Geocentric model: The Earth-centered view of the universe

[Admin]

The geocentric model is a debunked theory that the Earth is the center of the universe, with the sun and planets revolving around it.

Geocentric model: The Earth-centered view of the universe : Read more

 

[rod]

I note this survey comment in the article. "Nevertheless, some still believe the universe revolves around them. According to a 2012 survey conducted by the National Science Foundation of 2,200 people in the United States, when asked "does the Earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around Earth?" a quarter answered incorrectly."

This does not surprise here. Recently the flat earth community was making come backs in the USA. In flat earth astronomy, the earth is a 2D flat disk that is immovable in the firmament. When I reviewed aspects of astronomy here, I found that from Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD) through Tycho Brahe and later, the distance between earth and the Sun was considered about 1200 earth radii compared to the modern distance, near 24,000 earth radii. The geocentric universe featured much smaller solar system distances and a large earth. Even in the days of Ptolemy, the stars were considered to be about 20,000 earth radii distance, less than one astronomical unit in modern astronomy.

 

[billslugg]

Actually, every point in the universe is at the center of the universe, it appears the same in all directions no matter where you are. The universe is not rotating, nor is there a preferred direction (as best we can tell). The Sun and all of the planets rotate around the Solar System's barycenter which is located either inside the Sun or slightly outside it depending on the positions of the planets.

 

[Atlan0001]

Actually, every point in the universe is at the center of the universe, it appears the same in all directions no matter where you are. The universe is not rotating, nor is there a preferred direction (as best we can tell). The Sun and all of the planets rotate around the Solar System's barycenter which is located either inside the Sun or slightly outside it depending on the positions of the planets.

The biggest reason for this is because there is no "geo-centric" center. That makes every point of it, to include you, me, Daisy and Rod, the Administrator, the Earth, the solar system, the Milky Way, and each and every atom and component particle on down and in to the (Planck) Big Crunch (M) | Big Vacuum (C^2 (c = c . . . squaring)) | (Planck) Big Bang (E) Universe (U) of the whole show, the geo-centric center of all of an infinity of universes (u) at large, And, except for the Universe (U) everything is, and has been forever, in change and motion. Which means nothing could be further from the reality of the countless many divided (at the very least by countless and endless change / by countless and endless motion) universes than the 1-dimensional straight-line observed time-scape universe (u) at distance, going away, expanding away, to a frozen still-photo universe. Endless infinities of beginnings -- not counting the endless infinities of blackholes tracking right with them -- going back forever, and ever continuing, folded, contracted, to one Multiverse Universe (U).

With that single exception, the Multiverse Universe (U), there is no "geo-centric" center to universe (u) and universes. How does it feel to be the center of the universe? To the ancients of long ago, being the center of the universe was an awe-inspiring great feeling bringing with it a sense of awesomely great frontier possibilities. Whereas we today are often deliberately made to see ourselves disappearing into a nothingness of smallness in the universe . . . and thus with it, equally, feelings of smallness and nothingness in our own worlds. Not me, of course (I was born to be resistant to such ideas), but far too many.

 

[rod]

"Geocentric model: The Earth-centered view of the universe"

This is what the article is about, the geocentric astronomy vs. heliocentric solar system. It was natural for astronomers to observe the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars as moving around the Earth because this was their frame of reference. Copernicus used a spherical Earth that rotated on its axis to make predictions from and the Earth moving around the Sun.

The planetary theory of Copernicus, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1948PA.....56....2P/abstract, January 1948. My observation. Copernicus accepted the spherical Earth model and the Earth rotated on its axis too to explain celestial motion while the Earth moved around the Sun. This is found on page 3 of the PDF report.

Geocentric astronomy of Claudius Ptolemy and the heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus were developed using what they could see and document.

 

[Pogo]

To their eye, the geocentric view made sense. It was probably when they tried to apply math to be more accurate that geocentric didn’t make sense. Copernicus figured out that a heliocentric model fit better, but they thought of orbits as circles. Later as the math got better, the orbits didn’t follow circles, so they invented the complex system of epicycles which never quite worked until Herschel figured out ellipses, which was pretty good, but it got better when Newton and others figured out gravity and perterbations. Then it got pretty much perfect with Einstein’s relativistic precession and such.
I just can’t imagine modeling epicycles in an astronomical or space flight simulator.

 

[Atlan0001]

"Geocentric model: The Earth-centered view of the universe"

This is what the article is about, the geocentric astronomy vs. heliocentric solar system. It was natural for astronomers to observe the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars as moving around the Earth because this was their frame of reference. Copernicus used a spherical Earth that rotated on its axis to make predictions from and the Earth moving around the Sun.

The planetary theory of Copernicus, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1948PA.....56....2P/abstract, January 1948. My observation. Copernicus accepted the spherical Earth model and the Earth rotated on its axis too to explain celestial motion while the Earth moved around the Sun. This is found on page 3 of the PDF report.

