User:Tom Bishop

Unorganized Notes Page

This section contains unorganized notes, links for further reference, and works in progress.

=Works in Progress=

Below are works in progress, and an area for miscellaneous notes. The content may change significantly or be rearranged.

Lighthouses of the World Water Level Devices Curvature Compression Test Standard Refraction Electromagnetic Acceleration Evidence for Electromagnetic Acceleration Bishop Experiment Airy's Failure Phases of the Moon Sinking Ship Effect Caused by Refraction Sinking Ship Effect Caused by Limits to Optical Resolution Lunar Eclipse Criticisms Scale Experiments Perspective Sunrise and Sunset Cosmology Has Some Big Problems Mechanical Gyroscopes Distances in the South Opinions of the Press Air Navigation Aviation Red Shift of Galaxies Cosmological Principle Rotation and Revolution Aether Planets Stellar Parallax

Bridges Railroads Distant Islands Sunken Oil Platform

Weight Variation by Latitude Time Dilation by Latitude

Feynman - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/richard_p_feynman_160383

Naval Shipping

Professionals and Military Personnel -- Flat Earth

Expert Series: Flat Earth

Lunar Eclipse
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005HiA....13.1055F

The way in which pre-Hispanic people predicted the eclipses by carefully observing the Sun's and Moon's trajectories can be explained to students by telling them that since the paths of the sun and moon form a 5 degree angle, and their apparent motion is different, the moon moves slower, one can incer when the trajectories will cross.

EA
The Elecromagnetic Accelerator predicts that the Lunar Eclipse will occur when the Full Moon occurs about 180 Latitude Degrees from the Sun's position. Presuming that the Sun and the Moon travel on essentially the same paths, albeit at different rates, and that the Full Moon represents the time when the Moon is furthest from the Sun. At this time a Lunar Eclipse will occur. It is shown graphically that 180 degrees marks the spot where the Moon is furthest from the Sun. Other Full Moon may occur at about 172 - 178 and 182 to 188 degrees latitude from the Sun, and will not cause an Eclipse.

The Lunar Eclipses according to the Elecromagnetic Accelerator predicts that over the course of a Lunar Month, the Full Moon will be the South-Most position of the Moon. This may be confirmed in applications such as Stellarium.

Scale Experiment Notes
"A body's weight or mass doesn't change in the presence of air or not. The problem is that scales actually don't measure weight (or mass). What they measures is the difference between the body's weight and its upward Archimedes' push made by air on it."

claim

temperature map

Wikipedia Altitude: All other things being equal, an increase in altitude from sea level to 9,000 metres (30,000 ft) causes a weight decrease of about 0.29%.

Wikipedia Latitude: "In combination, the equatorial bulge and the effects of the surface centrifugal force due to rotation mean that sea-level gravity increases from about 9.780 m/s2 at the Equator to about 9.832 m/s2 at the poles, so an object will weigh approximately 0.5% more at the poles than at the Equator"

temperature affect on scale notes:

"The only thing that matters is that you calibrate it in the same environment and on the same place on your bench as when you are using it. Don't cal the scale at 40* and then use it when it's 80*. Let everything stablize and calibrate; you'll be just fine. It doesn't hurt to double check things after every 100 rounds. Also, anytime I get interupted or have to take a break, I will re-check the cal on the scale."

https://www.vacumed.com/318.html

Deception of the Douglas Bag Validation Method - What is the Gold Standard of Incompetence?

"Would you take a medication knowing that a pharmacy used an uncalibrated scale to weigh its ingredients? Would you board a plane knowing that the fuel or altitude gauges are not calibrated at frequent intervals?

In these and thousands of other applications scientific bases and rules of metrology must be obeyed to assure chaos-free operation of modern societies. To scrutinize performance of measuring devices a process of calibration must be carried out by means of applying a known standard and getting back a correct reading."

Things that affect scales:

https://www.jaking.com/resources/articles/accuracy-and-repeatability-of-your-balance/

https://bitesizebio.com/33245/drift-measurements-analytical-balances/

"Pharmaceutical laboratories and bioscience research institutes make extensive use of analytical balances that are highly sensitive. These analytical balances are greatly affected by their environment and also by the way they are installed and handled."

Uncalibrated bathroom scales inaccurate - https://thewirecutter.com/blog/can-i-trust-my-bathroom-scale/

Barometer
A scale that measures the weight of the atmosphere is called the "barometer".

Air pressure does not affect the scale trivially. See the following illustration and text:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fair-or-foul-how-to-use-a-barometer/



Seismic
Ring Laser Gyroscope Ring Laser Gyroscope - Seismology

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.02789.pdf

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.02789.pdf

Bi-Polar Model
Bi-Polar Model

Mainstream Astronomy

 * NOAA Solar Calculator
 * Celestial Mechanics Cannot Predict The Solar System
 * Problems of the Solar System

Topics Related to Relativity

 * Fizeau Experiment
 * Deflection of Light by the Sun

Other

 * Gravimetry -- fix misc

Flat Earth Star Trails
To review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkDqdoINhYI

Astronomical Nutation
Nutation is Unexplained

Project Longstop - Consider simplifying with references

=Notes=

Ballistic Missiles
Papers showing that missiles were designed to assume a Flat Earth:

Internal Guidance of Ballistic Missiles (1971) http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/722291.pdf

Videos:

NAVY Missile Instructor says that no earth curvature or rotation is assumed

History
https://books.google.com/books?id=lbPN34fg760C&lpg=SA5-PA69&ots=o7Dx-iQUw1&dq=Mathematical%20Thought%20from%20Ancient%20to%20Modern%20Times%20%22epicycle%22&pg=SA5-PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false

Gravitational Redshift
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.09253.pdf

=Navigation=

Rescheduled flights: http://ifers.123.st/t69p25-flight-routes-shipping-routes-under-sea-cables

Flat Earth - Flights from Sydney to Houston fly NORTH of Hawaii - Earth Not a Globe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=NuaP78vk440

bi-polar maps - http://www.e-perimetron.org/vol_3_4/gaspar.pdf

Sleddog Speeds
https://books.google.com/books?id=tX8uKopy_XUC&lpg=PA117&ots=kFEHou90dT&dq=Alaskan%20%E2%80%9CIditarod%E2%80%9D%20race%20of%201047%20miles%20from%20Anchorage%20to%20Nome%2075%20miles%20per%20day&pg=PA117#v=onepage&q&f=false

txt: http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12198311400/print

Latitude Origin
https://books.google.com/books?id=lW8DYSPa6fEC&lpg=PP1&dq=longitude%20discrepancy&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://i.imgur.com/WOAF25a.png

Nullschool Map
https://web.archive.org/web/20170731230036/https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/azimuthal_equidistant=8.36,3.57,136

Jet Streams
https://books.google.com/books?id=vsodESrwdm4C&lpg=PA183&dq=%22jet%20streams%22%20%22southern%20hemisphere%22%20%22miles%20per%20hour%22&pg=PA183#v=onepage&q=50%20miles%20per%20hour&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=vsodESrwdm4C&lpg=PA183&dq=%22jet%20streams%22%20%22southern%20hemisphere%22%20%22miles%20per%20hour%22&pg=PA183#v=onepage&q=50%20miles%20per%20hour&f=false

https://i.imgur.com/d0NUCyD.png

Jet Streams Enable Faster Than Sound Flight
https://www.wired.com/story/norwegian-air-transatlantic-speed-record/

Jeran Video - Jet Streams SH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaDw-6sslrc

Trade Winds and South Pacific Gyre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds#/media/File:Map_prevailing_winds_on_earth.png

South Pacific Gyre

http://thejunkwave.com/what-is-a-gyre/

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/South_Pacific_Gyre.png

Another illustration: https://books.google.com/books?id=bOg0EqqrDRgC&lpg=PA133&dq=%22jet%20streams%22%20%22southern%20hemisphere%22&pg=PA153#v=onepage&q=%22jet%20streams%22%20%22southern%20hemisphere%22&f=false

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151009-where-is-the-windiest-place-on-earth

GPC and Lat-Lon distances
The coordinate system a GPS uses assumes that the coordinate points rest upon a sphere. The location of one coordinate point may be "accurate", but the distance between multiple coordinate points relies upon the Round Earth model, as Latitude and Longitude is a spherical coordinate system, and is therefore in dispute in these conversations.

Flights over the Southern Oceans
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/magazine/2001-2005/issue-4-spring-2002/feature2/what-is-the-southern-ocean

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151009-where-is-the-windiest-place-on-earth

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003JD004179

Listed Flight Times Skewed
http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-tips/airlines-airports/why-flights-take-longer

A study which says they are skewing flight times:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/Are-airlines-exaggerating-flight-times-so-theyre-never-late/

WGS 1984
https://www.gpsworld.com/data-collection-of-wgs-84-information-or-is-it/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Plane_Coordinate_System

Background to NAD83

https://gisgeography.com/geodetic-datums-nad27-nad83-wgs84/

Datum definition:

https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~frazier/RSpatialGuides/OverviewCoordinateReferenceSystems.pdf

Truth Tokens -Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) conformal projection

https://web.archive.org/web/20181115035011/http://truthtokens.com/map/?upm_export=print

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-forum/coordinates-system/td-p/3179510

Hi All,

I think my question is for people who are living in WA, or someone know much about US coordinate systems: What is World Geodetic System of 1984 and how's difference between it and NAD83 Washtington state planes?

Thank you,

Re: Coordinates System WGS-84 is a coordinate system designed for world-wide navigation. It takes into account the spherical nature of the planet. The coordinates are given in deg-min-sec format, common with polar coordinates, for latitude and longitude.

The Washington state plane system is a square coordinate system specific for the state of Washington. It supposes a flat plane across the face of the state. Northing and Easting are given in feet, based on straight line-of-sight distance.

Transformations Between NAD83 and WGS84

https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS/Articles/WGS84NAD83.pdf

=Relativity=

https://books.google.com/books?id=kEjeQwNSIpoC&lpg=PA14&dq=gravity%20experiment%20paradox&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false

American Association for the Advancement of Science is publishing content which states that SR has been disproved through its EurekaAlert website:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/ngpi-tst030116.php

On Sagnac:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a0bc/0dfe3a7809b3adeff723aeea6363f3272850.pdf

Relativity and Accelerating Upwards:

https://books.google.com/books?id=FFQjDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT34&lpg=PT34&dq=%22earth+pushing+you%22&source=bl&ots=MV9ROmx5Eu&sig=ACfU3U17gR2YnIJbxFhEuRhKz2cR-mVBgQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjaoLf6xMHiAhUPpFkKHTqqAMwQ6AEwDXoECB0QAQ#v=onepage&q=%22earth%20pushing%20you%22&f=false

Sagnac:

https://books.google.com/books?id=XVLmihZnsvUC&lpg=PA44&ots=Xy3Lnlpnag&dq=1942%20Dufour-Prunier&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q&f=false

From Unified Field Mechanics II by Richard L. Amoroso, Louis H. Kauffman, Peter Rowlands, and Gianni Albertini we see:

https://books.google.com/books?id=W4RIDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA307&pg=PA307#v=onepage&q&f=false

Reasons SR is wrong: http://www.harkess.org.uk/reasons_einstein_wrong/reasons_einstein_wrong.html

Moon
http://www.umass.edu/sunwheel/pages/moonteaching.html



From Cornell University for the Northern Hemisphere:

The direction of Moonrise changes quite drastically over 14 days, moving over quite extreme ranges South to North.

