January 16, 2010

  • Question 208 - Struggling with question on Geocentrism

    Robert,
    I have struggled with trying to believe in geocentrism, but can't
    reconcile it with what I've learned in school.  One of the biggest
    problems I have is if everything is rotating around the earth even an
    object such as     Neptune would have to be traveling faster that the speed
    of light to rotate around the earth in 24 hrs.  Not to mention the same
    principle applied to much further objects.  How would you explain this?
    Are they closer than science tells us they are?
    Also didn't the rotation of the earth around the sun have to enter in
    to the calculations for such a mission as Voyager which explored
    Jupiter,     Neptune, Uranus, etc?

    Chesley

    R. Sungenis: Chesley, let me answer the second question first. For the first question, I will give you an excerpt from my book Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right.

     

    Regarding sending out rockets, probes, satellites, etc., it makes no difference whether you use an Earth-centered system or a Sun-centered system. In fact, NASA uses both, and, in fact, they use the Earth-centered system to correct the Sun-centered system. The reason both can be used is that the distances, dimensions, and changes in distance between the sun, earth and the planets does not change from one system to the other. We show this on our CDROM animation that you get when you purchase the books.

     

    Here is the excerpt from our book that deals with this issues:

     

    NASA Use the Heliocentric System

    for its Probes and Satellites?

     

    In reality, NASA will use whatever system is more convenient, the heliocentric or the geocentric, since NASA’s orbital mechanics know that both models are equivalent, mathematically and geometrically. If they are sending probes near the sun, they will probably use a heliocentric model, since it is easier to make calculations when one considers the sun as fixed in space with the planets moving around it. If they are sending up satellites near the Earth, however, they will use a geocentric model, or what is known in the industry as a “fixed-Earth coordinate system.” This is because it is much easier to calculate and chart the movements of satellites circling the Earth if the Earth is understood as stationary in space. This fact is easily proven from the space agency’s own documentation. For example, in a letter written to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) making the following inquiry: “Is the present movement of GOES [Geostationary Satellite] planned and executed on the basis of a fixed earth or a rotating earth?” the answer returned by the department head of GOES/POLAR Navigation, Office of Satellite Operations at the NOAA was very simple: “Fixed earth.”[1]

    At other times, NASA tries to give the impression to a gullible public that only the heliocentric model will work. Through email correspondence in October 2005, NASA representatives personally invited this author to their on-line Question and Answer forum.[2] A few weeks prior to the invitation, the same NASA representatives had answered a question on their forum from another person regarding whether NASA’s probes could be sent into space and tracked using the geocentric system rather than the heliocentric. The NASA representatives answered in the negative, stating: “If the universe were geocentric, all of our calculations for space probe trajectories would be wrong.” The person who asked the question then sent NASA’s answer to this author as proof for the heliocentric system. Accepting NASA’s invitation, I then sent a formal question to the NASA website asking them to show proof why a geocentric system would not work. After six weeks of not receiving an answer, I contacted the representatives by private email and asked if they were planning to answer the question. They wrote back to me and stated that they did not plan to answer it. After I tried to convince them that, since in this public forum they had, by their initial assertions against geocentric navigation, already committed themselves, and thus had an obligation to the public to defend their position, they still refused to answer. As a rejoinder, I told them that I would be including the entire communication between them and myself in this present book. The NASA representatives then demanded that their names be withheld, stating:

     

    We do not give you permission to quote us or use our names in your book or on your website. Although we work at NASA centers, we are not NASA employees and for us to be presented in your work as official representatives of NASA would be inappropriate and misleading.

     

    I have obliged their request, except to quote the above paragraph. My suggestion to them was the following:

     

    As for whether you work for NASA or not, the website has a nasa.gov address. So if you’re not affiliated with NASA then I suggest you find a different website address, since otherwise, you are misleading the public. Of course, we can avoid all this extracurricular activity if you, as an astrophysicist, would tell us why a geocentric system would not work. The ball is in your court.

