Up until the 16th century A.D., pretty much everyone believed that Earth was at the center of the universe, and that the Sun and the stars and everything else revolved around the Earth. This is known as geocentrism, meaning “Earth-centered.”
Then in the 16th century, a genius named Nicolaus Copernicus had the visionary idea that there was nothing special about the Earth. Earth orbited the sun, just like all the other planets in the solar system. This is known as “heliocentrism,” meaning “Sun-centered.”
Of course, the church didn’t like Copernicus’s idea, and he kept quiet about it.
Galileo
In the 17th century, another genius named Galileo Galilei, an astronomer, made several discoveries that were taken as proof that Copernicus was right. Galileo discovered moons orbiting Jupiter, which proved that not everything orbits the Earth. He also observed the phases of Venus. The phases didn’t work if Venus orbited the Earth.
Galileo dealt these two blows to geocentrism, turning the tide in favor of heliocentrism and sparking the scientific revolution. After Galileo, pretty much everyone believed that Earth was not at the center of the universe. After Galileo, pretty much everyone believed that there was nothing really special about Earth’s place in the universe.
James Clerk Maxwell
A few hundred years later, in the middle of the 19th century, another genius named James Clerk Maxwell formulated an electromagnetic theory which showed that light, electricity and magnetism were all manifestations of the same electromagnetic field. The equations of his theory predicted the constant speed of light.
Albert Michelson and Edward Morley
Shortly after Maxwell, two more geniuses named Albert Michelson and Edward Morley conducted one of the most famous scientific experiments in history: the Michelson-Morley experiment.
At that time, most scientists believed that light waves traveled through a medium that filled all of space, called the luminiferous aether. Much the way sound waves require a medium such as air to propagate, so it was believed that light required a similar medium.
The Michelson-Morley experiment was intended to detect the motion of Earth relative to the luminiferous aether. The reasoning behind the experiment was simple. If, as Maxwell said, light travels at a constant speed through the electromagnetic medium, then if you’re moving relative to the medium, you should be able to detect a change in the speed of light.
The technical details of the experiment aren’t important. What is important is that the experiment failed to detect any motion relative to the luminiferous aether.
This was a great puzzle to the scientists of the time, since, as everyone had known since the time of Galileo, the Earth was moving through space as it orbited the sun. Either they were wrong about the Earth moving through space, or there was something peculiar going on that desperately needed to be explained.
The scientists of the day opted for the latter possibility, since the notion of an immobile Earth was completely ludicrous. These scientists put forth a lot of theories as to why the Earth’s motion couldn’t be detected, but none of these theories was entirely satisfactory to all concerned.
Albert Einstein
At the beginning of the 20th century, yet another genius named Albert Einstein was troubled by an aspect of Maxwell’s electrodynamic theory. In Maxwell’s theory, the electrodynamic forces between a magnet and a conductor are different depending on whether the conductor is in motion or the magnet is in motion.
What this indicated is that there is a preferred frame of reference. Einstein did not like this. He thought that it should make no difference whether the magnet or the conductor was in motion. Only the relative motion should matter.
Einstein overcame the moving magnet and conductor problem by developing his Special Theory of Relativity. Maxwell’s theory seemed to indicate a preferred reference frame, which Einstein didn’t like, so he developed a theory that got rid of Maxwell’s frame-dependence while maintaining Maxwell’s constancy of the speed of light.
At the same time, Einstein’s theory also explained the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment to detect the Earth’s motion relative to the aether. There is no aether, Einstein said. All observers measure the same speed of light no matter how fast they’re going, because time slows down the faster we move.
Summary from an Earth-centered viewpoint
So it’s all neatly explained. The Earth is not at the center of the universe. The Earth orbits the sun, just like an uncountable number of other planets orbit their own suns throughout the universe. Earth just an unremarkable little speck in a vast universe. This has all been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Think again.
Galileo’s discovery of the phases of Venus and the moons orbiting Jupiter does not prove that the Earth orbits the sun and not vice versa. All Galileo proved was that not everything orbits the Earth. He did not prove that the universe does not revolve around the Earth.
All Galileo proved was that the current (16th century) geocentric theory needed to be slightly modified so that Venus orbits the sun. Contrary to popular belief, Galileo did not disprove geocentrism.
In other words, heliocentrism became the dominant theory even though all the evidence available at the time supported either theory, favoring neither.
Two hundred years later, Maxwell offered a mathematical theory that claimed a preferred reference frame, the luminiferous aether. But the evidence was only mathematical. The physical results were the same regardless of whether the conductor or the magnet was in motion.
Decisive evidence in favor of geocentrism didn’t come until two hundred years later, with the Michelson-Morley experiment. This experiment lent unequivocal support in favor of geocentrism over heliocentrism. But to the scientists of the 19th century, heliocentrism, despite having no proof favoring it over its rival theory, was too entrenched. Evidence that favored a motionless Earth was staring them right in the face, but they rejected it out of hand, because the notion of an immobile Earth was too ludicrous to even consider. Without even the barest thought of reconsidering geocentrism, scientists sought an alternate explanation.
It took about twenty years, but Einstein finally came to the rescue.
There is absolutely no proof of relativity
But did Einstein really rescue anything?
Despite claims to the contrary, relativity has never been proven. It has been supported by evidence. But—and this is a crucial but—just because evidence supports a theory does not mean that the theory has been proven. Other explanations for relativity’s supporting evidence have not been ruled out. In other words, the same evidence can support other theories besides relativity. That is why relativity is only a theory and not a physical law.
