The Sun around the Earth? Blindly accepting popular belief
Sean Carroll brings up the percentage of around the Earth believers: The Enlightenment Marches On
With some guy ridiculing those who believe Sun around the Earth: Eppure si muove…or does it?
Back to Sean saying that it depends on how you’re thinking: Does the Earth move around the Sun?
This reminds me of an interview I read of a former atheist turned creationist. The interview didn’t go into detail, but a comment was made on how the man claimed that it couldn’t be proved that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and consequently, he was ridiculed for having claimed that.
Up until that point, the thought had never occurred to me that the Sun could revolve around the Earth, but then I at least entertained the thought and asked the question, “What would it take for the Sun to revolve around the Earth?” My conclusion was that if the Earth was at the center of the universe, the Sun would revolve around the Earth. Can there be a center of the universe? If there’s a finite amount of space, it would seem there has to be a center.
If Sean was here I could ask him if there’s a good reason for me to believe there’s not a finite amount of space. And if he said that science has shown there’s an infinite amount of space, I’d say, “So you’re stuck on this ball, and you’re going to tell me without a doubt that there’s an infinite amount of space. You haven’t seen anything, so that’s not science.” But he’s not here, so I don’t have anyone to educate me like that.
My main point is that people grovel and blindly, quickly, and without thought concede on establishment claims to try and prove that they’re not crazy religious folk. Just like the guy ridiculing those percentage of people in the poll who believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Who knows what those people are thinking? It could be they just think at a higher level than him.
June 15, 2007 at 6:09 am
[...] Astonomers of old had a model that produced accurate predictions with an Earth centered solar system. Contemporary astronomers have a model that produces accurate predictions with a Sun centered solar system. But it’s obvious which model accurately reflects our solar system, right? It was, until I read Sean Carroll’s post. [...]
July 1, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Movement is relative, therefore depending on your chosen reference frame you can say that the Earth moves around the Sun, the Sun move around the Earth or both move around in a complicated pattern.
It just so happens:
* the Earth is an inertial referential (to a very good approximation)
* describing the movement in the center of mass frame is a lot simpler and the center of mass coincides to a very high degree with the Sun’s position due to the fact the fact it has a much higher inertial mass than the Earth.
July 1, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Sorry, when I wrote “the Earth is an inertial referential (to a very good approximation)” I meant the Sun instead of the Earth.
Stupid mistake.
July 2, 2007 at 10:32 am
If the universe is like a sphere, wouldn’t there have to be a center, even if it’s expanding?