     

    To this day there has been no response from them. As one can see quite readily from the above exchanges, although one government agency, at least in a private letter, was willing to divulge the truth about the use of fixed-Earth mechanics, another agency refused to be as forthcoming when the audience included the millions of potential readers on the Internet. This is really no surprise to us. Those who control our space programs have a vested interest in keeping the public under the illusion of Copernicanism, since all their funding and projects are based on Copernicus’ premises, including the quest to find life in other worlds. Only those who are courageous and knowledgeable enough can expose the illusion and allow the public to see the cosmic shell game that has been occurring for quite a long time. One such party is the team of Ruyong Wang and Ronald Hatch, two former government satellite engineers who know the truth about the illusion. In one of their investigations on the Global Positioning System they write:

               

    …NavCom Technology, Inc. has licensed software developed by the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) which, because of historical reasons, does the entire computation in the ECI frame. Because of some discrepancies between our standard earth-centered earth-fixed solution results and the JPL results, we investigated the input parameters to the solution very carefully. The measured and theoretical ranges computed in the two different frames agreed precisely, indicating that the Sagnac correction had been applied in each frame.

     

    As the discussion of the Sagnac effect indicates the fundamental question regarding the speed of light is the following: Is the speed of light constant with respect to the observer (receiver) or is it constant with respect to the chosen inertial ECI frame? Clearly the GPS range equation indicates the speed of light is constant with respect to the chosen frame…The JPL equations, used to track signals from interplanetary space probes, verify that the speed of light is with respect to the chosen frame. In the JPL equations, the chosen frame is the solar system barycentric frame….Clearly, the JPL equations treat the speed of light as constant with respect to the frame – not as constant with respect to the receivers.[3]

     

    In other words, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employs the Earth Centered Inertial frame (ECI) for probes sent out near the Earth (as does NASA and the GPS), yet the Jet Propulsion Lab claims to use the “solar system barycentric frame” for deep space navigation. Wang and Hatch tell us, however, “the Jet Propulsion Lab…because of historical reasons, does the entire computation in the ECI frame.” Not only does the Jet Propulsion Lab use the ECI frame exclusively, Wang and Hatch tell us that the Lab corrects the calculations in its “solar system barycentric frame” so that they match the ECI frame! We can see clearly that the Earth-centered frame is the standard, and thus, use of the ‘solar system barycentric frame’ is superfluous. Once the Lab’s computer makes the corrections to the solar system barycentric frame, in reality the deep space navigation is actually using the ECI frame – a fixed Earth. The public wouldn’t have been made privy to this sleight-of-hand manipulation except for the fact that two knowledgeable insiders, Wang and Hatch, have told the real story. In effect, the Earth Centered Inertial frame (e.g., geocentrism) is the only frame that allows the GPS and various space probes to work properly. The significance of these facts will be highlighted when we deal with the Sagnac Effect in Chapter 5, and the Global Positioning Satellites in Appendix 6.


     

    [1] The original letter was addressed to Charles E. Liddick of the United States Department of Commerce, Office of Satellite Operations, Washington, DC 20233 on November 17, 1989. Mr. Liddick transferred the inquiry to Lee Ranne, from GOES/POLAR Navigation, Office of Satellite Operations at the NOAA offices in the department of National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service, who then wrote to, the questioner, Marshall Hall, on November 22, 1989, with a copy to Mr. Liddick. Original letters are cited in Marshall Hall’s The Earth is Not Moving, Cornelia, Georgia, Fair Education Foundation, 1994, p. 261.

     

    [2] (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/ask_an_

    astronomer.html).  

     

    [3] Ruyong Wang and Ronald R. Hatch, Conducting a Crucial Experiment of the Constancy of the Speed of Light Using GPS, ION GPS 58th Annual Meeting / CIGTF 21st Guidance Test Symposium, 2002, p. 500.