Earth-Moon System
From University of Arizona:



Right Angle Triangle


Triangle Calculator:

Input:

Angle A: 5.01 Adjacent Side: 238900 Angle B: 90

Output:

Opposite Side: 21,321.257

Angular Diameter Calculator
Take the above value of 21321.257 and 238900 and put it into an angular diameter calculator. This will tell us the number of degrees in the sky the space of 21321.257 miles will make if it were at the distance to the Round Earth moon.

https://rechneronline.de/sehwinkel/angular-diameter.php



Input: g = 21321.257 r = 238900

Output: a = 5.11 degrees

The above suggests that the moon must travel a path that is within 5.11 degrees from the ecliptic at all times.

Shift of the Ecliptic
To calculate the maximum amount the ecliptic of the sun can shift in the sky to perspective depending on where you stand on earth above (or below) the plane of the ecliptic which bisects the earth, we may do the following:

Opposite Side: 3,963 (radius of the earth in miles) Angle A: 90 Degrees Adjacent Side: 238,900 (distance to the moon in miles)

Angle B: 0.95 Degrees

Measuring the Sky
Timeanddate.com has provided a handy guide to measuring the sky. When holding one's hand at arms length 5 degrees will take up about three fingers of space.

https://wiki.tfes.org/images/7/73/Measuring-sky-with-hand.png

EAT
https://news.softpedia.com/news/Light-Can-Bend-While-Moving-265679.shtml

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/04/light-bends-itself

https://physicsworld.com/a/light-bends-itself-round-corners/

Criticisms of Special Relativity Criticisms of Relativity Theory

Quote: "The most visible point I've seen is that the seasonal star constellations you know well (Orion in my case) will be seen as inverted if you change the hemisphere. The moon and sun position also change greatly. I'm not aware of any ideas that incorporate this."

Moon Tilt
Prof. Alan Myers - http://www.upenn.edu/emeritus/essays/MyersMoon.html

moon phases illustration p.19 - https://starlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/D.-25.-Moon-Cylinder-v616.pdf

stack exchange - https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/14809/sun-and-moon-anomally

Moon Terminator Illusion

Conspiracy
Mars - Devon Island

Clouds Lit from Below
Alt Explanation: https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2017/02/clouds-lit-from-below.html

Quotes
"Have you ever directly experienced anything in your entire life that would lead you to believe you were living on a sphere hurtling through space? If you hadn't been repeatedly told it was true, would you ever suspect that it was?

There's your proof: your own eyes."

Newton Divine
P. Kelly, LL. D. in his Metrology; Or, an Exposition of Weights and Measures (1816) comments on p.10:

Southern Hemisphere
https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84024350/1897-01-31/ed-1/?sp=22&r=0.484,0.427,0.91,0.358,0

Questions and Answers
Q: Does this model of the phases predict anything that RET does not?

A: According to the above rule-of-thumb table from Cornell University during the phases between New Moon and 1st Quarter (Half Moon) the Moon will not set in the sky until a time between Sunset (New) and Local Midnight (1st Quarter), meaning that the range of Crescent Moon phases will be seen during the night. In the Flat Earth Moon Phase diagrams above we can see how this can be possible -- of the nine phase examples arranged in a circle, it takes about two 'sections' for the celestial bodies to set from an overhead position. The Crescent Moon will overlap into the night time.

However, according to the geometric model of the phases in RET, a Crescent Moon appearing in the sky into late hours of the night is difficult to explain with the Round Earth model.

John Savage at Savage Plane explains the matter in an article and a video here:

Impossible Heliocentric Moon Phases Explained - Savage Plane (Archive)

The authors of the article even identify some dates in 2019 for when the Crescent Moon is seen past midnight for locations in the Northern Hemisphere -- which may be possible in the above Flat Earth model since locations in the Northern Hemisphere are closer to the center, but hard to explain with the Round Earth schema where those locations are geometrically pointing away from the daylight side. A gibbous moon seen during the day is another issue, essentially the reverse of the above, and is also discussed.

Flattened at the Poles
Of interest, when reviewing the history of weight changes by latitude we find that the nature of the Earth was changed because the theory did not meet the result. This is the origin of the flattening of the poles.

From Voltaire we see:

From Encyclopedia Brittanica's article on Jean Richer:

Mountain-Gravity
http://www.michaelbeeson.com/interests/GreatMoments/Chimborazo.pdf

http://milesmathis.com/schie.pdf

Mine-Gravity
https://web.archive.org/web/20180208095856/https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/mcnair.htm

Time Dilation by Latitude
https://motls.blogspot.com/ by Luboš Motl (bio)

https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/07/is-time-going-slowly-near-equator.html

Moonbounce
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qw30x/can_an_amateur_astronomer_test_the_lunar_laser/

Q: Can an amateur astronomer test the Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector?

A: I was a grad student on the APOLLO (Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser Ranging Operation) project that was shown on Mythbusters. The short answer is no way. You need laser that can shoot enough photons in a short pulse that you'll get some back in the return pulse (shoot 1017 green 532 nm photons per pulse). You need sensitive detectors because, even if you shoot 1017 photons up, you're only going to get about 1 photon back (we used avalanche photodiodes). You need fancy filters and timing electronics, because, when you are only getting 1 photon back, you need to turn the detectors on in as little a time as possible to minimize false detections from background light. You need a big telescope to maximize the number of photons you get (we used the 3.5 meter telescope at Apache Point). And you need to set this all up in a place with minimal background light and minimal atmospheric distortion (seeing). http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/apparatus.html I guess you could do all these things on your own, but you would need about $1 million and a couple years of time to set it up.

Water Convexity
Other experiments to review, comments section of https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/flat-earthers-are-the-most-dedicated-trolls-ever/

Gravity by Altitude
The following author says that, although he believes that gravity decreases with altitude, that the experiments in the literature do not take factors related to the atmosphere into account and calls for better experiments.

Unchecked Aspects of Variation of Acceleration due to Gravity with Altitude Ajay Sharma

https://www.gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers-Astrophysics/Download/3606

Lunar Laser Ranging
http://cds.cern.ch/record/518975/files/0109063.pdf

Or, in other words, a null result.

After 40 years' reflection, laser moon mirror project is axed

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jun/21/mcdonald-observatory-space-laser-funding (Archive)

Government funded:

Used by NASA as evidence for Apollo:

https://cddis.nasa.gov/lw19/docs/2014/Presentations/Degnan_Colloquium_presentation.pdf

Two new LLR stations were developed to compete with MLRS: CERGA LLR at Grasse in Southern France and a NASA funded site on Mt. Haleakala operated by the University of Hawaii.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/06may_lunarranging/

"Lunar laser ranging is one of the most important tools we have for searching for flaws in Einstein's general theory of relativity," says Slava Turyshev, a research scientist at JPL who works with Jim Williams and others on the project.

-

All of the phases were influenced by NASA. NASA is the customer and can easily say "we want the software to be developed by our external team" or "we want so and so to head this program".

When the government funds projects they don't just say "here's several million dollars, go wild", they go into it with clear rules and structure.

Some of the people on this project even freely identify themselves as working for NASA. From the press releases on the APOLLO website (second one down in the list of press releases):

http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/

Jim Williams is also a JPL employee --

"Jim Williams, a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)"

According to this press release, James Williams, the aforementioned JPL eployee, is directing the research ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/science/moon-s-dust-hides-a-throbbing-heart.html?src=pm

Finding out what's inside the Moon isn't simple, said Dr. James G. Williams, who directs the research.

Seems that NASA is not only providing the software, they're directing the research as well.

-

The lunar ranging equipment at the Apache Point Observatory seen in the show is supported and funded by NASA --

http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/

"Finally, we thank NASA for supporting APOLLO and enabling it to get "off the ground", and more recently, a joint effort by NASA and the National Science Foundation to fund APOLLO at a level that will allow project completion and production of the first science results."

NASA could have easily built or modified the equipment or software to show the results they wanted, which is what a fake space agency would do to "prove" themselves. You're asking us to trust NASA that NASA is honest.

Points:

- The project is funded by NASA - The project is controlled by NASA, by virtue of being funded by them - NASA scientists are working on the project - The software for the project is admitted to come from NASA

Australia
https://www.news.com.au/travel/australian-holidays/queensland/google-maps-agrees-to-sort-its-inflated-distances-in-the-queensland-outback/news-story/a38f729e4791d19d0d81fefe575250d6

Satellites
=Misc. Quotes=

Geocentric Quotes Sources on Web
See

sagnac, morley, etc.

see

cosmological principle

Equivalence Principle
Why does an apple fall from a tree? Why do all objects accelerate towards earth at 9.8 m/s^2? The 'out-of-the-box answer' is that the objects themselves don't move. It's the ground that rushes up! Regardless whether attached to the tree or not, Newton's apple is suspended motionless: it's earth's surface that accelerates up and meets the apple. This simple insight immediately explains why all objects regardless their mass accelerate at the same pace of 9.8 m/s^2.

"“being on the surface of the Earth is equivalent to being inside a spaceship (far from any sources of gravity) that is being accelerated by its engines”

Rotation and Revolution
“There is no planetary observation by which we on Earth can prove the Earth is moving in an orbit around the sun. Thus all Galileo’s discoveries…can be accommodated to the system [in which] the daily rotation of the heavens is communicated to the sun and planets, so that the Earth itself neither rotates nor revolves in an orbit.”

- I. Bernard Cohen, Birth of a New Physics, revised and updated, 1985, p. 78.

"We know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance."

- Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle

"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations, For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."

- George Ellis, a famous cosmologist, in Scientific American, "Thinking Globally, Acting Universally", October 1995

"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS."

- Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.) (Note: CS = coordinate system)

“Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions.”

-Nicolaus Copernicus

“I demonstrate by means of philosophy that the earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides; that it is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars.”

- Johannes Kepler

“We might hope therefore that the Einstein theory, which is well suited to such problems, would throw more light on the matter. But instead of adding further support to the heliocentric picture of the planetary motions, the Einstein theory goes in the opposite direction, giving increased respectability to the geocentric picture”

- Sir Fred Hoyle, Nicolaus Copernicus: An Essay on His Life and Work, p. 87

"...all masses, all motion, indeed all forces are relative. There is no way to discern relative from absolute motion when we encounter them...Whenever modern writers infer an imaginary distinction between relative and absolute motion from a Newtonian framework, they do not stop to think that the Ptolemaic and Copernican are both equally true."

- Ernst Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung historisch-kritisch dargestellt, eighth ed, Leipzig, p. 222, 1921.

“There is no planetary observation by which we on Earth can prove the Earth is moving in an orbit around the sun. Thus all Galileo’s discoveries…can be accommodated to the system [in which] the daily rotation of the heavens is communicated to the sun and planets, so that the Earth itself neither rotates nor revolves in an orbit.”

- I. Bernard Cohen, Birth of a New Physics, revised and updated, 1985, p. 78.

"According to Einstein, the argument over whether the earth turns around or the heavens revolve around it, is seen to be no more than an argument over the choice of reference frames. There is no frame of reference from which an observer would not see the effects of the flattening of the poles. Thus in frame number 1 (the earth turns round while the sky is at rest), the centrifugal force is a consequence of the earth’s motion (uniform acceleration) relative to the heavens. This causes the flattening. In the latter frame, number 2 (the sky rotates and the earth stands still), the centrifugal force should be understood as being an effect of “the rotating heavens,” which is generating a gravitational field that causes the flattening of the poles. The two explanations are equivalent as there is equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass."

- “Einstein’s Ether: D. Rotational Motion of the Earth,” Galina Granek, Department of Philosophy, Haifa University, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel, Apeiron, Vol. 8, No. 2, April 2001, p. 61.

“So which is real, the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system? Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosophical debates over the nature of our universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest.” — Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design, pages 41-42.