In fact, the two dominant theories in physics—relativity and quantum mechanics—conflict with each other. That’s why you hear talk of the Holy Grail of science: The Grand Unified Theory. It means scientists know relativity is incomplete, possibly even incorrect, and so they’re looking for the final theory that will eliminate the conflict and allow relativity to be reconciled with quantum mechanics.
Relativity is the dominant scientific theory of its type because it has the support of most of the world’s scientists. It is not the dominant theory because all the evidence precludes any explanation other than relativity.
If relativity has not been proven, then the evidence of the Michelson-Morley experiment is still open to interpretation. If relativity, which was essentially born to explain evidence of an immobile Earth and an absolute frame of reference, is not proven and is possibly incorrect, then the evidence in favor of an immobile Earth and an absolute frame of reference has yet to be refuted.
Other purported disproofs of geocentrism
Complexity
The mechanics of an Earth-centered universe are too complex. The mechanics of a non-Earth-centered universe are much simpler, and therefore geocentrism must be wrong.
This is just ridiculous logic. Scientists don’t accept this sort of logic when religious folk offer the complexity argument as proof of God (life is too complex, therefore there must be a God), so why do they allow it to be used as a disproof of geocentricity (the mechanics of an Earth-centered universe are too complex, therefore the universe must be non-Earth-centered)?
If the entire universe were rotating around the Earth, that means the stars would be moving much faster than light, which is impossible
This claim is based on Einstein’s postulate that nothing can move faster than light. Again, relativity has not been proven, so you can’t appeal to it in this argument. I’m not appealing to it, since I don’t believe in relativity. Don’t appeal to an unproven theory in which I don’t believe in order to argue with me against geocentricity. Geocentricity and relativity are incompatible.
I could argue with you about the correctness or incorrectness of relativity, but this writing is about geocentricity. I don’t want to go off on a lengthy tangent here.
The phases of Venus
Again, the phases of Venus don’t disprove an Earth-centered universe. They simply prove that Venus doesn’t revolve around the Earth, which it did in the standard geocentric model of Galileo’s day. If you allow that Venus is orbiting the sun rather than Earth, then the phases of Venus appear in the geocentric model.
The moons of Jupiter
Like the phases of Venus, the moons of Jupiter don’t disprove an Earth-centered universe. They simply prove that not everything revolves around the Earth.
Foucault’s Pendulum
Hang a pendulum so that’s it’s free to swing in any vertical plane, and the plane of swing appears to rotate relative to the Earth. This has long been taken to prove that the Earth is rotating.
Actually, all it proves is that there is relative rotation between the Earth and the fixed stars. It can either be said that the Earth is rotating beneath the free-swinging pendulum, or that the free-swinging pendulum is stationary with respect to the fixed stars, which are rotating around the Earth.
Foucault’s pendulum, long touted as a disproof of geocentricity, actually supports either an Earth-centered or a non-Earth-centered viewpoint, and so is neither a proof nor a disproof of either theory. If the same evidence supports two mutually exclusive theories, then such evidence is said to be inconclusive. And that’s exactly what Foucault’s pendulum is.
Not everything revolves around the Earth
This doesn’t disprove an Earth-centered universe. Just because parts of our solar system or parts of other solar systems don’t revolve around the Earth doesn’t mean that the universe as a whole doesn’t revolve around the Earth.
Stellar Parallax
If you hold your index finger in front of your nose, close your right and eye look at your finger through your left eye, then close your left eye and look at your finger through your right, your finger will appear to shift positions against the background depending on which eye you look from. This is parallax.
In stellar parallax, if you look at a nearby star and note its position relative to a more distant star, then wait six months until the Earth is at the opposite of its supposed orbit around the sun, then the nearby star will appear to have shifted position relative to the more distant star. This is offered as proof that Earth orbits the sun.
Yet, like everything else offered against an Earth-centered universe, parallax is no disproof of geocentrism at all, since the same stellar parallax also appears in the geocentric model.
See the diagram below.
The Big Bang and geocentrism
Supporters of the Big Bang offer the analogy of an inflating balloon to explain the fact that, no matter in which direction we look, the stars seem to be receding from Earth. While this would seem to support the Earth being at the center of the universe, they say, just picture Earth as a dot on the surface of an inflating balloon. Any dot on the surface of this inflating balloon will see all other dots receding from it. That’s why it looks like we’re at the center, but we’re not really.
I find it interesting that Big Bang supporters insist that their analogy be confined to the surface of the balloon. If you lived on the surface of a balloon, yes, you would see all dots receding from you as if you were at the center of it all.
Unfortunately, we don’t live on two-dimensional surface. We live in a three-dimensional universe. If we refuse to allow our analogy to be confined to the surface of the balloon, then the only other place in which all dots will appear to be receding from your dot is when your dot is at the center of the balloon.
Thus, the astronomical observations of Edwin Hubble, which led to the development of the Big Bang theory, actually support an Earth-centered universe. To make these observations support a non-Earth-centered universe, you must add a philosophical argument, known as the Copernican Principal, which says, basically, that there is nothing special about Earth’s position in the universe.
So, in short, Big Bang observations support an Earth-centered universe with no modification or conditions.
They support a non-Earth-centered universe only if you add a philosophical condition that sort of begs the question. In other words, to get a non-Earth-centered universe out of Big Bang observations, you have to sort of manhandle the observations to get them to say what you want, whereas with an Earth-centered universe, no manhandling of the observations is needed.
The Big Bang and Michelson-Morley
We have two sets of data that unequivocally support an Earth-centered universe:
Michelson-Morley, which shows that Earth is not moving, and the astronomical observations that led to the Big Bang theory, which show that Earth occupies a special place in the universe. We have hard scientific evidence leading to a conclusion that, oddly, is being ignored and indeed scorned by the scientists who collected the evidence.
