Answering Alec MacAndrew

I used to be good at grasping fairly simple physical explanations when "small" (say, five to ten). You know descriptions of how razor machines and such work. Perhaps they are approximations. I must admit that much of the physics and maths are beyond my level of being able to calculate graphs or analyses to double check. But this does not mean that concept is beyond me. I will partly defend Sungenis based on concept. Then I will pass on to my own explanation, which is not my own, but which I have from St Thomas Aquinas.

Sungenis* speculates about the physics at his hypothetical centre of mass, relying on purely classical mechanics. He claims that there is no reason that the Earth should not coincide with the centre of mass, and in his ball-universe model, indeed there isn’t, temporarily. But he fails to recognize that there is nothing to keep the Earth there.

IF it is centre of mass, earth would be stuck as firmly in there as a ball stuck in the centre of earth if it is hollow. Unless other bodies fell in towards the centre and ousted earth.

One other aspect is also part of it: other bodies cannot oust earth from the centre, because they are involved in a daily orbit around earth. Their velocities sidewards would - on his view at least - be too great for any one of them to fall inwards and oust the earth from the centre.

That is Sungenis' point.

The centre of mass of a system is a point in space and there is no reason to identify it with a particular body – no physical body has to “act as the centre of mass” or “be it” or “occupy it”, all phrases that Sungenis has used in various places in the past, and which show that he fails to understand the concept.

I think you have failed to understand his point. Earth is heavier than air, which is heavier than diffused molecules of hydrogen. If Earth is in the centre of gravity, it will not be ousted from it by its atmosphere, nor by interstellar matter, since none of these are heavy enough. It could only be ousted from there by an equally heavy or heavier body. Since centre of Mass is also centre of gravitation. But the available options would not be getting inwards since already in orbit all of them together around the earth.

I take the point about "no gravitation" as meaning "no gravitation any one direction more than any other direction". Not as meaning "no gravitation inward."

the gravitational field is not zero at the centre of mass (it can be zero in certain symmetrical systems, such as a uniform spherical shell or a spherical ball of perfectly uniform density, or a two body system of exactly equal masses - but it is not generally so)

The point of Sungenis would, as I understand it, be that by daily rotation around earth all other bodies form virtually a symmetrical system around it. So, if the question of "certain symmetrical systems" seems marginal to Alec MacAndrew - he puts it in parentheses - it is rather more like a central theme to "the Sungenis version of Newtonian physics."

Furthermore, Sungenis’s claim that the stars have “gravity [that] will affect how the Sun and Earth react to one another, especially if the Earth is put in the center of that gravity” [my bolding] is wrong, not just because the gravitational field at the Earth of all these stars is vanishingly small compared with that of the Sun, as we have seen, but because gravitational fields of individual bodies are vector-additive—that is, they can cancel each other out if they act from opposite directions—so that if the Earth were to be at the centre, these already minuscule gravitational fields from the stars would tend to sum to zero.

That particular claim is probably behind Sungenis' words about Earth having "zero" gravitation.

Along with definition of "gravitation" as a force tending to acceleration. Question is whether the "zero gravitation" would mean a force - possibly gigantic - preventing accelaration in any one direction, that is how I think Sungenis takes it, or zero force at all. That is how I think Alec MacAndrew takes it.

For my own part, I do not know if gravitation toward centre of mass or cancellation of gravitational directions would take over. I tend to the first one, supposing that Newtonian physics are at all true and even if they are partly false.

Let us sketch up a few scenarios, shall we.

Scenario 1:

There is Earth and there is the sphere of fixed stars (roughly) symmetrically around it.

Corrollary:

Nothing happens.

Scenario 2:

There is Earth and there is the sphere of fixed stars (roughly) symmetrically around it. There is also the Sun and it is bigger and hotter than Earth.

Corrollary:

Nothing happens.

Scenario 3:

There is Earth and there is the sphere of fixed stars (roughly) symmetrically around it. There is also the Sun and it is bigger and hotter than Earth. There is also the Moon.

Corrollary:

Nothing happens.

Scenario 4:

There is Earth and there is the sphere of fixed stars (roughly) symmetrically around it. There is also the Sun and it is bigger and hotter than Earth. There is also the Moon. There is also some sort of gravitation.

Corrollary:

Supposing the gravitation is strictly Newtonian, the most massive object will plummet down into the centre of gravity and stay there. Earth will in that case simultaneously be fried and pushed to the side. Moon will fall into this as well, but Sun will be in the Middle.