-

"I have two things to say that might surprise you: first, geocentrism is a valid frame of reference, and second, heliocentrism is not any more or less correct.” — Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer

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"Before Copernicus, people thought that the earth stood still and that the heavens revolved about it once a day. Copernicus taught that "really" the earth revolves once a day, and the daily rotation of sun and stars is only "apparent"... But in the modern theory the question between Copernicus and his predecessors is merely one of convenience; all motion is relative, and there is no difference between the two... Astronomy is easier if we take the sun as fixed than if we take the earth... But to say more for Copernicus is to assume absolute motion, which is a fiction. It is a mere convention to take one body as at rest. All such conventions are equally legitimate, though not all are equally convenient."

- Bertrand Russell "The ABC of Relativity [ London: Allen & Unwin, 1958, p.13].

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"Let it be understood at the outset that it makes no difference, from the point of view of describing planetary motion, whether we take the Earth or the Sun as the center of the solar system. Since the issue is one of relative motion only, there are infinitely many exactly equivalent descriptions referred to different centers - in principle any point will do, the Moon. Jupiter...So the passions loosed on the world by the publication of Copernicus' book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI were logically irrelevant..."

- Sir Fred Hoyle, Nicolaus Copernicus. An Essay on His Life and Work, p.1

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"The ancient argument over Whether the Earth rotates or the heavens revolve around it (as Aristotle taught) is seen to be no more than an argument over the simplest choice of a frame of reference. Obviously. the most convenient choice is the universe.... Nothing except inconvenience prevents us from choosing the Earth as a fixed frame of reference...If We choose to make the Earth our ﬁxed frame of reference, we do not even do violence to everyday speech. We say that the sun rises in the morning, sets in the evening: the Big Dipper revolves around the North Star. Which point of view is “correct”? Do the heavens revolve or does the Earth rotate. The question is meaninglessness."

- The Relativity Explosion: Martin Gardner, 1976, pp 86-87

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"The superior simplicity of the Copernican theory was just as much of a myth as its superior accuracy. The myth of superior simplicity was dispelled by the careful and professional work of modern historians. They reminded us that while Copernican theory solves certain problems in a simpler way than does the Ptolemaic one. the price of the simplification is unexpected complications in the solution of other problems. The Copernican system is certainly simpler since it dispenses with equants and some eccentrics: but each equant and eccentric removed has to be replaced by new epicycles and epicyclets. . .he also has to put the center of the universe not at the Sun. as he originally intended. but at an empty point fairly near to it.....I think it is fair to say that the ‘simplicity balance” between Ptolemy’s and Copernicus’ system is roughly even."

- The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Imre Lakatos, pp 173-174

--

"We might hope therefore that the Einstein theory. which is well suited to such problems, would throw more light on the matter. But instead of adding further support to the heliocentric picture of the planetary motions. the Einstein theory goes in the opposite direction. giving increased respectability to the geocentric picture. The relation of the two pictures is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation. and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view"

- Sir Fred Hoyle, Nicolaus Copernicus. An Essay on His Life and Work, p.87

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"One could just as legitimately assume the Earth to be fixed and the entire universe, with its great spherical cloud of black-body radiation, to be moving. The equations are the same. Indeed, from the standpoint of relativity the choice of reference frame is arbitrary. Naturally, it is simpler to assume the universe is fixed and the Earth moving than the other way around, but the two ways of talking about the Earth's relative motion are two ways of saying the same thing."

- 'The Relativity Explosion', Martin Gardner, pp. 184-185. On another page Gardner writes: "Do the heavens revolve or does the Earth rotate? The question is meaningless. A waitress may just as sensibly ask a customer if he wanted ice cream on top of his pie or the pie placed under his ice cream" (ibid., p. 87).

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“In order for the Earth to be at rest in the center of the system of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, there is required both universal gravity and another force in addition that acts on all bodies equally according to the quantity of matter in each of them and is equal and opposite to the accelerative gravity with which the Earth tends to the Sun…Since this force is equal and opposite to its gravity toward the Sun, the Earth can truly remain in equilibrium between these two forces and be at rest. And thus celestial bodies can move around the Earth at rest, as in the Tychonic system.”

- Isaac Newton, Proposition 43.

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"We can talk with precision of a body as spinning around relative to something or another, but there is no such thing as absolute spin: the Earth is not spinning to those of us who live on its surface and our point of view is as good as anyone else’s – but no better."

- F. Hoyle: Frontiers of Astronomy, New York, Harper & Row, 1966, p344

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"Examined more closely, this simple idea acquires capital importance; there is no way of settling the question, no experiment can disprove the principle that there is no absolute space, all displacements we can observe are relative displacements. I have often had occasion to express these considerations so familiar to philosophers. They have even given me a publicity I would gladly have avoided. All the reactionary French journals have made me prove that the sun turns around the earth. In the famous case between the Inquisition and Galileo, Galileo should be all wrong."

- “The New Mechanics,” Henri Poincaré, 1913, The Monist, Vol. 23, pp. 385-395

Misc Quotes
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

" Plato is my friend - Aristotle is my friend - but my greatest friend is truth."……."Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things."

-Sir Isaac Newton (“describer” of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion)

" ...the scientist, reverenced for their beards and the fur on their gowns, who teach that they alone are wise while the rest of mortal men flit about as shadows. How pleasantly they dote, indeed, while they construct their numberless worlds, and measure the sun, moon, stars, and spheres as with thumb and line. They assign causes for lightening, winds, eclipses, and other inexplicable things, never hesitating a whit, as if they were privy to the secrets of nature, artificer of things, or as if they visited us fresh from the council of the gods. Yet all the while nature is laughing grandly at them and their conjectures. For to prove that they have good intelligence of nothing, this is a sufficient argument: they can never explain why they disagree with each other on every subject. Thus knowing nothing in general, they profess to know all things in particular; though they are ignorant even of themselves, and on occasion do not see the ditch or the stone lying across their path, because many of them are blear-eyed or absent-minded; yet they proclaim that they perceive ideas, universals, forms without matter" --The Praise of Folly by Erasmus (1511)

Copernican Principle
“A fundamental presupposition of modern cosmology is the Copernican Principle, that we are not in a central, or otherwise special region of the Universe. Studies of Type Ia supernovae, together with the Copernican principle, have led to the inference that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion. The usual explanation for this is that there must exist a ‘Dark Energy,’ to drive the acceleration. Alternatively, it could be the case that the Copernican Principle is invalid, and that the data has been interpreted within an inappropriate theoretical framework. If we were to live in a special place in the Universe, near the centre of a void where the local matter density is low, then the supernovae observations would be accounted for without the addition of dark energy.”

- Timothy Clifton, Oxford Astrophysics Member, BSc, PhD.

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(T. Clifton, et al, “Living in a Void: Testing the Copernican Principle with Distant Supernovae,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 (13): 1302 (Sep 2008).

“…the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty.”

- Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 42 (Bantam, 1988).

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His co-author in another book, George F. R. Ellis admits much the same:

“This assumption is made because it is believed to be unreasonable that we should be near the center of the Universe.”

- George F. R. Ellis, “Is the Universe Expanding?” General Relativity and Gravitation 9 (2): 92 (1978).

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“...all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.”

- Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time

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“In the Friedman universe, one possible interpretation of the coordinates is that the whole space is on the surface of an expanding balloon and has no center… [But] in such a universe, there is no cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole, even in the presence of a peculiar velocity. In other words, the observation of a CMB dipole excludes such an interpretation of the coordinates for the Friedman universe.”

- Y. Tomozawa, “The CMB Dipole and Existence of a Center for Expansion of the Universe,” Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan, p. 2 (2 Feb 2008).

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“Additionally, we must take seriously the idea that the acceleration apparently indicated by supernova data could be due to large scale inhomogeneity with no dark energy. Observational tests of the latter possibility are as important as pursuing the dark energy (exotic physics) option in a homogeneous universe.

Theoretical prejudices as to the universe’s geometry, and our place in it, must bow to such observational tests. Precisely because of the foundational nature of the Copernican Principle for standard cosmology, we need to fully check this foundation. And one must emphasize here that standard CMB anisotropy studies do not prove the Copernican principle: they assume it at the start.”

- George Ellis, “Inhomogeneity Effects in Cosmology,” arXiv:1103.2335v1 (Mar 2011).

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“Studies of the cosmic background radiation have confirmed the isotropy of the radiation, or its complete uniformity in all directions. If the universe possesses a center, we must be very close to it…otherwise, excessive observable anisotropy in the radiation intensity would be produced, and we would detect more radiation from one direction than from the opposite direction.”

- Joseph Silk of the University of California, "The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe", p. 53 (W. H. Freeman, 1980).

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"Although dark energy may seem a bit contrived to some, the Oxford theorists are proposing an even more outrageous alternative. They point out that it's possible that we simply live in a very special place in the universe - specifically, we're in a huge void where the density of matter is particularly low. The suggestion flies in the face of the Copernican Principle, which is one of the most useful and widely held tenets in physics.

Copernicus was among the first scientists to argue that we're not in a special place in the universe, and that any theory that suggests that we're special is most likely wrong. The principle led directly to the replacement of the Earth-centered concept of the solar system with the more elegant sun-centered model.

Dark energy may seem like a stretch, but it's consistent with the venerable Copernican Principle. The proposal that we live in a special place in the universe, on the other hand, is likely to shock many scientists."

- Dark Energy: Is It Merely An Illusion? ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2008)

SOURCE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080926184749.htm

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“A widespread idea in cosmology is that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic above a certain scale. This hypothesis, usually called the cosmological principle, is thought to be a generalization of the Copernican principle that “the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position”. The assumption is that any observer at any place at the same epoch would see essentially the same picture of the large scale distribution of galaxies in the universe.

However, according to a Fourier analysis by Hartnett & Hirano, the galaxy number count N from redshift z data (N–z relation) indicates that galaxies have preferred periodic redshift spacings.........A natural interpretation is that concentric spherical shells of higher galaxy number densities surround us, with their individual centers situated at our location.”

- Professor Shigeo Hirano, "Observational tests for oscillating expansion rate of the Universe" Physical Review D, 2010.

“The departures from uniformity are positive; the numbers of nebulae increase faster than the volume of space through which they are scattered. Thus the density of the nebulae distribution increases outwards, symmetrically in all directions, leaving the observer in a unique position. Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable; moreover, it represents a discrepancy with the theory, because the theory postulates homogeneity. Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial curvature.”

-E. Hubble The Observational Approach to Cosmology, 1937, p.58

"Astronomers will find it hard to settle that troubling sensation in the pit of their stomachs. The truth is that when it comes to swallowing uncomfortable ideas, dark energy may turn out to be a sugar-coated doughnut compared to a rejection of the Copernican principle.”

- “Dark Energy and the Bitterest Pill,” July 14, 2008 at the Physics arXiv blog.

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"The Copernican principle states that humans are not privileged observers of the universe and provides our philosophical basis for assuming that on the largest scales the universe is spatially homogeneous. While it is one of the foundational aspects of modern cosmology, this assumption remains untested outside of the standard paradigm. Though it may seem pedantic to test something so obvious, the standard paradigm itself is built on shaky foundations, relying on an unexplained, gravitationally repulsive, dark-energy component for observations to fit the model. The implications of this cannot be overstated. Assuming that the laws of physics do apply equally everywhere in the universe, the only non- copernican configuration possible is one in which we live in a place that originates from special initial conditions."

- 'Testing the Copernican principle by constraining spatial homogeneity' : Wessel Valkenburg,1, 2 Valerio Marra,2 and Chris Clarkson3 1Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Universiteit Leiden Postbus 9506, 2333 CA Leiden, The Netherlands.