Geocentric astronomy of Claudius Ptolemy and the heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus were developed using what they could see and document.

Oh, come on Rod, get with the bigger picture. The one we were into, and the one you, yourself, quote at the top of your post here ("Geocentric model: The Earth-centered view of the universe" (universe!, Rod. Not solar system. Not galaxy. Not galaxy cluster . . . but universe!). You have a specific, recognized, center of the universe other the ones I named, name it. I know history pretty darned well. I know how the ancients saw those lamp-holes in the firmament orbiting the Earth. But even today, which is the days I'm dealing in, the larger you go in the universe picture, the more your own locality in it centers in it until it is the exact center point of the biggest picture observed -- there being no other center point seen or detected -- of universe presented to you. You know that as well, if not better than, I do. I, returning to my picturing and modeling, finished with the ultimate in why, which springs to 4-dimensionality turned outside-in, inside-out (one and the same coin turned!).

Don't lose sight of the largest (smallest) / smallest (largest) picture.

 

[Helio]

The geocentric model is a debunked theory that the Earth is the center of the universe, with the sun and planets revolving around it.

I was hoping to see some evidence for a debunking of the "geocentric" model, which includes the Tychonic and modified Tychonic model.

Theories can't be proved but they must be falsifiable. Ptolemy's model wasn't really a theory in the modern since. His effort, IMO, was to produce a far more accurate mathematical model that would give the locations of planets over time, rather than a unifiied model of the physical universe.

But his model required constant updating. Copernicus wanted something better and he was fluent in Greek. He referenced in his de Revolutionibus several Greek authors who favored the heliocentric model, so perhaps these Greeks inspired his visionary model.

Also, Copernicus was perhaps the first to offer a physical model where the math was secondary. He did something all theories should do -- unification. Retrograde finally made sense physically.

Nevertheless, to my knowledge, no one has debunked the modified Tychonic model -- a geocentric model. The reason is due to GR. Einstein demonstrated that any point can be treated as the center of the universe; the equations work fine regardless of the chosen point.

Geocentrists have tried to use GR to argue for a geocentric model, but, once again, since GR demonstrates that any point in the universe can be treated as a center, GR can't be used to support one point over another.

The biggest problem with the modified Tychonic model is that very bizarre forces (i.e. fictious forces) are required to explain all the motions. Such ad hoc views are rarely taken seriously. Galileo wouldn't hardly even mention it, though the Church did adopt it as a replacment for the debunked Ptolemy model by one of their faithful - Galileo.

 

[Helio]

Copernicus accepted the spherical Earth model and the Earth rotated on its axis too to explain celestial motion while the Earth moved around the Sun.

Yes. Aristotle's arguements, due in part to observations such as lunar eclipses, were very compelling for a spherical Earth.

The Church, thanks to Aquinas, absorbed Aristotle's work into its philosophy and theology. The college professors highest postions were for the peripatetics - Aristotlean philosophers. Galileo strived to reach the philosopher level and did so, but he fought the peripatetic philosophers, sometimes ruthlessly.

Geocentric astronomy of Claudius Ptolemy and the heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus were developed using what they could see and document.

Yep, "saving the appearances" is no small matter in science.

 

[Helio]

Later as the math got better, the orbits didn’t follow circles, so they invented the complex system of epicycles which never quite worked until Herschel figured out ellipses,...

I've forgotten Herschel's role, or did you mean Kepler?

I just can’t imagine modeling epicycles in an astronomical or space flight simulator.

Surprisingly perhaps, the use of an epicycle comes very close to producing an ellipse.

A UT prof. some years ago produced a modern version of the Aristotle/Ptolemy/Aquinas model using known dimensions. He was able to resolve the orbits of the then known planets with the use of only nine epicycles total, IIRC.

Found the paper here.

 

[Atlan0001]

Space flight simulator. Traveler. Zoom out. Zoom in. Motion. Curvature. More zoom, more motion, accelerating, including peripherally (motions, plural). More zoom, more curvature, accelerating, including peripherally (curvatures, plural). Chaos into the picture and a different story entirely. There is no reality to any pictured zooms, like a traveler traveling away or toward any point in the universe that leaves a point centered and all other points static to it. A generally redshifted photo-static universe observation from the Earth would have little to no reality from any other distant point of the universe. Enlarged and enlarging varyingly chaotic motions, enlarged and enlarging varyingly chaotic changes, over enlarged spaces and enlarged times destroys relativities and any reality to an observed smoothly singular "geo-centric model" universe.

Yet the Universe will concentrate and put on singular display, and into physical projection, all its universality. True geo-centric modeling. Stereotypical even. But it comes from everywhere and nowhere.

 

[Pogo]

@Helio: Good catch, my brain fart. I really did mean Kepler and his three laws of orbits.