This will increase the gravitational pull toward the middle and the Sphere of Fixed Stars will collapse. This is the reason why Newtonian and Mechanistic explanations tend to avoid a Sphere of Fixed Stars. Newton to Olbers, one tried to pretend universe had - at least as a disc of stars with greater tightness - an infinite extension, however unthinkable and counterintuitive and impossible THAT is, so one could pretend the gravitational pull on each stars by each other star was everywhere (not excepting any outer borders even) balanced out by an equal gravitational pull from the other side. After Olbers and through one (but not only possible) explanation of red shift, one now instead sees the inward force of gravitation balanced by an outward thrust from the Big Bang.

Supposing instead the gravitation is Aristotelian, there are two kinds of mass (correponding to light and heavy elements in Aristotle): leptomass and barymass.

Earth is less massive in total mass than the Sun. BUT the Sun may have a surplus of leptomass over barymass. In that case it will not plummet down to the centre of gravity. Even the Moon might have a slight surplus of leptomass over barymass and will not plummet down into it. Earth may be, not indeed the most massive body, but the most massive body with a surplus of barymass over leptomass. This is how Aristotle, Lucretius and a few others motivated Geocentricity physically.

The Fixed Stars would of course be the ones which had the greatest percentual surplus of leptomass, hence they would be furthest up and out. This poses a bit of a problem whether they stay in place at all or whether they expand, further and further up, through their positive lightness.

In either case their staying in relative places would require a Designer. Either for designing a limit beyond which even lightness cannot expand or for mixing precisely enough barymass into the Stars for them to stay at a fixed distance from Earth, or else for the Stars to stay in their angular places relative to each other while their whole sphere is expanding.

Lucretius who did not think there was a God was not very attentive to his own Geocentric astronomy.

Scenario 5:

There is Earth and there is the sphere of fixed stars (roughly) symmetrically around it. There is also the Sun and it is bigger and hotter than Earth. There is also the Moon. There is also some sort of gravitation. There is also rotation.

Corrollary:

In this case even Newtonian gravity might not be incompatible with Geocentricity.

Now - precisely at scenario 5 - look at Alec's resumé of Gary's answer to Robert:

Sungenis has already been shown by Gary Hoge, that there are no observable motions in the universe that could offset the overwhelming gravitational attraction of the Sun, moon, and planets on the Earth.

Is the daily motion of the Universe around the Earth "observable" in MacAndrew's language? It is any way observed, the colloquial terms for those very common observations being "day" and "night".

Is there a problem with this theory? Well, where does the rotation come from. Not how we observe it, we observe it as day and night, but where it comes from.

Lucretius thought Moon and Sun and stuff were just gliding around because they were lighter.

Aristotle and St Thomas find that God can explain the rotation - as in observed daily rotation of the Universe around Earth - as efficient cause thereof.

Newtonian laws of movement?

Problem is, a circular movement is not a uniform movement. Therefore even without any friction, it would not be generated and then automatically ongoing, since changing direction is a kind of acceleration. And each body would be changing direction.

Conservation of angular momentum?

Can it be derived from Newton's laws of motion? As it is experimentally observed, it is usually concerned with solid circular objects rotating around their centres. Not with objects separate from each other rotating around common centres in the void. Even two stones united with a rope (or three with three ropes, like the Bolas of Argentinian Gauchos) as being united by a rope (or three) are in a sense solids. Every observed instance on earth sooner or later stops.

Back to Sungenis' theory now.

If we make a model of the solar system, and use bodily arms between sun model and earth model, so that earth on model is moved by arm from the sun on model, we can indeed fixate earth and this will make sun on model revolve around earth precisely as earth would otherwise revolve around sun.

My take on Sungenis' is that his take on Mach is that this happens in dynamics of Solar System according to Classic Newtonian Model, if and when Earth is for instance fixed into the Centre of Gravity.

My problem with that (and I suspect if Sungenis read this in Mach it is there in Mach) is that this does not take into account that in Newton's model Earth is not moved around the Sun by a physical arm, a body of metal shaped as an arm. But rather by the evasive (and regularly so) equilibrium between its two movements. The one being the movement sidewards and tangential through inertia, the other being the movement inward and radial through gravitation. And both movements or theoretical such equalling out into a movement which is insofar accelerating as it is changing direction.