LINK: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.4078v1.pdf

Cosmological Principle
"Dark Energy is problematic. No one really knows what it is. We can make an educated guess, and use quantum theory to estimate how much of it there might be, but then we overshoot by an astounding factor of 10120. That is grounds enough, says George Ellis…to take a hard look at our assumptions about the universe and our place in it. “If we analyse the supernova data by assuming the Copernican principle is correct and get out something unphysical, I think we should start questioning the Copernican principle…. Whatever our theoretical predilections, they will in the end have to give way to the observational evidence.”

So what would it mean if…the outcome were that the Copernican principle is wrong? It would certainly require a seismic reassessment of what we know about the universe….If the Copernican Principle fails, all that goes [with] that goes out the window too….Cosmology would be back at the drawing board. If we are in a void, answering how we came to be in such a privileged spot in the universe would be even trickier."

- Marcus Chown, “Is the Earth at the Heart of a Giant Cosmic Void? New Scientist, Nov. 12, 2008, pp. 32‐35.

“…the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty.”

- Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 42 (Bantam, 1988).

His co-author in another book, George F. R. Ellis admits much the same:

“This assumption is made because it is believed to be unreasonable that we should be near the center of the Universe.”

- George F. R. Ellis, “Is the Universe Expanding?” General Relativity and Gravitation 9 (2): 92 (1978).

“...all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.”

- Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“In the Friedman universe, one possible interpretation of the coordinates is that the whole space is on the surface of an expanding balloon and has no center… [But] in such a universe, there is no cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole, even in the presence of a peculiar velocity. In other words, the observation of a CMB dipole excludes such an interpretation of the coordinates for the Friedman universe.”

- Y. Tomozawa, “The CMB Dipole and Existence of a Center for Expansion of the Universe,” Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan, p. 2 (2 Feb 2008).

“Additionally, we must take seriously the idea that the acceleration apparently indicated by supernova data could be due to large scale inhomogeneity with no dark energy. Observational tests of the latter possibility are as important as pursuing the dark energy (exotic physics) option in a homogeneous universe.

Theoretical prejudices as to the universe’s geometry, and our place in it, must bow to such observational tests. Precisely because of the foundational nature of the Copernican Principle for standard cosmology, we need to fully check this foundation. And one must emphasize here that standard CMB anisotropy studies do not prove the Copernican principle: they assume it at the start.”

- George Ellis, “Inhomogeneity Effects in Cosmology,” arXiv:1103.2335v1 (Mar 2011).

“Often the simplest of observations will have the most profound consequences. It has long been a cornerstone of modern science, to say nothing of man’s cosmic outlook, that the Earth attends a modest star that shines in an undistinguished part of a run-of-the-mill galaxy. Life arose spontaneously and man evolved on this miscellaneous clump of matter and now directs his own destiny without outside help. This cosmic model is supported by the Big-Bang and Expanding Universe concepts, which in turn are buttressed by the simple observation that astronomers see redshifts wherever they look. These redshifts are due, of course, to matter flying away from us under the impetus of the Big Bang. But redshifts can also arise from the gravitational attraction of mass. If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! The argument advanced by George Ellis in this article is more complex than this, but his basic thrust is to put man back into a favored position in the cosmos. His new theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations, even though it clashes with the thought that we are godless and making it on our own.”

- Editor of Nature Magazine, Paul C. W. Davies.

Map reveals strange cosmos

By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor

The best map yet of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation - the so-called echo of the Big Bang - shows the Universe may not be the same in all directions.

The image has been produced from data collected by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (Map), which was launched in 2001.

"It is a photo of the most distant thing we can see; our best photo yet," said Dr Max Tegmark, of the University of Pennsylvania, US, who processed the image.

Dr Tegmark and colleagues present the CMB as a sphere: "The entire observable Universe is inside this sphere, with us at the centre of it."

~

Having produced the cleanest map of the CMB yet, Dr Tegmark displayed it in an unusual manner. Instead of a flat projection on a computer screen, he showed the data as ripples on a sphere - "after all the CMB comes from a sphere", he says.

"Space continues outside the sphere but this opaque glowing wall of hydrogen plasma hides it from our view. If we could only see another 380,000 light-years we would be able to see the beginning of the Universe," he told BBC News Online.

Looking for evidence

And he added: "We found something very bizarre; there is some extra, so far unexplained structure in the CMB.

"We had expected that the microwave background would be truly isotropic, with no preferred direction in space but that may not be the case."

Looking at the symmetry of the CMB - measures technically called its octopole and quadrupole components - the researchers uncovered a curious pattern.

They had expected to see no pattern at all but what they saw was anything but random.

"The octopole and quadrupole components are arranged in a straight line across the sky, along a kind of cosmic equator. That's weird.

"We don't think this is due to foreground contamination," Dr Tegmark said. "It could be telling us something about the shape of space on the largest scales. We did not expect this and we cannot yet explain it."

SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2814947.stm

The uniform distribution of burst arrival directions tells us that the distribution of gamma-ray-burst sources in space is a sphere or spherical shell, with us at the center (some other extremely contrived and implausible distributions are also possible). But Copernicus taught us that we are not in a special preferred position in the universe; Earth is not at the center of the solar system, the Sun is not at the center of the galaxy, and so forth. There is no reason to believe we are at the center of the distribution of gamma-ray bursts. If our instruments are sensitive enough to detect bursts at the edge of the spatial distribution, then they should not be isotropic on the sky, contrary to observation; if our instruments are less sensitive, then the N ∝ S-3/2 law should hold, also contrary to observation. That is the Copernican dilemma. To this day, after the detection of several thousand bursts, and despite earnest efforts to show the contrary, no deviation from a uniform random distribution (isotropy) in the directions of gamma-ray bursts on the sky has ever been convincingly demonstrated.”

- Jonathan I. Katz, The Biggest Bangs: The Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts, The Most Violent Explosions in the Universe, pp. 84, 90-91 (Oxford University Press, 2002).

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Astronomers Find Evidence of a Special Direction in Space

Could the cosmos have a point?

LINK: Sciencific American

Snippett~

"The universe has no center and no edge, no special regions tucked in among the galaxies and light. No matter where you look, it’s the same—or so physicists thought. This cosmological principle—one of the foundations of the modern understanding of the universe—has come into question recently as astronomers find evidence, subtle but growing, of a special direction in space."

Snippett~

"For now, the data remain preliminary—subtle signs that something may be wrong with our standard understanding of the universe. Scientists are eagerly anticipating the data from the Planck satellite, which is currently measuring the CMB from a quiet spot 930,000 miles up. It will either confirm earlier measurements of the axis of evil or show them to be ephemera. Until then, the universe could be pointing us anywhere."

Spin
Galactic ‘axis of asymmetry’ threatens cosmic order

Baffling rows of spiral galaxies that prefer to spin in one direction could have profound implications for our understanding of the cosmos

Snippett~

"If the universe does contain such an axis, it would contradict our current view of the cosmos, which assumes that matter and energy are uniformly distributed throughout, and that the universe looks pretty much the same in all directions."

"A similar bias among structures of cosmic proportions would have deep implications. For example, if more galaxies are spinning one way than the other, this implies that the universe has a net spin, or angular momentum, in a particular direction. Since angular momentum can neither be created or destroyed, the universe must have come into existence in a spin. What set it spinning, though, and what is it spinning relative to?"

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528794-700-galactic-axis-of-asymmetry-threatens-cosmic-order/

Is the Universe Spinning? New Research Says "Yes"

If the universe was born rotating, like a spinning basketball, Longo said, it would have a preferred axis, and galaxies would have retained that initial motion.

"It could be," Longo said. "I think this result suggests that it is."

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/07/-is-the-universe-spinning-new-research-says-yes.html

Galaxies spin, stars spin, and planets spin. So, why not the whole universe? The consequences of a spinning universe would be profound. The cornerstone of modern cosmology is that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic — it has no preferred orientation and looks the same in all directions.

On the face of it, the claim of a spin axis would seem anti-Copernican. In other words, the universe has a preferred axis, which means there is indeed a special direction in space.

A left-handed and right-handed imprint on the sky as reportedly revealed by galaxy rotation would imply the universe was rotating from the very beginning and retained an overwhelmingly strong angular momentum.

http://www.seeker.com/is-the-universe-spinning-1765290694.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Redshift
"It is shown that the cosmological interpretation of the red shift in the spectra of quasars leads to yet another paradoxical result: namely, that the Earth is the center of the Universe."

“The Earth is indeed the center of the Universe. The arrangement of quasars on certain spherical shells is only with respect to the Earth. These shells would disappear if viewed from another galaxy or quasar. This means that the cosmological principle will have to go. Also it implies that a coordinate system fixed to the Earth will be a preferred frame of reference in the Universe. Consequently, both the Special and General Theory of Relativity must be abandoned for cosmological purposes.”

- Y. P. Varshni, “The Red Shift Hypothesis for Quasars: Is the Earth the Center of the Universe?” Astrophysics and Space Science 43 (1): 3 (1976).

"If the redshifts are a Doppler shift...the observations as they stand lead to the anomaly of a closed universe, curiously small and dense, and, it may be added, suspiciously young."

- Edwin Hubble, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 17, 506, 1937.

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Ultra-compact radio sources and the isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe J. C. Jackson

A 2.29 GHz VLBI all-sky survey of ultra-compact radio sources has formed the basis of a number of cosmological investigations, which examine the relationship between angular-size and redshift. Here I use a sample of 468 such sources with 0.5This is interpreted as meaning that the Universe is not spatially homogeneous on the largest scales, and is better represented at late times by a spherically symmetric model with a density enhancement at its centre.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1207.0697

Scientific American Article
The Case Against Copernicus p.72

"Copernicus’s revolutionary theory that Earth travels around the sun upended more than a millennium’s worth of scientific and religious wisdom. Most scientists refused to accept this theory for many decades—even after Galileo made his epochal observations with his telescope. Their objections were not only theological. Observational evidence supported a competing cosmology—the “geoheliocentrism” of Tycho Brahe. Copernicus famously said that Earth revolves around the sun. But opposition to this revolutionary idea didn’t come just from the religious authorities. Evidence favored a different cosmology."

"Rather than give up their theory in the face of seemingly incontrovertible evidence, Copernicans were forced to appeal to divine omnipotence."

On the giant stars dilemma: http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/the-popular-creation-story-of-astronomy-is-wrong

CMB
From the paper - "Why is the Solar System Cosmically Aligned?"

LINK: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~huterer/PRESS/CMB_Huterer.pdf

“Developing the multi- pole vectors allowed us to examine how the CMB’s large-scale features align with each other and the ecliptic — the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun.”

-

Inflationary paradigm in trouble after Planck 2013

The recent Planck satellite combined with earlier results eliminate a wide spectrum of more complex inflationary models and favor models with a single scalar field, as reported in the analysis of the collaboration. More important, though, is that all the simplest inflation models are disfavored by the data while the surviving models -- namely, those with plateau-like potentials -- are problematic. We discuss how the restriction to plateau-like models leads to three independent problems: it exacerbates both the initial conditions problem and the multiverse-unpredictability problem and it creates a new difficulty which we call the inflationary "unlikeliness problem." Finally, we comment on problems reconciling inflation with a standard model Higgs, as suggested by recent LHC results. In sum, we find that recent experimental data disfavors all the best-motivated inflationary scenarios and introduces new, serious difficulties that cut to the core of the inflationary paradigm. Forthcoming searches for B-modes, non-Gaussianity and new particles should be decisive.

