ROUND II: GEOCENTRISM ON THE OFFENSIVE-THE SHOCKING NEW EVIDENCE
In Round One of this debate, we established that, under the principles of General Relativity, physics is unable to physically differentiate between the two statements:
1. The Sun is at rest, and the Earth moves;
2. The Earth is at rest, and the Sun moves.
General Relativity insists that both statements are equally “true”, since both are simply alternate choices of coordinate systems.
While this principle of relativity has been known to physicists for over a century, it still provokes various degrees of shock, fear, anger and denial among the less well-informed, as a review of the previous thread will show clearly.
We have finally gained the (in some cases grudging) admission from all main participants that General Relativity, if true, does in fact constitute a formal refutation of each and all of the arguments advanced in favor of heliocentrism by Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and their successors, including:
1. Foucault’s pendulum
2. Retrograde motions in the orbits of inner planets
3. Phases of Venus
4. Motions of satellites in near-earth space
5. Stellar parallax
as well as each and every other argument based upon a preferred reference frame or a non-relative motion.
This leads us now to the examination of the question: is General Relativity itself able to withstand the observational facts which have been revealed since its formulation; especially those observational facts associated with space telescopes and other space-based or deep-space observational devices not available to its originators?
WHAT IS AT STAKE?
If General Relativity is true, then we must expect to observe several characteristics of the cosmos, which are logical necessities of the assumptions of the theory.
FIRST, Relativity asserts that space is ISOTROPIC and HOMOGENEOUS, that is, space must look the same no matter in which direction we look (“isotropic”), but the position we occupy in space must itself be in no way “special” or unique (“homogeneous”).
A good way to understand these terms is to picture oneself in a vast desert stretching out in all directions. If one is observing this desert from the top of a hill, then we have an example of ISOTROPY, since the view is the same in all directions, BUT we are in a special place of observation (the hill top).
If, however, we are in the middle of the same desert, with no hill anywhere in sight, then we have an example of HOMOGENEITY (since not only is the view the same in all directions, but our position is not unique in any way).
Keep in mind that General Relativity predicts both an ISOTROPIC and a HOMOGENEOUS universe, that is, it must look the same in all directions, AND we must occupy no sort of special or preferred place when we observe that Universe.
Any observational evidence of either ANISOTROPY (a preferred or unique axis, direction, or non-random periodic distribution of structures in space) or INHOMOGENEITY (a unique or preferred position for the Earth as an observational location) would constitute a REFUTATION of the predictions of the Theory of General Relativity as it is presently understood (for example, including a “Big Bang” and an expanding, infinite Universe, sometimes called “Standard Theory”).
Let us now look at the evidence which has been steadily accumulating since the first deep-space telescopes were turned toward the cosmos in the 1930’s, all the way through the launching of orbital sensors such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the BATSE (Burst and Transient Source Experiment, launched 1991), the COBE (Cosmic Microwave Background Explorer Satellite), and the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) of 2001, evidence which shows a stunning, continuing, and unexpected stream of data suggesting a universe NOT in keeping with the fundamental predictions of Standard Theory.
EDWARD HUBBLE AND THE REDSHIFT
Edward Hubble, best remembered for the space telescope named after him, conducted research using a 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson, California in the 1930’s and 40’s. During this research, Hubble made the astounding observation-utterly unexpected by him-that the light emitted from ALL surrounding stars was at the red end of the spectrum (redshifted), seeming to indicate that every object in deep space was moving away from a central point-Earth! Obviously, one immediate explanation was that the Earth occupied a privileged position in relation to the stars, opposing the HOMOGENEOUS notion of the universe predicted by General Relativity. Hubble states,
“Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central Earth… such a favored position is intolerable.”
-”The Observational Approach to Cosmology, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1937, pp. 50, 51.
Notice how Hubble is seemingly willing to go to any lengths to find a way out of the “trap” the evidence is leading him to-the “intolerable” earth-centered universe. This is a common story in physics, from the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiments of the 1880’s forward: as experiments continue to provide data consistent with a stationary earth, such an interpretation is deemed “intolerable”, and workarounds are found.
Another example of this pre-disposition is well-known physicist and author Stephen Hawking, who seconds Hubble’s views:
“All the evidence that the universe looks the same in whichever direction we look might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it seems that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.”
-”A Brief History of Time”, Bantam Books, New York, 1988, p.42
Now, of course, a “mainstream” physicist such as Stephan Hawking could not say these things without attempting to refute them-let us remember that any departure from General Relativity’s “acentric” Universe is automatically “intolerable”. Later on the same page he writes:
“There is, however, an alternate explanation: 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 the grounds of modesty.”
-”A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, New York, 1988, p.42
And so we are confronted with two shocking truths:
1.) The Earth appears to be at the center of the universe, with all galaxies and stars moving away from it;
2.) The only way that the Earth could not be at the center of the universe would be if the universe looked the same from every galaxy, an assumption for which there is no evidence, and which is advanced strictly upon the basis of “modesty”, not a scientific criteria in the least.
Indeed, one writer has wryly pointed out that Hawking’s argument above is analogous to that of a savage dwelling on a remote island who, noticing parrots in the palm trees, concludes that there must be parrots at the Poles.
On these grounds alone we can conclude that geocentrism is AT LEAST as scientifically defensible a reading of the evidence as is acentrism.
But, as we shall see, the case gets much worse for acentrism, and much better for geocentrism.
THE COPERNICAN DILEMMA
In a 2002 Oxford University Press book titled “The Biggest Bangs: The Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts, The Most Violent Explosions in the Universe”, author and astrophysicist Jonathan I. Katz includes a chapter entitled “The Copernican Dilemma”, a title chosen to emphasize the shocking difficulties for anti-geocentrists presented by the analysis of all known and catalogued gamma-ray bursts.
The following quote speaks for itself:
“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 spatial distribution, then they should 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”.
-”The Biggest Bangs”, Jonathan I. Katz, Oxford University Press 2002, pp. 90-91
Notice the clear and explicit geocentric language regarding ANISOTROPY above- the gamma-ray bursts “should be isotropic on the sky”---but they are not.
This is unambiguous, direct observational evidence AGAINST an “acentric” universe, and IN FAVOR of a geocentric Universe.
There is, as we are about to see, much more.