Talk:Heliocentrism

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[edit] Heliocentrism is a belief that the planets are orbiting Sol.

Is it as simple as this? I thought heliocentrism was the view that the sun was the centre of the universe. A notable improvement over the Ptolemaic system, but still wrong. But am I mis-remembering? Evercat 19:09 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think you are right, I changed it. - Patrick 19:32 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Historically, this gets tricky. Did any of these guys really believe it was necessarily the center of the universe? Galileo makes a cautious comment that implies that the universe has no center if it's infinite, but doesn't elaborate, probably because talking about an inifinite universe stirred up uncomfortable thoughts of Giordano Bruno. - Dandrake 20:06 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Indeed, so some descriptions of Galileo's theory call it "geokinetic".203.213.77.138 07:07, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Geocentric belongs in the intro paragraph, I believe, especially since there were any number of them besides Ptolemy's excellent model. And since Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for talking about an infinite number of stars that were suns like ours, the idea that the center of [what we call] the solar system may not be the center of the universe can hardly be treated as a late discovery. Dandrake 08:20, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

Why the (q.v.) on Copernicus? Normally I'd think that the presence of a link implied q.v., so there must be a particular reason for it here? Dandrake 08:23, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

It's trolling. He wanted the link to be especially noticable. Since I was already in a mini-edit-war with him I didn't revert the nonsense. Anthony DiPierro 11:34, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I think it makes sense in this context. Typically the q.v. is used when there is more on the specific topic under discussion there (in this case, more on Heliocentrism, in the context of Copernicus's specific theories). This differs from most wikilinks, which may be only tangentially related. An alternate way is to say (see Copernicus for details) instead of using "q.v.". --Delirium 11:38, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Acentrism?

The expanded history of nil-centrism (no center of the universe) is a good idea; but we might integrate it better (with less apparent redundancy) with the intro paragaph. Dandrake 22:07, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)

Acentric would be another way of stating the no center of the universe view. But Galileo's view just said that the earth was moving, and took no position on the center. Hence geokinetic is the best term.203.213.77.138 07:07, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Got up a bit grumpy this morning and found yet another pargraph on how Relativity refutes heliocentrism. How many times, in how many places in the article, do we really need this? Historically, the significant thing about heliocentrism is essentially what the standard vulgar mythology says: the breaking of philosophical prejudice, backed by religious power, that put Man at the center of everything in every sense. Inasmuch as nobody considered the Sun to be the center of the universe in 1915 (or for 200+ years before that), Relativity is in this context pretty much a footnote to Copernicus (cf. Plato). Dandrake 16:07, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

I will agree to stipulate that relativism is essentially irrelevant to the question of whether the sun is the center of the universe. However, the article states "More broadly, heliocentrism refers to the idea that the planets are orbiting Sol;" and relativity is very relevant to that. Furthermore, this makes a difference to "the significant thing" that you describe. Physically, it is not any more or less true that man is the center of the universe than that he isn't. Neither Galileo nor the church was righter than the other.

Nat Krause 16:57, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This is not true. In the Dialogue, Galileo remarked that it could be said that there is no center to the Universe. The Church did not concede such a thing. It really, really, didn't. In this, Galileo was far closer to the reality as now understood than the Church was. (The fact that it was willing to burn a person at the stake for preaching such views, while Galileo was not, is irrelevant to the scientific point, of course.) Also, the fact that we now know better (if you choose to ignore Galileo's understated but published opinion) is Whig history; at the time, and for some time thereafter, the work of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler had the effect I attribute to it, regardless of what fine discoveries came later. Dandrake 17:31, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

Galileo was never in danger of execution. Indeed, until he put the Pope's words into the mouth of Simplicio the Fool, the Pope was a close friend.203.213.77.138 07:07, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Who said Galileo was? I spoke of "such views" in reference to an acentric universe, which is the topic of this thread. It is not known known exactly what Giordano Bruno was burned for, as the relevant documents have mysteriously disappeared, but his infinite, un-centered Universe with many inhabited systems was a central piece of his heretical views. But still, for those who are under 30: 33 years (like 1600 to 1633) is not a long time historically. I personally remember the Nixon-McGovern election in 1972, believe it or not. Galileo was an sdult with an established academic post when they barbecued Bruno; it wasn't ancient history that the Church could burn people it reall really didn't like.
And the bit about the Pope, in addition to being irrelevant, is part exaggeration, part unsupported speculation. Dandrake 20:59, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Refactoring