Cornell University Library - https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.2785

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"One is therefore placed between a rock and a hard place. If the WMAP ILC is a reliable reconstruction of the full-sky CMB, then there is overwhelming evidence (de Oliveira-Costa et al. (2004); Eriksen et al. (2004); Copi et al. (2004); Schwarz et al. (2004); Copi et al. (2006); Copi et al. (2007); Land & Magueijo (2005a,b,c,d); Raki ́c & Schwarz (2007); for a review see Huterer (2006)) of extremely unlikely phase alignments between (at least) the quadrupole and octopole and between these multipoles and the geometry of the Solar System — a violation of statistical isotropy that happens by random chance in far less than 0.025 per cent of random realizations of the standard cosmology. If, on the other hand, the part of the ILC (and band maps) inside the Galaxy are unreliable as measurements of the true CMB, then the alignment of low-l multipoles can- not be readily tested, but the magnitude of the two-point angular correlation function on large angular scales outside the Galaxy is smaller than would be seen in all but a few of every 10,000 realizations.

We can only conclude that (i) we don’t live in a standard ΛCDM Universe with a standard inflationary early history; (ii) we live in an extremely anomalous realization of that cosmology; (iii) there is a major error in the observations of both COBE and WMAP; or (iv) there is a major error in the reduction to maps performed by both COBE and WMAP. Whichever of these is correct, inferences from the large-angle data about precise values of the parameters of the standard cosmological model should be regarded with particular skepticism."

- No large-angle correlations on the non-Galactic microwave sky, Craig J. Copi, Dragan Huterer, Dominik J. Schwarz and Glenn D. Starkman. 26th Aug, 2013 (revision of 2008 paper)

-

"There currently exists considerable evidence in favor of a large scale anisotropy in the Universe with the preferred axis pointing roughly in the direction of Virgo, close to the CMBR dipole. This includes, radio (Jain & Ralston 1999) and optical polarizations (Hutsem ́ekers 1998; Hutsem ́ekers & Lamy 2001; Jain et al. 2004), CMBR quadrupole and octopole (de Oliveira-Costa et al. 2004) as well as the radio source distribution and brightness (Blake & Wall 2002; Singal 2011; Gibelyou & Huterer 2012; Rubart & Schwarz 2013; Kothari et al. 2013). The physical reason for these observations is not clear and points towards a violation of the cosmological principle."

- 'Dipole Anisotropy in Integrated Linearly Polarized Flux Density in NVSS Data', Prabhakar Tiwari and Pankaj Jain Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kan pur - 208016, India, 20 August 2013.

LINK: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.3970.pdf

-

"Particularly puzzling are the alignments with solar system features. CMB anisotropy should clearly not be correlated with our local habitat. While the observed correlations seem to hint that there is contamination by a foreground or perhaps by the scanning strategy of the telescope, closer inspection reveals that there is no obvious way to explain the observed correlations. Moreover, if their explanation is that they are a foreground, then that will likely exacerbate other anomalies that we will discuss in section IV B below.

Our studies indicate that the observed alignments are with the ecliptic plane, with the equinox or with the CMB dipole, and not with the Galactic plane: the alignments of the quadrupole and octopole planes with the equinox/ecliptic/dipole directions are much more significant than those for the Galactic plane. Moreover, it is remarkably curious that it is precisely the ecliptic alignment that has been found on somewhat smaller scales using the power spectrum analyses of statistical isotropy"

- 'Large-angle anomalies in the CMB', Craig J. Copi, Dragan Huterer, Dominik J. Schwarz and Glenn D. Starkman, 2010, p8.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.5602.pdf

General Relativity
“General Relativity has passed every solar-system test with flying colors. Yet so have alternative theories”

- Physicist Clifford Will - “The Confrontation Between Gravitation Theory and Experiment,” General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, ed., Stephen W. Hawking, 1979, p. 62

"In my scientific activity, I am always hampered by the same mathematical difficulties, which make it impossible for me to confirm or refute my general relativist field theory."

- Einstein, Letter to Maurice Solovine, November 25, 1948).

"I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics"

- Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, 1982, 2005, p. 467

Special Relativity
"...galaxies farther than 4300 megaparsecs from us are currently moving away from us at speeds greater than that of light. Cosmological innocents sometimes exclaim, “Gosh! Doesn’t this violate the law that massive objects can’t travel faster than the speed of light?” Actually, it doesn’t. The speed limit that states that massive objects must travel with v < c relative to each other is one of the results of special relativity, and refers to the relative motion of objects within a static space. In the context of general relativity, there is no objection to having two points moving away from each other at superluminal speed due to the expansion of space."

- "Introduction to Cosmology", Barbara Ryden, page 39.

-

"The high-velocity experiments on mesons, such as those at CERN, are definite evidence of the meson lifetime's functional relationship to their velocity with respect to the Earth, but have nothing whatsoever to do with the 'time-dilation' of Special Relativity. The experiments also are yet another 'ether-drift' investigation, with the usual answer: the velocity of the Earth with respect to a fundamental frame is zero."

- 'The "Time Dilation" of Mesons Re-Examined', Donald T. MacRoberts, Galilean Electrodynamics, Volume 3, No. 5, pp. 83-84.

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"According to the second postulate of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity the speed of light is independent of the uniform motion of its source. Direct experimental evidence by W. Kantor of the US Navy Electronics Laboratory, San Diego, leads him to the surprising conclusion that it may be untenable (Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 52, No. 8, p. 978)...[...]..If Einstein's postulate is correct there should be no displacement between the two sets of interference fringes on spinning the disc, because the light from the approaching and receding windows, respectively, should all have the same velocity. In fact, an unambiguous, easily noted shift of the fringes was apparent when the mirrors were in motion (maximum linear velocity: 4,690 cm per sec) and Kantor deduces that Einstein's second postulate is incorrect. The fringe shift, moreover, appeared to depend on the speed of the disc. If the present work turns out, on more rigorous research, to be flawless and free from experimental artefacts, and if there is no obvious alternative explanation for the observed effects, there may be a need to reconsider some basic ideas in physics."

- 'Light Velocity Dependant on Speed of Source?', New Scientist 1 Nov 1962 p276.

Aether
Dirac in 1951 published a Letter to Nature titled Is There an Aether?(2) in which he showed that the objections to an aether posed by Relativity were removed by Quantum Mechanics, and that in his reformulation of electrodynamics the vector potential was a velocity.(3) He concludes the Letter with 'We have now the velocity(2) at all points of space-time, playing a fundamental part in electrodynamics. It is natural to regard it as the velocity of some real physical thing. Thus with the new theory of electrodynamics we are rather forced to have an aether'.

An Aether Model of the Universe

http://www.epola.co.uk/rothwarf/aethermodel.pdf

It is ironic that Einstein’s most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise was that no such medium existed…. Einstein… utterly rejected the idea of ether and inferred from its nonexistence that the equations of electromagnetism had to be relative. But this same thought process led in the end to the very ether he had first rejected, albeit one with some special properties that ordinary elastic matter does not have. The word “ether” has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum.

In the early days of relativity the conviction that light must be waves of something ran so strong that Einstein was widely dismissed. Even when Michelson and Morley demonstrated that the earth’s orbital motion through the ether could not be detected, opponents argued that the earth must be dragging an envelope of ether along with it because relativity was lunacy and could not possibly be right…. Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that such matter must have relativistic symmetry.

It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with “stuff” that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."

- Robert B. Laughlin (1993 Nobel laureate in physics), "A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down", 2005, pp. 120-121).

“According to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there would not only be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense”

- Albert Einstein, “Geometry and Experience,” in Sidelights on Relativity, 1983, p. 30

"Everything becomes clear if the idea that particles always have a position in space through time is brought back…. According to my current thinking, the particle is always located within a physical wave….The movement of the particle is assumed to be the superposition of a regular movement… and of a Brownian movement due to random energy exchanges which take place between the wave and a hidden medium, which acts as a subquantum thermostat. The point of prime importance in this model is that at each moment the particle occupies a well-defined position in space, and this re-establishes the clear meaning which the configuration space had in classical mechanics.”

- Louis de Broglie, “Waves and Particles,” Physics Bulletin, 22, February 1971

"…in 1905 I was of the opinion that it was no longer allowed to speak about the ether in physics. This opinion, however, was too radical, as we will see later when we discuss the general theory of relativity. It does remain allowed, as always, to introduce a medium filling all space and to assume that the electromagnetic fields (and matter as well) are its states…once again “empty” space appears as endowed with physical properties, i.e., no longer as physically empty, as seemed to be the case according to special relativity. One can thus say that the ether is resurrected in the general theory of relativity….Since in the new theory, metric facts can no longer be separated from “true” physical facts, the concepts of “space” and “ether” merge together."

- Albert Einstein, “Grundgedanken und Methoden der Relativitätstheorie in ihrer Entwicklung dargestellt,” Morgan Manuscript, EA 2070, as cited in Ludwik Kostro, Einstein and the Ether, 2000, p. 2.

"Modern science has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy. This philosophy, as we know, used the word “ether” to designate the particular kind of matter that filled the universe. This term was used throughout the history of philosophy and science, and it was also current at the beginning of this century. A resumption of its use at the dawn of this new century is now a fact. Since, according to the General Theory of Relativity and other modern branches of physics, the space and time of the universe do not constitute a vacuum, but a structured material plenum characterized by different physical quantities, the historical and traditional word “ether” is the most appropriate to express these features of the universe."

- Ludwik Kostro, Einstein and the Ether, 2000, pp. 186-187.

"A few words about the gravitational ether, and the ether concept in general may be in place here. The ether hypothesis was thought to be buried by the Michelson-Morley experiment, but today it is more alive than ever, in the form of the CBR [Cosmic Background Radiation]: experiments capable of finding the ether were not possible in the 1880s, but were possible in the 1960s. In a sense, the electromagnetic ether has always been observed – as the heat of the Sun (since as pointed out, CBR is reprocessed photons)…. All the main cosmological, astrophysical and physical facts: the gravity and Olbers paradoxes, redshift effects and CBR, gravitation and radiation, and the existence of particles can be conceived in the framework of this ether concept."

- “Action-at-a-Distance and Local Action in Gravitation,” in Pushing Gravity, ed., Matthew Edwards, pp. 157-159.

LINK: redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/Pre2001/V03NO3PDF/V03N3JAA.PDF

"Today the vacuum is recognized as a rich physical medium….A general theory of the vacuum is thus a theory of everything, a universal theory. It would be appropriate to call the vacuum “ether” once again."

- S. Saunders and H. R. Brown, editors, The Philosophy of Vacuum, 1991, p. 251.

"Later in our treatise we will find that the very ether Louis de Broglie desired offers a solution to the wave/particle conundrum that has hampered modern science since de Broglie first discovered that electrons produce waves. Any particle that moves through a medium will, indeed, create waves. In fact, a return to ether will help solve one of the most mysterious and perplexing problems in Quantum Mechanics today, the phenomenon of “entanglement” – the spooky connection between pairs of photons, electrons or atoms even though they are separated by great distances. Perhaps this was why John Stewart Bell, the inventor of Bell’s Theorem to answer the phenomenon of entanglement, stated in a BBC radio interview: “Yes, the idea that there is an ether…that is a perfectly coherent point of view.”

- Ludwik Kostro, Einstein and the Ether, p. 154, citing M. Jammer’s, “John Stewart Bell and the Debate on Significance of his Contributions to the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics,” in Bell’s Theorem and the Foundations of Modern Physics, eds. A. Van der Merwe, F. Felleri, G. Tarozzi, Singapore, 1992, p. 5; also cited in P. C. W. Davies and J. R. Brown, eds., The Ghost in the Atom, 1986, pp. 49-50.

