Q&A: Is the geocentric model equivalent to the heliocentric model?
Is the geocentric model equivalent to the heliocentric model?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
A few days ago I came across your article on the site "Knowing to Believe" titled "Biblical Cosmology — Is the Earth Round?"
You wrote there: "There is really no meaning at all to the claim that the earth revolves around the sun or vice versa. These are two equivalent claims, and it all depends on where we place the origin of our coordinate system. What Copernicus showed is that the description that places the origin at the sun is more convenient and simpler. The question of which description is the correct one is meaningless, since there is no correct description. The choice of description is made only for reasons of convenience."
My knowledge of physics is admittedly not the best, and yet the impression one gets from all the information sources on the subject is that there is fairly clear proof that the geocentric model is not correct, or at the very least is not equivalent to the heliocentric model.
I will give three examples of proofs presented on the Davidson Institute website, and I would be glad if the Rabbi could address them and explain how this fits together:
1—Newton showed that the earth and the other planets must orbit the sun and not the other way around, simply because the mass of the sun is greater by orders of magnitude, and therefore according to the laws of gravitation the planets will "fall" toward the sun and not vice versa.
2—Precise observations clearly showing the effect of parallax on the positions of nearby fixed stars, confirming the motion of the earth around the sun.
3—Data collected by the COBE satellite at the end of the 20th century clearly showing slight deviations in the temperature of the radiation measured from the earth relative to the background level, exactly at the rate predicted by the Doppler effect for a body moving around the sun.
Thank you
Answer
Hello,
It seems to me that I wrote there that this is a kinematic definition. From a dynamical standpoint, physicists do indeed tend to define who revolves around whom (and even about that there is debate—around Mach's principle and the bucket argument), but kinematically there is no objective meaning to that question. Even if there is such a definition, a physicists' definition does not obligate anyone else, since it is only a definition (and not a claim).
It is worth reading in this context about Mach's principle:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9A
and in particular about the bucket argument:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%98%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%94%D7%93%D7%9C%D7%99#%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA
And beyond all this, Copernicus was certainly speaking only about kinematics and not about dynamics.
In any case, I checked the article and saw that a clarification is needed. I asked for one to be added. Many thanks.