I've done a refactoring of the article, which seems to be the recommended procedure when an article falls into disputes about what are the real and important facts. I attempt to present the different issues to the poor ignorant user who comes here wanting to know what Heliocentrism means, and what the big fuss is about, and what modern science says about it.

In the intro sentence I use the word theory deliberately. It would not be incorrect to call heliocentrism a hypothesis or an idea; but theory is more precisely descriptive. The concept of the Sun at the center (or the Earth, for that matter) binds a large number of seemingly different observations and makes sense of them; that's what a theory is.

There is a reason also for my straw-man observation near the end, concerning the center of the Universe and the speed of light. I have encountered this objection myself, sometimes from people who ought to know more physics than I do, and in scornful tones, when I mentioned this bit of relativity in Internet discussion forums. If anyone wants to make this remark more scientific and less arm-waving, it will be a good thing; but think three times before deleting it. Dandrake 23:00, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

You say that in the intro sentence you use the word theory deliberately. That's interesting because I specifically came to the discussion page to question the use of that term. It seems to me that heliocentrism is not a theory, but rather a concept which extends across a set of theories. In fact, if I only considered google, heliocentrism wouldn't even be the right term for us to be using. (heliocentric gets 110,000 google hits and a dictionary definition, compared to only 3,480 for heliocentrism). Now, it does seem to me that "heliocentrism," assuming it is an actual word, makes for a more interesting encyclopedia definition, but my admittedly brief search has failed to find an adequate definition of the term. Is the term limited to what is the geographical center? Or is it, as I suspect, much more in depth than that?

What should we do about this? I don't know at this point. Anthony DiPierro 01:08, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, heliocentrism appears as a word in the OED. It's a sort of sub-entry within heliocentric, but it's there and not a neologism or nonce-word, with two respectable citations from the 19th century.

As to its exact meaning, I've tried to outline that more closely. Broadly, it has to mean the [doctrine, to avoid all better words] of heliocentricity (also in the OED), but it seems to me that there's vagueness concerning what it is that's heliocentric. I.e., the solar system, or the universe, or no such distinction made in the first place.

Now about the theory, I admit it's debatable. I see it as a theory that accounts for a bunch of things, like retrograde motion. I'm not sure what the multiple theories are here; maybe in biological terms I'm a lumper and you're a splitter. Anyway, if you want to call it idea or concept, that's ok--but I think that the fact that it is a theory or collection of theories to account for the appearances ought to be worked in. Dandrake 02:12, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Parallax

One objection against Heliocentrism was that, if it was true, parallax should be observed in the fixed stars. Not until later was it understood that the stars are so very much farther away than the planets, that parallax in the fixed stars, while existing, is much too small to be observable prior to the 20th century.

Apart from the factual error about the 20th century (should be 19th), this has some problems, in not distinguishing several different senses in which it might be taken.

  1. No one knew how big the Universe really is, or even our little part of it. True.
  2. No one realized that if the Universe were big enough, the nearest stars could be so far away that parallax would be undetectable. False. Astronomers all knew their Euclid. (And their Renaissance formal persepective, one supposes.)
  3. Though the effect of a huge Universe might be obvious in principle, people didn't necessarily think of it. False. Galileo took the matter up at length in the Dialogue. His presentation had a flaw, to be sure: being banned by the Inquisition, it was readily available to only the half of Europe that didn't care what the Inquisition thought. But one would hate to say that nobody else in Catholic countries could come up with the same geometric ideas Galileo thought of.
  4. A universe so large as to make parallax undetectable in the 17th century was so absurd as not to be worth considering at all. Debatable. Apparently it seemed so to Tycho but not to Galileo or Kepler. Galileo even makes an argument that in the Ptolemaic system the sphere that accounts for precession of the equinoxes ought to be large enough (at least 10,000 AU) that it would have eluded then-current measurements.