"Prior to the twentieth century, physics tried to explain how Nature works. Over the twentieth century, and especially in the last half, we got much more ambitious - now we’re uncovering what Nature is. The foundation is an entity I call the Grid. The Grid fills space, and is full of spontaneous activity. In some ways it resembles the old idea of “ether”. But the Grid is highly evolved ether, ether on steroids if you like, with many new features. We have some wonderful ideas waiting to be tested. There are good reasons to think that the Universe is a multilayered multicolored superconductor; that all four known forces can be brought together in a unified theory; that seemingly hopelessly different kinds of matter are just different aspects of one all-embracing stuff. I anticipate that the next few years will be a new Golden Age in fundamental physics."

- Frank Wilczek, Professor of Physics at MIT, Nobel Prize winner of 2004, author of the book "THE LIGHTNESS OF BEING: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces" (Basic Books; September 2, 2008) in a Q&A regarding his book.

LINK: http://www.frankwilczek.com/Wilczek_Q_and_A.pdf

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"Certainly, from the standpoint of the special theory of relativity, the ether hypothesis appears at first to be an empty hypothesis. 1n the equations of the electromagnetic field there occur, in addition to the densities of the electric charge, only the intensities of the field. The career of electromagnetic processes in vacuo appears to be completely determined by tliese equations, uninfluenced by other physical quantities. The electromagnetic fields appear as ultimate, irreducible realities, and at first it seems superfluous to postulate a homogeneous, isotropic ether-medium, and to envisage electromagnetic fields as states of this medium.

But on the other hand there is a weighty argument to be adduced in favour of the ether hypothesis. To deny the ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever. The fundamental facts of mechanics do not harmonize with this view. For the mechanical behaviour of a corporeal system hovering freely in empty space depends not only on relative positions (distances) and relative velocities, but also on its state of rotation, which physically may be taken as a characteristic not appertaining to the system in itself. In order to be able to look upon the rotation of the system, at least formally, as something real, Newton objectivises space. Since he classes his absolute space together with real things, for him rotation relative to an absolute space is also something real. Newton might no less well have called his absolute space ``Ether''; what is essential is merely that besides observable objects, another thing, which is not perceptible, inust be looked upon as real, to enable acceleration or rotation to be looked upon as something real."

"It is true that Mach tried to avoid having to accept as real something which is not observable by endeavouring to substitute in mechanics a mean acceleration with reference to the totality of the masses in the universe in place of an acceleration with reference to absolute space. But inertial resistance opposed to relative acceleration of distant masses presupposes action at a distance; and as the modern physicist does not believe that he may accept this action at a distance, he comes back once more, if he follows Mach, to the ether, which has to serve as medium for the effects of inertia. But this conception of the ether to which we are led by Mach's way of thinking differs essentially from the ether as conceived by Newton, by Fresnel, and by Lorentz. Mach's ether not only conditions the behaviour of inert masses, but is also conditioned in its state by them.

Mach's idea finds its full development in the ether of the general theory of relativity."

- Albert Einstein, an address delivered on May 5th, 1920, in the University of Leyden.

"Modern science has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy. This philosophy, as we know, used the word "ether" to designate the particular kind of matter that filled the universe. This term was used throughout the history of philosophy and science, and it was also current at the beginning of this century. A resumption of its use at the dawn of this new century is now a fact. Since, according to the General Theory of Relativity and other modem branches of physics, the space and time of the universe do not constitute a vacuum, but a structured material plenum characterized by different physical quantities, the historical and traditional word "ether" is the most appropriate to express these features of the universe."

- 'Einstein and the Ether', Ludwik Kostro, 2000, pp 186-187,

-

"Einstein's new kind of ether was the metrical tensor field. He thus started to adhere to this new ether. He named it "Mach's ether" or simply "ether," and supplied the same reasons that Poincare had provided in his writings as to why we should adhere to the ether (we need the ether in order to remove absolute rotation and action-at-a-distance: see my papers "Poincare's ether"). Einstein thus returned to the 19th century concept of the ether, but stripped of it its most important characteristic: a medium being in absolute rest. One could still pose the perplexing question: Was Einstein's ether endowed with any properties independent of the masses in it? For if it did possess such properties then there was actually no difference between Einstein and Poincares ether. Einstein did not give a defmitive answer to the above question in his (1920) lecture."

- "Einstein's Ether: D. Rotational Motion of the Earth," Galina Granek, Department of Philosophy, Haifa University, Mount Cannel, Haifa 31905, Israel, Apeiron, Vol. 8, No. 2, April 2001, p. 64.

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"A few words about the gravitational æther, and the æther concept in general may be in place here. The æther hypothesis was thought to be buried by the Michelson-Morley experiment, but today it is more alive than ever, in the form of the CBR: experiments capable of finding the æther were not possible in the 1880s, but were possible in 1960s. In a sense, the electromagnetic æther has always been observed..."

- Toivo Jaakkola Tuorla Observatory University of Turku "Action-at-a-Distance and Local Action in Gravitation", APEIRON Vol. 3 Nr. 3-4 July-Oct. 1996, p 70.

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"Today the vacuum is recognized as a rich physical medium....A general theory of the vacuum is thus a theory of everything, a universal theory. It would be appropriate to call the vacuum "ether" once again."

- 'The Philosophy of Vacuum', 1991, Simon W. Saunders, Harvey R. Jr. Brown, p 251.

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"According to accepted theory, free space is a vacuum. If this is so, how can it exhibit impedance? But it does. The answer, of course, is that there is no such thing as a vacuum, and what we call free space has structure. The impedance equals 376+ ohms."

- "Space Must Be Quantizied,", Robert Moon, professor emeritus in physics at University of Chicago, 21st Century, 1988, p. 26ff.

Rotundity
"Newtonian laws operate in a world-model that is very different from everyday intuition. Because Newtonian space is infinite and homogeneous, Earth and its surface are not special places. The directions "up," "down," and "sideways" are fundamentally similar. Nor is rest privileged over uniform motion. None of these concepts matches everyday experience. They troubled Newton's contemporaries, and even Newton himself."

- Frank Wilczek, Professor of Physics at MIT, Nobel Prize winner of 2004, in his book "THE LIGHTNESS OF BEING: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces" page 1. (Basic Books; September 2, 2008).

Parallax
"It is often said that Tycho’s model implies the absence of parallax, and that Copernicus’ requires parallax. However, it would not be a major conceptual change to have the stars orbit the sun (like the planets) for Tycho, which would give the same yearly shifts in their apparent positions as parallax gives. Thus if parallax were observed, a flexible Tychonean could adjust the theory to account for it, without undue complexity. What if parallax were not observed? For Copernicus, one only requires that the stars be far enough away for the parallax to be unmeasurable. Therefore the presence or absence of parallax doesn’t force the choice of one type of model over the other. If different stars were to show different amounts of parallax, that would rule out the possibility of them all being on one sphere, but still not really decide between Tycho and Copernicus.

In fact, if we don’t worry about the distant stars, these two models describe identical relative motions of all the objects in the solar system. So the role of observation is not as direct as you might have guessed. There is no bare observation that can distinguish whether Tycho (taken broadly) or Copernicus (taken broadly) is right."

- University of Illinois, Physics 319, Spring 2004, Lecture 03, p. 8

Cosmology
“Less than 50 years after the birth of what we are pleased to call ‘modern cosmology,’ when so few empirical facts are passably well established, when so many different over-simplified models of the universe are still competing for attention, is it, may we ask, really credible to claim, or even reasonable to hope, that we are presently close to a definitive solution of the cosmological problem?…Unfortunately, a study of the history of cosmology reveals disturbing parallelisms between modern cosmology and medieval scholasticism; often the borderline between sophistication and sophistry, between numeration and numerology, seems very precarious indeed. Above all I am concerned by an apparent loss of contact withempirical evidence and observational facts, and, worse, by a deliberate refusal on the part of some theorists to accept such results when they appear to be in conflict with some of the present oversimplified and therefore intellectually appealing theories of the universe…doctrines that frequently seem to be more concerned with the fictitious properties of ideal (and therefore nonexistent) universes than with the actual world revealed by observations.”

- Gerard de Vaucouleurs, University of Texas, formulater of de Vaucouleurs modified Hubble sequence, awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society in 1988. He was awarded the Prix Jules Janssen of the French Astronomical Society in the same year.

"I don't think there is one person in many, many thousands--regardless of education--who knows that the Copernican Model had to turn the Moon's observable direction around and give it a new speed to accommodate the phases and eclipses." Marshall Hall

"But among all the discoveries and corrections probably none has resulted in a deeper influence on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus…. Possibly mankind has never been demanded to do more, for considering all that went up in smoke as a result of realizing this change: a second Paradise, a world of innocence, poetry and piety: the witness of the senses, the conviction of a poetical and religious faith. No wonder his contemporaries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistance to a doctrine which in its converts authorized and demanded a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown indeed not even dreamed of.”

- Johann von Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre, Materialien zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre, Frankfurt am Main, 1991, Seite 666.

[The Copernican Revolution] "..outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom. Since it changed the character of men’s habitual mental operations even in the conduct of the nonmaterial sciences, while transforming the whole diagram of the physical universe and the very texture of human life itself, it looms so large as the real origin both of the modern world and of the modern mentality, that our customary periodisation of European history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance."

- Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science: 1300-1800, 1957, pp. 7-8.

"Copernicus studied in Bologna under the Platonist Novara; and Copernicus’ idea of placing the sun rather than the earth in the center of the universe was not the result of new observations but of a new interpretation of old and well-known facts in the light of semi-religious Platonic and Neo-Platonic ideas. The crucial idea can be traced back to the sixth book of Plato’s Republic, where we can read that the sun plays the same role in the realm of visible things as does the idea of the good in the realm of ideas. Now the idea of the good is the highest in the hierarchy of Platonic ideas. Accordingly the sun, which endows visible things with their visibility, vitality, growth and progress, is the highest in the hierarchy of the visible things in nature…Now if the sun was to be given pride of place, if the sun merited a divine status…then it was hardly possible for it to revolve about the earth. The only fitting place for so exalted a star was the center of the universe. So the earth was bound to revolve about the sun. This Platonic idea, then, forms the historical background of the Copernican revolution. It does not start with observations, but with a religious or mythological idea."

- Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, p. 187

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"…in the Renaissance movement championed by Marsiglio Ficino, the doctrine came alive again, but in a somewhat altered form; one might say that what Ficino instituted was indeed a religion, a kind of neo-paganism. Copernicus himself was profoundly influenced by this movement, as can be clearly seen from numerous passages in the De Revolutionibus."

- Wolfgang Smith, The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology, p. 174).

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"In the middle of all sits Sun enthroned. In this most beautiful temple could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind, the Ruler of the Universe: Hermes Trismegistus names him the Visible God, Sophocles’ Electra calls him the All-seeing. So the Sun sits as upon a royal throne ruling his children the planets which circle round him. The Earth has the Moon at her service. As Aristotle says, in his On Animals, the Moon has the closest relationship with the Earth. Meanwhile the Earth conceives by the Sun, and becomes pregnant with an annual rebirth."

- Nicolaus Copernicus, De Revolutionibus, Of the Order of the Heavenly Bodies 10.

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“[Copernicus’] reasons for his revolutionary change were essentially philosophic and aesthetic,” and in a later edition he is more convinced that the “reasons were mystical rather than scientific”

- J. D. Bernal, Science in History, 1st edition, London, Watts, 1954; 2nd edition, 1965).

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“Who [the sun] alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited…and worthy to become the home of God himself, not to say the first mover”

- Johannes Kepler, On the Motion of Mars, Prague, 1609, Chapter 4).

-

"Kepler knew that in Tycho’s possession were the raw observations that he, as “architect,” longed to assemble into a coherent picture of planetary motion. And Tycho knew that the gifted Kepler had the mathematical wherewithal to prove the validity of the Tychonic [geocentric] system of the heavens. But Kepler was a confirmed Copernican; Tycho’s model had no appeal to him, and he had no intention of polishing this flawed edifice to the great man’s ego."