     

     

    As for the first question, the planets are not traveling anywhere near the speed of light. The planets are traveling their normal speed around the sun, and the sun is traveling at 18.5 miles per second around the earth (assuming that the distance of 93 million miles from earth to sun is correct. The thing that rotates around the earth in 24 hours is the universe itself. According to modern science, this is a fact of science, that is, science allows for a rotating universe around a fixed earth just as it allows a rotating earth in a fixed universe. In fact, in the 1960s physicist Herman Bondi showed that beyond the orbit of Saturn, or what they would call the Schwarzchild radius for our solar system, there is no limitation to how fast the universe can rotate around the earth, especially when they use the rules of General Relativity. The ironic thing is, both Special and General Relativity were invented by Einstein in an effort to answer the experimental evidence from the late 1800s that showed the Earth was standing still in space, but in the process of trying to keep the Earth moving with his Relativity theories, Einstein actually gave credibility to geocentrism. I show all this in my book. At any rate, here is one section of the book that is simple enough for the layman to understand:

     

     

    Isn’t it Impossible for the Stars

    to Travel so Fast Around the Earth?

     

    Another common objection to placing the Earth in the center of our local system is that it would also need to be in the center of the universe, and thus, it would be impossible for the stars, being so far away, to revolve around the Earth on a daily basis, since they would be required to travel faster than the speed of light to complete their daily trek. As with all the objections in this section, we will answer them in more detail in later chapters, but for now we can respond in two ways. First, even assuming for the sake of argument that geocentrism holds that the stars travel faster than light (which it does not); still, those who base their objections on the tenets of modern science have little room to mount criticism. As a popular scientist explains for the novice, in Relativity theory:

     

    …it is permissible to assume that the Earth is a nonrotating frame of reference. From this point of view, the stars will have a circular velocity around the Earth that is much greater than the speed of light. A star only ten light-years away has a relative velocity around the Earth of twenty thousand times the speed of light.[1]

     

    A more technical book on Relativity written for the scientist admits the same:

     

    Relative to the stationary roundabout [the Earth], the distant stars would have…linear velocities exceeding 3 × 108 m/sec, the terrestrial value of the velocity of light. At first sight this appears to be a contradiction…that the velocities of all material bodies must be less than c [the speed of light]. However, the restriction u < c = 3 × 108 m/sec is restricted to the theory of Special Relativity. According to the General theory, it is possible to choose local reference frames in which, over a limited volume of space, there is no gravitational field, and relative to such a reference frame the velocity of light is equal to c…. If gravitational fields are present the velocities of either material bodies or of light can assume any numerical value depending on the strength of the gravitational field. If one considers the rotating roundabout as being at rest, the centrifugal gravitational field assumes enormous values at large distances, and it is consistent with the theory of General Relativity for the velocities of distant bodies to exceed 3 × 108 m/sec under these conditions.[2]

     

    Einstein himself admitted this very principle:

     

    In the second place our result shows that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Now we might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlimited domain of validity; its results hold only so long as we are able to disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena (e.g., of light).[3]

     

    Hence, according to Einstein’s own words, a limitation on the speed of light is only true when gravity does not affect the light, or, as a corollary point, variations in the gravitational field will allow variations in the speed of light. Since in a rotating universe the gravitational force increases in proportion to the radial distance from Earth, consequently, the farther the distance, the faster light will be able to travel. As we will see many times in this book, the principles of General Relativity invariably support a geocentric universe.

    Another important issue concerning the speed of light is precisely this question: what does modern physics mean when it says that something cannot exceed the speed of light? It’s not what you might logically think. Normally we would interpret the light speed barrier as an inherent property of nature in which, all things being equal, a material object cannot reach the speed of light, since it would actually need to be light in order to travel as fast as light. But this is not how Relativity theory explains it. In a manner of speaking, modern scientists have determined that ‘all things are not equal.’ The ‘inequality’ was invented when science had a very difficult time explaining the result of the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment. As we noted briefly earlier (and will investigate in much more detail in later chapters), in order to provide modern science an escape from having to conclude that the Earth was motionless in space, various scientists explained the Michelson-Morley experiment by postulating that matter compresses when it moves. First, they committed the most egregious fallacy in logic: using as proof that which they had not first proven. To put it bluntly, they assumed the Earth was moving as the basis to interpret the experiment that appeared to show the Earth wasn’t moving. As one of the world’s premier physicists of that day, Arthur Eddington, put it:

     

    But it now appears that the allowance made for the motion of the observer has hitherto been too crude – a fact overlooked because in practice all observers share nearly the same motion, that of the Earth. Physical space and time are found to be closely bound up with this motion of the observer.[4]

     

    In this case, Michelson’s sensitive instruments, specifically designed to detect the Earth’s motion, were said to register a “null” result for such an effect because, due to the pressure generated by the assumed orbit of the Earth, the instruments shrank during the course of the experiment. As Eddington put it: “This would mean that the Earth’s diameter in the direction of its motion is shortened by 2½ inches.”[5] Having no other way to prohibit the Earth from being motionless in space, most scientists succumbed to the “shrinking matter” hypothesis, and soon it became standard fare in the world of physics. Dubbed as the “Fitzgerald contraction,” and later made into an equation called the “Lorentz transformation,” it was so readily accepted that it became the pat answer to every motion problem in physics. Among those answers 

    was why no object could ever reach the speed of light. As physicist Arthur Eddington explains it:

     

    It is no use trying to overtake a flash of light; however fast you go it is always traveling away from you at 186,000 miles a second. Now from one point of view this is a rather unworthy deception that Nature has practiced upon us. Let us take our favourite observer who travels at 161,000 miles a second and send him in pursuit of the flash of light. It is going 25,000 miles a second faster than he is; but that is not what he will report. Owing to the contraction of his standard scale his miles are only half-miles; owing to the slowing down of his clocks his seconds are double-seconds. His measurement would therefore make the speed 100,000 miles a second (really half-miles per double-second). He makes a further mistake in synchronizing the clocks with which he records the velocity….This brings the speed up to 186,000 miles a second. From his own point of view the traveler is lagging hopelessly behind the light; he does not realize what a close race he is making of it, because his measuring appliances have been upset.[6]

     

    So here we see that the “traveler” is, as Eddington admits, coming close to, and could possibly match, the speed of light, but because his instruments have shrunk and his clock moves slower due to his excessive speed, it will only appear as if it is impossible to catch the light beam. Welcome to the bizarre world of Relativity. On the stage is reality versus illusion, but by the very nature of its principles, Relativity is at a loss to tell us which part is reality and which part is illusion. Perhaps this is why Eddington had few qualms once referring to the Fitzgerald contraction as: “The shortening of the moving rod is true, but it is not really true.”[7] Of course, we need to remind ourselves that the so-called ‘shrinking of the instruments’ and ‘slowing of the clock’ is all the result of the fallacious interpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment, an interpretation that was forced upon the science establishment in order to keep the Earth from being motionless in space. To this very day, no scientist in the world has ever explained, let alone proven, the precise physical reason why matter should shrink in length when it moves, or how time can dilate in the process, yet they believe it nonetheless, for, as we will see later, it is their only defense against going back to pre-Copernican days.

    We can also answer the objection by noting that, although it is to our advantage to use modern physics against itself as we do when we point out that General Relativity permits a body to move faster than the speed of light, the celestial mechanics of geocentrism, in fact, does not claim that the stars move faster than light. Geocentrism says only that the universe rotates around the Earth once per day, and in that rotation it carries the stars with it. Thus, compared to the universe within which they are contained, the stars are not moving at all, save for their minuscule independent movements.

    Mechanically speaking, the rotation of the universe is an integral facet of the geocentric system so as to act as a counterbalance to the inward pressure of gravity. It just so happens that the centrifugal force created by a 24-hour rotation period prohibits the stars and other material in the universe from collapsing inward (a problem, incidentally, that Newton and Einstein recognized in their respective universes, which Newton attempted to answer by opting for an infinite universe, and Einstein by his infamous “cosmological constant,” neither of which provided an adequate solution). An advocate of Relativity can raise no objections against geocentrism’s rotating universe since Relativity sees no difference, or has no way to distinguish between, a rotating Earth among fixed stars or stars that revolve around a fixed Earth. The two are relativistically equivalent.


