaps I did not analyze things properly in my previous post. Maybe the issue is indeed coming down to an understanding of Newton's bucket, or maybe it's a combination of Newton's bucket and a difference in understanding of absolute/relative. Anyway, that should be a focused enough idea/set of ideas for a thread topic on its own.
 
Okay. So it seems the main reason for holding to geocentrism is because it is divinely revealed? Hence, a flat earth is rejected, since that is not revealed but our observations show the earth to be round?

Yes. My only concern is to allow the Bible to speak without having its meaning determined by extraneous considerations. The Bible presents a consistent cosmology which has a bearing on a range of theological issues. It is important to understand the Bible's cosmology for its own sake, without trying to make it fit into a model devised by men for other reasons.
 
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