- Alan W. Hirshfeld, Parallax: The Race to Measure the Universe, New York: W. H. Freeman and Co, 2001, pp. 92-93).

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"Let all keep silence and hark to Tycho who has devoted thirty-five years to his observations… For Tycho alone do I wait; he shall explain to me the order and arrangement of the orbits… Then I hope I shall one day, if God keeps me alive, erect a wonderful edifice.....

Brahe may discourage me from Copernicus (or even from the five perfect solids) but rather I think about striking Tycho himself with a sword…I think thus about Tycho: he abounds in riches, which like most rich people he does not rightly use. Therefore great effort has to be given that we may wrest his riches away from him. We will have to go begging, of course, so that he may sincerely spread his observations around”

- Kepler, Letter to Michael Maestlin, February 16 1599, Gesammelte Werke, vol. xiii, p. 289

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“I confess that when Tycho died, I quickly took advantage of the absence, or lack of circumspection, of the heirs, by taking the observations under my care, or perhaps usurping them…”

- Kepler as quoted by Stephen Hawking (2004). The Illustrated On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy. Philadelphia: Running Press. p. 108

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"The personality of Galileo, as it emerges from works of popular science, has even less relation to historic fact than Canon Koppernigk’s…[H]e appears…in rationalist mythography as the Maid of Orleans of Science, the St. George who slew the dragon of the Inquisition. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the fame of this outstanding genius rests mostly on discoveries he never made, and on feats he never performed. Contrary to statements in even recent outlines of science, Galileo did not invent the telescope; nor the microscope; nor the thermometer; nor the pendulum clock. He did not discover the law of inertia; nor the parallelogram of forces or motions; not the sun spots. He made no contribution to theoretical astronomy; he did not throw down weights from the leaning tower of Pisa and did not prove the truth of the Copernican system. He was not tortured by the Inquisition, did not languish in its dungeons, did not say ‘eppur si muove’; and he was not a martyr of science "

- Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, p. 358.

‘They defend the old theories by complicating things to the point of incomprehensibility.’ - Fred Hoyle

"The work, published in 1543, was called On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres. It stated that the center of the universe was a spot somewhere near the sun...The scheme met the requirements of philosophical and theological belief in circular motion. In every other respect, however, Copernicus struck at the heart of Aristotelian and Christian belief. He removed the Earth from the center of the universe and so from the focus of God’s purpose. In the new scheme man was no longer the creature for whose use and elucidation the cosmos had been created. His system also placed the Earth in the heavens, and in doing so removed the barrier separating the incorruptible from the corruptible."

- James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed, p. 135

"The popular belief that Copernicus' heliocentric system constitutes a significant simplification of the Ptolemaic system is obviously wrong. The choice of the reference system has no effect on the structure of the model, and the Copernican models themselves require about twice as many circles as the Ptolemaic models and are far less elegant and adaptable!"

Modern historians, making ample use of the advantage of hindsight, stress the revolutionary significance of the heliocentric system and the simplification it had introduced. In fact, the actual computation of planetary positions follows exactly the ancient patterns and the results are the same. The Copernican solar theory is definitely a step in the wrong direction for the actual computation as well as for the underlying kinematic concepts"

- 'On Three Planetary Theory of Copernicus' - Otto Neugebauer 1968, p 103,

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"Cosmology is not even astrophysics: all the principal assumptions in this field are unverified (or unverifiable) in the laboratory, and researchers are quite comfortable with inventing unknowns to explain the unknown. How then could, after fifty years of failed attempt in finding dark matter, the fields of dark matter..dark energy have become such lofty priorities in astronomy funding, to the detriment of all other branches of astronomy? I demonstrate in this article that while some of is based upon truth, at least just as much of ΛCDM cosmology has been propped by a paralyzing amount of propaganda which suppress counter evidence and subdue competing models. [...] I believe astronomy is no longer heading towards a healthy future, unless funding agencies re-think their master plans by backing away from such high a emphasis on groping in the dark."

- Richard Lieu, 'ΛCDM cosmology: how much suppression of credible evidence, and does the model really lead its competitors, using all evidence?', 2007, abstract.

https://arxiv.org/abs/0705.2462

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"Dark energy appears to be the dominant component of the physical Universe, yet there is no persuasive theoretical explanation for its existence or magnitude. The acceleration of the Universe is, along with dark matter, the observed phenomenon that most directly demonstrates that our theories of fundamental particles and gravity are either incorrect or incomplete. Most experts believe that nothing short of a revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics will be required to achieve a full understanding of the cosmic acceleration. For these reasons, the nature of dark energy ranks among the very most compelling of all outstanding problems in physical science. These circumstances demand an ambitious observational program to determine the dark energy properties as well as possible."

- Report of the Dark Energy Task Force, 2006

https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609591

Galileo's recantation:

"The falsity of the Copernican system should not in any way be called into question, above all, not by Catholics, since we have the unshakeable authority of the Sacred Scripture, interpreted by the most erudite theologians, whose consensus gives us certainty regarding the stability of the Earth, situated in the center, and the motion of the sun around the Earth. The conjectures employed by Copernicus and his followers in maintaining the contrary thesis are all sufficiently rebutted by that most solid argument deriving from the omnipotence of God. He is able to bring about in different ways, indeed, in an infinite number of ways, things that, according to our opinion and observation, appear to happen in one particular way. We should not seek to shorten the hand of God and boldly insist on something beyond the limits of our competence.”

- Le Opere Di Galileo Galilei, p. 316, footnote #2.

Michelson-Morley
“This would mean that the Earth’s diameter in the direction of its motion is shortened by 2½ inches."

~

“The Michelson-Morley experiment has thus failed to detect our motion through the aether, because the effect looked for – the delay of one of the light waves – is exactly compensated by an automatic contraction of the matter forming the apparatus.”

- Sir Arthur Eddington, Space, Time and Gravitation, p. 20

"The explanation which had the most appeal in accounting for the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment was one that was literally dreamed up for the purpose. It is the so-called Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction. In 1893 Fitzgerald suggested that all objects contracted in the direction of their motion through the ether. He reasoned that if ordinary objects flattened out upon impact with other objects – a rubber ball hitting a wall or a ripe tomato dropped on the floor, for example – then why would it not be possible for objects that move through the ether to have the force of the ether push them in, or contract them? This would adequately explain the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The arm of the interferometer moving against the ether would be shortened so that, even though the light wave travelling in that particular arm might be slowed down by the ether wind, this would be compensated for by having its path shortened.....

~

Objections to the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction hypothesis were rampant, as was to be expected, not only because there was no evidence to prove that such an effect took place, but particularly because Fitzgerald could not explain why objects would contract due to motion through the ether. The contraction hypothesis was originally advanced only as a possible explanation for Michelson and Morley’s results, providing such an effect existed. Then, too, the theory said that all materials travelling with the same velocity with respect to the ether would contract the same fractional amount. Since iron is much heavier and stronger than wood, for example, one would expect a greater contraction for wood than for iron, but this, too, went unanswered."

- James A. Coleman, Professor of Physics and Chairman of the Department of Physics at the American International College, Spring-field, Massachusetts, "Relativity for the Layman".

"...this unexpected result kept the scientific world long in perplexity....." wrote Hans Reichenbach in his insightful book “From Copernicus To Einstein.” He further noted: "This result, announced in 1887, dumfounded scientists...."

-

"Considering the motion of the Earth in its orbit only, this displacement should be 2D v2/V2 = 2D × 10‐8. The distance D was about eleven meters, or 2 × 107 wavelengths of yellow light; hence, the displacement to be expected was 0.4 fringe. The actual displacement was certainly less than the twentieth part of this, and probably less than the fortieth part.5 But since the displacement is proportional to the square of the velocity, the relative velocity of the Earth and the ether is probably less than one‐sixth the Earth’s orbital velocity, and certainly less than one‐fourth."

- A. A. Michelson and E. W. Morley, “On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” Art. xxxvi, The American Journal of Science, eds. James D and Edward S. Dana, No. 203, vol. xxxiv, November 1887, p. 341

Sagnac
"The Sagnac effect also occurs if an atomic clock is moved slowly from one reference station on the ground to another...Observers at rest on the ground, seeing these same asymmetric effects, attribute them instead to gravitomagnetic effects – that is to say, the warping of space-time due to spacetime terms in the general-relativistic metric tensor..."

- Physics Today, May 2002 p. 42

PDF LINK: http://www.ipgp.fr/~tarantola/Files/Professional/GPS/Neil_Ashby_Relativity_G

-

"In clear conception, it ought to be regarded as a direct manifestation of the luminiferous ether. In a system moving as a whole with respect to the ether, the elapsed time of propagation between any two points of the system should be altered as though the system were immobile and subject to the action of an ether wind which would blow away the light waves in the manner of atmospheric wind blowing away sound waves. The observation of the optical effect of such a relative wind of ether would constitute evidence for the ether, just as the observation of the influence of the relative wind of the atmosphere on the speed of sound in a system in motion would (in the absence of a better explanation) constitute evidence of the existence of the atmosphere around the system in movement."

- Georges Sagnac, “The Luminiferous Ether Demonstrated by the Effect of the Relative Motion of the Ether in an Interferometer in Uniform Rotation", Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences 95, pp. 708-710, (1913).

Multiverse
Interesting quotes on Multiverse:

But the main reason for believing in an ensemble of universes is that it could explain why the laws governing our Universe appear to be so finely tuned for our existence. [...]This fine-tuning has two possible explanations. Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a multitude of universes--a "multiverse".

- Marcus Chown, New Scientist, 06 June 1998.

"Cosmologists deserve credit for making the choice so clear. In that spirit, Discover Magazine offers the multiverse as “Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator” (2008)."

"The Copernican Principle is similarly flexible: When conjuring habitable planets, it assumes ours is one among countless winners. Yet when conjuring a multiverse, it assumes that our universe is a lonely winner among countless flops. The choice seems to depend on which assumption is required as a defense against design. That feature, as we shall see, can once again transform speculation into orthodoxy."

- Denyse O'Leary, Evolution News and Views

Source: https://evolutionnews.org/2013/12/copernicus_not/

-

"We have shown that most of the global time cutoff measures of the multiverse suffer from severe inconsistencies and developed a new framework which allows us to study the measure problem from a completely different perspective. In the emerging picture an infinite multiverse is replaced with a finite geocentric region..."

- 'Geocentric cosmology: a new look at the measure problem', Mahdiyar Noorbala and Vitaly Vanchurin, Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, 2011.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1006.4148.pdf

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/05/looking-for-god-in-the-cosmic-details.html

Should the fine-tuning turn out to be real, what are we to make of it? There are two widely-discussed possibilities: either God fine-tuned the universe for us to be here, or there are (as string theory implies) a large number of universes, each with different laws of physics, and we happen to find ourselves in a universe where the laws happen to be just right for us to live. After all, how could we not?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026852.500-why-its-not-as-simple-as-god-vs-the-multiverse/

WHAT would you rather believe in, God or the multiverse? It sounds like an instance of cosmic apples and oranges, but increasingly we are being told it’s a choice we must make. Take the dialogue earlier this year between Richard Dawkins and physicist Steven Weinberg in Austin, Texas. Discussing the fact that the universe appears fine-tuned for our existence, Weinberg told Dawkins: “If you discovered a really impressive fine-tuning… I think you’d really be left with only two explanations: a benevolent designer or a multiverse.”