    [1] Martin Gardner, Relativity Explosion, 1976, p. 68.

     

    [2] An Introduction to the Theory of Relativity, William Geraint Vaughn Rosser, 1964, p. 460. W. G. V. Rosser, Ph.D. was the senior lecturer in Physics at Exeter University.

     

    [3] Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, authorized translation by Robert W. Lawson, 1961, p. 85.

     

    [4] Arthur Eddington, Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory, 1923, p. v. Interestingly enough, Eddington later decries man’s tendency to assume certain things as true which have not been proven. He writes: “Now the most dangerous hypotheses are those which are tacit and unconscious. So the standpoint of relativity proposes tentatively to do without these hypotheses (not making any others in their place); and it discovers that they are quite unnecessary and are not supported by any known fact” (ibid., p. 28). Unfortunately, Eddington failed to see a moving Earth as one of those beliefs “not supported by any known fact.” In various other places, Eddington confirms our suspicions of his predisposition: “It is well to remember that there is reasonable justification for adopting the principle of relativity even if the evidence is insufficient to prove it” (ibid., p. 21).

     

    [5] Space, Time and Gravitation, p. 20. He continues with the same question-begging logic in the next sentence: “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.”

     

    [6] Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, from the 1927 Gifford Lectures, 1929, p. 54. All spellings of words in the quote are from Eddington’s British.

     

    [7] Arthur S. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, pp. 33-34, emphasis his. Opposed to Eddington, some Relativists believe: (1) “The contraction is real.” Møller writes: “Contraction is a real effect observable in principle by experiment…This means the concept of length has lost its absolute meaning” (Møller, The Theory of Relativity, 1972, p. 44); Wolfgang Pauli: “It therefore follows that the Lorentz contraction is not a property of a single rod taken by itself, but a reciprocal relation between two such rods moving relatively to each other, and this relation is in principle observable” (The Theory of Relativity, Dover Publications, 1958, pp. 12-13); R. C. Tolman: “Entirely real but symmetrical” (Relativity Thermodynamics and Cosmology, pp. 23-24). (2) “The contraction is not real.” E. F. Taylor and John Wheeler write: “Does something about a clock really change when it moves, resulting in the observed change in the tick rate? Absolutely not!” (Spacetime Physics: Introduction to Special Relativity, p. 76). (3) “The contraction is only apparent.” Aharoni writes: “The moving rod appears shorter. The moving clock appears to go slow” (The Special Theory of Relativity, p. 21); McCrea writes: “The apparent length is reduced. Time intervals appear to be lengthened; clocks appear to go slow” (Relativity Physics, pp. 15-16); Nunn: “A moving rod would appear to be shortened” (Relativity and Gravitation, pp. 43-44); Whitrow: “Instead of assuming that there are real, i.e., structural changes in length and duration owing to motion, Einstein’s theory involves only apparent changes” (The Natural Philosophy of Time, p. 255). (4) “The contraction is the result of the relativity of simultaneity.” Bohn writes: “When measuring lengths and intervals, observers are not referring to the same events” (The Special Theory of Relativity, p. 59). See also William Rosser, Introductory Relativity, p. 37; and A. P. French, Special Relativity, p. 97; and Stephenson and Kilmister, Special Relativity for Physicists, pp. 38-39. (5) “The contraction is due to perspective effects.” Rindler writes: “Moving lengths are reduced, a kind of perspective effect. But of course nothing has happened to the rod itself. Nevertheless, contraction is no illusion, it is real” (Introduction to Special Relativity, p. 25). (6) “The contraction is mathematical.” Herman Minkowski writes: “This hypothesis sounds extremely fantastical, for the contraction is not to be looked upon as a consequence of resistances in the ether, or anything of that kind, but simply as a gift from above, – as an accompanying circumstance of the circumstance of motion” (“Space and Time,” in The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity by H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski and H. Weyl, translated by W. Perrett and G. B. Jeffery from the original 1923 edition, Dover Publications, 1952, p. 81).