Now the fixation of earth on a model would make the mechanic arm in the sun move the sun around the earth instead of other way round. But the fixation of Earth in a place in the Universe would involve its lacking a sideways movement relative to the Sun and its lacking an inwards movement relative to the Sun and therefore no movement making an equilibrium between them would arise either.

A movement of the Sun around Earth as per year - apart from this being an abstraction since the main movement of the Sun around Earth is per day, but if we supposed for a moment Earth was rotating so only yearly movement were to reckon with - would in a Newtonian model require this movement to be the result of Sun's sideways movement, determined by its inertia determined by its mass, and the Sun's inwards movement into the Earth, determined by Earth's (or some centre of gravity's situated around it) superior attraction.

However, the Newtonians do find a consistency between the Sun's Mass as used for it being close around Centre of Gravity for Earth and the same as used for it being close around Centre of Gravity for the orbits of Kuiper Belt or Jupiter, Venus or Mars.

For Sungenis to be correct in the main would require that exactly as much inferior as the Earth is by itself to the Sun, so much superior is the Earth with the Centre of Gravitation to the Sun, when it comes to exerting gravitational pulls. Improbable? Yes, if the explanations are purely mechanistic. Possible? Exactly under one precise condition, if a God with a sense of humour made it so.

But this was, as said, ignoring that according to Geocentrism as usually understood, indeed defended by Sungenis himself, as well as me, the main movement of the Sun around the Earth is its daily movement. Its yearly movement is a movement in relation to the Zodiac. This in its turn remaining true whether Sun and each star are every day going West around us and Sun being slower than the stars or Heaven is going West, carrying the Sun with it, while Sun is going East making a full circle around the Zodiac per year.

This would add the further quirk that it is NOT the movement of the Sun which corresponds to what Earth would have been doing if Sun were centre of its system. And yet the correspondence is somehow there.

Now, one can ask oneself, if Geocentrism in Newtonianism is so improbable, why not ditch Geocentrism?

Well, is Heliocentrism in Newtonian explanations very much more probable? If it is sufficiently probable to function without God, maybe there is no God. Then - without God that is - Geocentrism is pretty certain to be impossible.

Could now the Heliocentric and Newtonian system function without God regulating it? Newton did not think so. Laplace is famus for having said he found this hypothesis superfluous. However his cosmology is famous for being less easy to read and check up on (these days at least) than his very famous cosmogony, in which the solar system is supposed to have began as a whirling disc of gas and matter, which then condensed into the planets. That cosmogony (and its prequel in Big Bang) I knew by age eight, before being a Christian, and having momentarily forgot about God. I learnt all this in MARS** where I was the most junior member.

But is this very probable? Look at this:

[ISS] Don Petit, Science Off The Sphere - Water Droplets Orbiting Charged Knitting Needle
SpaceVids.tv·
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyRv8bNDvq4

How many orbits did you count per droplet before the equilibrium of inward and sideward movements changed from orbitting to frankly inward movement and droplet attached to the knitting needle? Not billions, right?

Well, I think the mechanics for movements of heavenly bodies must include, not just a design going on from creation, but also present movers, at least as regulating the movements and stopping collapse by gravitation. And if there are movers capable of that, they are also capable of effecting the quirks - which are very decorous - of Tychonian Geocentrism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Marc / Friday of Easter Octave
25-IV-2014
Also 59th Birthday of
Robert Sungenis

* Alec's attack here cited is on:

“Here Comes the Sun”
How the new geocentrists persist in scientific and logical errors
by Alec MacAndrew
http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Here-Comes-the-Sun-Alec-MacAndrew.pdf

** MARS-bulletinen / Malmö astronomi- & rymdfartssällskap
Malmö astronomi- & rymdfartssällskap (utgivare) Malmö : Malmö astronomi- & rymdfartssällskap (MARS), 1966-1980 Svenska.
http://libris.kb.se/bib/1548270

M A R S == M=Malmö, the location, third Swedish city after Stockholm and Gothenburg, A=astronomi- needs no translation, S=-sällskap = society, but what about R=rymdfarts-? Well, it seems the society was originally also about space voyages. Even though Malmö hardly is Cape Canaveral. Did not quite reckon on that in 1966 when the society was founded. I was an active member 1976, after my grandpa's death. By then I was eight. But 1980 when I came back to Malmö, not only was I a Christian but the society was no longer (or not very much longer) in existance. Its traces now is this bulletin preserved in libraries.