Newtonian Gravity
Mach (1872-1911) on action-at-a-distance:

“The Newtonian theory of gravitation, on its appearance, disturbed almost all investigators of nature because it was founded on an uncommon unintelligibility. People tried to reduce gravitation to pressure and impact. At the present day gravitation no longer disturbs anybody: it has become common unintelligibility.”

NASA
"Today we have with us a group of students, among America's best. To you we say we have only completed a beginning. We leave you much that is undone. There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of the truth's protective layers. There are places to go beyond belief...” --Neil Armstrong

Misc Quotes From Scientists on Space Travel
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." -- Electrionics and Radio Pioneer Lee De Forest, Ph.D., Yale University, 1957

"We did not ask ourselves whether space exploration was possible. We simply assumed that it was, and that it could brought about in our time" --Astronautics & Aeronautics - Volume 19 - Page 37, 1981

Writers
-- Robert M. Sheehan, Jr., Mission Impact: Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits

--Don Soderquist, The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company

--Werner Erhard, 1977, The Hunger Project Source Document

--George Basalla, Civilized Life in the Universe

--Science Fiction Studies, Volume 5, Part 2, July 1978 - https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/15/berger15art.htm

--Science Fiction Studies, Volume 5, Part 2, July 1978 - https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/15/berger15art.htm

--Former NASA astronaut, Clark C McClelland

--Voltaire, French philosopher

https://web.archive.org/web/20190807184106/https://sputniknews.com/science/201807271066736384-russians-polled-on-moon-landings/

Poll: Over Half of Russians Don't Believe America Landed on the MoonCC0 TECH 15:04 27.07.2018(updated 15:34 27.07.2018) Get short URL11373 NASA's six manned lunar missions, known as the Apollo program, which was conducted from July 1969 to December 1972, have attracted a great deal of interest among conspiracy theorists who hold that the entire program was a hoax aimed at pulling one over on the Soviets during the Cold War.

Some 57 percent of Russians believe that there has never been a manned lunar landing and are convinced that the US government falsified videos, photos and other material evidence regarding the 1969 expedition, a new poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (Russian acronym VCIOM) has revealed.

https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/329840-russians-refuse-apollo-11

Why do 76% of Russians refuse to believe that the Americans were on the Moon?

=Three Body=

Overview of Larange Points: https://gereshes.com/2018/12/03/an-introduction-to-lagrange-points-the-3-body-problem/

INTRODUCTION TO THE 3-BODY PROBLEM: https://gereshes.com/2018/10/22/introduction-to-the-3-body-problem/

Three Body Problem Review

=Neutrino problems=

http://t2k-experiment.org/neutrinos/beyond-the-standard-model/

http://hosting.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/sun_neutrino.htm

"The observed flux of neutrinos detected at Earth from the solar core is considerably less than that predicted by current models of solar nuclear fusion and our understanding of neutrinos themselves."

"Because neutrinos interact only weakly with ordinary matter, their detection is very difficult, and current neutrino "telescopes" are quite crude."

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12917543-300-science-solar-neutrino-problem-solved-at-last/

"There is also no correlation with sunspot activity, contrary to one claim."

=Tmp=

EP
https://books.google.com/books?id=vV9gDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA93&dq=%22equivalence%20principle%22%20%22sun%22&pg=PA115#v=onepage&q=%22equivalence%20principle%22%20%22sun%22&f=false

A test of the equivalence between active and passive gravitational mass is the Kreuzer (1968)132 experiment. It measured the gravitational field generated by substances of different composition. The experiment was performed with a Cavendish balance, using two substances, one mainly composed of fluorine and one mainly of bromine. The two substances had the same passive gravitational mass, as measured in the Earth gravity field, that is, the same weight. However, since they are of different compositions, they could potentially have different active gravitational masses. The result of this null experiment, in agreement with general relativity, was...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0039368185900020

Whilst prepating a review article on his new special theory of relativity, he became convinced that the key to the extension of the principle of relativity to accelerated motion lay in the remarkable and unexplained empirical coincidence of the equality of inertial and gravitational masses.

EA
http://www.tedpavlic.com/post_phil101_uncertainty.php

Now, the more modern view of quantum mechanics treats photons as particles which carry a probability with them which has both a magnitude and a phase. When photons with equivalent magnitudes and opposite phases "intersect," their probabilities subtract to zero and no photon is detected. Keeping this in mind, understand that light does not travel in straight lines from one point to another. Light travels in all directions through all possible curves and paths from one place to another. In the end, our observations are of where the probabilities "add up," which typically is along a path of a straight line. When light is forced through inhomogeneous space its probabilities cancel in such a way where the curved paths add up or perhaps multiple paths show up.

http://www.wlym.com/archive/pedagogicals/light.html

"So you see, light does {not} travel in straight lines!"

"Yes it does, if you do not disturb it. But by interposing matter, an inhomogenous medium, you deflected the rays from their natural, straight-line paths."

"How do you know that straight-line paths are `natural'?"

"If a light ray were allowed to propagate unhindered, in a pure vacuum or perfectly homogeneous medium, then it would propagate precisely along a straight line. It is just like the motion of material bodies in space according to Newton's first law: `a material body remains in its state of rest or uniform motion along a straight line, unless compelled by forces acting upon it to change its state.' No one could deny that."

"Does a `pure vacuum' exist anywhere in nature? Does a `perfectly homogenous medium' exist in nature?"

"Well no, of course. There is always a bit of dirt around, or inhomogeneities that disturb the perfectly straight pathways."

"So the presence of what you call `dirt' is natural, right?"

"Yes."

"So then it is natural that light never travels in straight-line paths."

"Wait a minute. You are mixing everything up. I am talking about the natural propagation of light, quite apart from matter."

"What do you mean, `quite apart from matter'? Do you assume that the existence of light is something that can be separated from the existence of matter?"

"Yes, certainly. The natural state of light is that of light propagating in a Universe that is completely empty of matter."

"And a completely empty Universe is a natural thing? Do you claim such a think could ever exist?"

"I could imagine one. Sometimes I get that feeling inside my head."

"Maybe that is because you are not thinking in the real world."

"Don't blame me for that. I am a professional physicist."

"Well then, fill the vacuum in your mind with the following thought: Light and matter do not exist as separate entities, nor does matter act to bend rays of light from what you imagine in your fantasy-universe to be perfectly straight-line rays. Rather, the existence of what we call matter, the existence of light and the fact that light never propagates in straight lines -- except in mere appearance -- are both interrelated manifestations of the fundamental curvature of physical space-time, which Fermat began to address with his principle of least time."

Quotes
-- Nicolaus Copernicus

-- Neugebauer, 1968

Geocentricity
http://www.ldolphin.org/geocentricity/Aspects.pdf

Close Stars Illusion
https://books.google.com/books?id=bxIuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT206&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcrNyXu-zjAhUEmeAKHWG1AuEQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

RESOLVING THE STARS’ APPARENT CLOSENESS PLUS THE SIZE AND AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

Creating the apparently close stars’ illusion:

It’s a clear night, you are gazing up at the stars that seem so close, “You can almost touch them" I believe someone once wrote. As you stand there, you are arriving at the same conclusion regarding the distance to the stars as the ancients who believed that the stars appear to be close, a f‌ixed distance from the earth and attached to a celestial or crystal sphere.

As introduced previously, if you continue to observe the stars for a while, you will notice that they seem to “drift” toward the west. Closer observation will disclose that the stars appear to be rotating about a star in the Northern sky, a star now termed the pole star.

The star closeness illusion is not caused by the same reference problem that causes the apparently same size and closeness of the sun and moon illusion. We can actually “see" the sun and moon, but we cannot “see” any of the stars in the conventional sense. Because of the extreme distance to the stars, the human eye and even the most powerful telescope lacks the power to resolve a star. We can “see" a star since it is a source of light, but we cannot see any details of stars, what we "see” is an optical phenomenon, known as an Airy disk named for its discover, British mathematician and astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy (1801-1892)M.

The Airy disk is a series of concentric rings of varying intensity that only show where a star is but cannot be used to determine a star’s characteristics. Accordingly, we cannot determine the actual distance to a star: all stars appear to be the same distance from us and lacking a reference, appear to be relatively close for reasons discussed above.

https://books.google.com/books?id=GPl3UeLDEF8C&lpg=PA99&pg=PA97#v=onepage&q&f=false

CHAPTER 8: RESOLVING THE APPARENTLY CLOSE STARS AROUND EARTH ILLUSION

CREATING THE ILLUSION.

It’s a clear night and you are gazing up at the Stars. They seem so close, “you can almost touch them,” I believe someone once wrote. As you stand there, you arrive at the same conclusion regarding the distance to the stars as the ancients, who believed the stars appear to be a close, f‌ixed distance from the earth and attached to a celestial or crystal sphere. You continue to observe the stats for a while, and you norice that they seem to “drift” toward the weSt. Closer observatiOn will disclose that the stars appear to be rotating around a star in the nOrthern sky, a star now termed the “pole star.”

The closeness illusion is caused by the same reference problem that causes the apparently same size and closeness of the sun and moon illusion, but there are other causes. While we can see the sun and moon, we cannOt “see” any of the srars in the conventional sense. Because of the extreme distance to the stars, the human eye and even the man powerful telescope lacks the power to resolve a Star. We can “see” a star because it is a source of light, but what we “see” is an optical phenomenon known as an Airy disc [1], named for its discoverer, British mathematician and astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy (1801—1892). Along with Airy’s Other accomplishments, he played a leading role in establishing Greenwich, England as the prime or zero meridian. Because we only see a star’s Airy disc and because of the earth’s atmosphere, all stars appear to be about the same distance from Earth.

~

EMPIRICAL DEVELOPMENT OF A PROPER EXPLANATION OF THE CLOSE STARS ILLUSION.

Resolving the problem of the “extra bright Stars” and the close stars illusion ultimately revealed that the universe is extremely large and very old. However, as with the resolution process of other illusions, this resolution required contributions from many persons. It began with the measurement of the distance to the nearest stars, which built upon our knowledge of the size of the solar system.

Knowing the Earth—sun distance, we can in principle measure the distance to any star using the triangulation method discussed in the previous chapter and illustrated in figure 8-1.

Star side2 side1 Earth. I‘. Earth, June '? anglei sun angle2 F ‘. December 186 million miles

Figure 8—]. Measurement ol’distancc to a Star via triangulation We merely measure angles 1 and 2 in a triangle formed by the Earth— sun—Earth line and the star. 'lhe difference between the two angles is known as the parallax of a star".

Retrograde Motion
Another explanation for retrograde motion may be found with common analogy of the apparent retrograde motion is that of turning on a circle. If two cars are travelling at the same constant speed from the same point on concentric circles "next to each other" such that one car is on the "outside" and the other on the "inside", then the car on the inside will complete its circle before the car on the outside, because it has a shorter distance to travel. Thus, it will seem to the driver of the car on the inside, that, although the speed of the cars is the same, the car on the outside is slower. The outside car will appear to "fall behind" the inside car. The same concept is the basis of retrograde motion.

The Superior Planets
The stars are in motion above the earth, at with a rate of one rotation per 23 hours 56 minutes. If a planet is not matching this rate of rotation it may appear to lag behind or surpass the stars. One important contribution to astronomy was by Jonas Kepler, who found that the rate of a planet's orbit indeed changes. When a planet is close to the Sun it is moving faster, and when a planet is far from the sun it is moving slower.



Kepler suggested magnetism as a basis for this attraction, while Newton suggested a new phenomenon called gravity. Immaterial of mechanism, however, the concept shows that the superior planets such as Jupiter and Saturn may not be crating direct retrogrades, but instead lagging behind and speeding up depending on their position with the Sun. Notice how in the Dance of the Planets animation that Jupiter and Saturn move forward when the Sun is in their vicinity and regress backwards when the Sun is far away.