More than a year ago I wrote about an ongoing effort to promote geocentrism, and now the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2016, apparently not online) has published an in-depth criticism of the movement’s film, The Principle. This bit caught my eye:
Ernst Mach is the next scientist brought to our attention, where it is claimed that his ideas show that you could get the same effect from a rotating Earth as from a stationary Earth with a rotating universe. [pp 51-52]
What about tangential speed? After all, the stars appear fixed and thus must be modeled as if on a disc, rotating about the Earth. From Wikipedia:
Tangential speed and rotational speed are related: the greater the RPMs, the larger the speed in metres per second. Tangential speed is directly proportional to rotational speed at any fixed distance from the axis of rotation. However, tangential speed, unlike rotational speed, depends on radial distance (the distance from the axis). For a platform rotating with a fixed rotational speed, the tangential speed in the centre is zero. Towards the edge of the platform the tangential speed increases proportional to the distance from the axis.
Or, in other words, the further from Earth, the faster they have to be going. Otherwise you’d see relative star motion, and lots of it. A lot more than you see today, where you have to wait centuries for the relative motion to become visible.
So, think about it. What happens when the that disc’s tangential speed is greater than the speed of light? Yeah, I have no idea. Maybe they treated that problem in the film, but the review doesn’t mention the problem nor a resolution.
I think this is a problem.