Working out all this detail in the article is probably a poor idea; a way of stating it clearly and succinctly is needed. OTOH maybe this parallax question should be handled in detail somewhere, as it pops up in more than one article. Dandrake 01:28, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

I ask the following largely in ignorance; I'm hoping someone can illuminate me, and perhaps address my confusion in the article.

The article discusses the possibility that we can just assign the "center" of the universe arbitrarily, and credits this idea to the Theory of Relativity (which I confess I don't understand). It seems to me that this does not require Relativity -- mathematically speaking, we can work in any frame of reference, even under Newtonian mechanics. In fact, I thought the center of the universe debate was weird, and never considered Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

This raises my next confusion: what does anyone actually mean when they argue about the center of the universe? I think I can understand the religious issue, but scientifically, how does anyone define the center of the universe? For example, if for simplicity we ignore everything out of our solar system, it seems like the center of the universe is the center of mass of all of the objects in our solar system, or perhaps the center of mass of the average positions of all objects in the solar system (the average position would take into account all positions of bodies in their orbits). Thus, in this definition, heliocentrism says that the average positions of bodies in our solar system is roughly coincident with the position of the sun. Is this the implicit mathematical idea in the heliocentrism debate? If not, what is?

Zashaw 22:49, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think you've exposed the article as being a little too damn clever for its own good. I suggest that confusion arises from the fact that we're moderns: to think about the "center of the universe" requires a conscious effort to think in ways that are hundreds of years out of date, because in modern terms the idea is simply ridiculous.

Part of the problem, which the article tries to talk about (but maybe not well enough) is that people didn't clearly distinguish among world, solar system, and universe until astronomy get far enough to recognize that there was a difference. Even now, the French word monde can mean the world or the universe; and really, the English world isn't entirely unambiguous.

As to the center of the universe: at least as far back as Giordano Bruno (who was burned in 1600) there have been people who understood that the universe doesn't really have an absolute center. Well before 1900, if you had talked about the center of the universe to astronomers, you'd have got funny looks. As you say, it didn't take Relativity to show that.

As to the center of the solar system, it's different. It really makes a difference where you put the center, because there are all these measurable physical effects showing that the Earth rotates and all that. Mathematically, you can take anything as the center, but you get something that's ridiculous to work with, and the physics is impossible. Hold the Earth still, and the stars are going around it at speeds of light-years per second. Special Relativity just makes it worse! Until 1915, that is. General Relativity makes it all work out (so 'tis said) so that you can put the center anywhere with equal validity. It would still be ridiculous to do it in any but the conventional way, but it would work if you really wanted it to.

I don't know if that really clarifies anything. I confess to feeling that too much attention is paid to the heliocentrism-is-obsolete business only because people get so much fun out of being cleaver and iconoclastic. Dandrake 04:14, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I edited the discussion on relativity, which I agree was becoming clever to the point of confusion. However it is still not satisfactoty. Further editing for clarity is needed, I think. --Flitzer 12:34, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

though recent evidence using advanced tools such as the Hubble telescope indicate many galaxies are moving at much greater than the speed of light

Is this true? Evercat 12:29, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No, it's false.

I made some edits to the Science section, including cutting out some geocetrism material including that bit which was simultaneously off-topic and POV advocating a geocentric model(!) --Noren 18:23, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is true. It is explained that this is "ok" as long as the objects are beyond the "event horizon". Mark

[edit] Modern geocentrism

I have removed the "modern geocentric" stuff from 206.165.43.9 - it looks suspiciously like pseudoscience, and anyway doesn't really belong here - this is the heliocentrism article... Evercat 13:22, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

his a functional equivalency between the modern geocentric system and the heliocerntric. Science cannot prove that the heliocentric view is the only possible one. If we are truly to be open minded, we must admit that this is so. Cosmology is a wide open field. The expanding, relativistic, big-bang cosmology is falling apart, yet scientists keep changing laws to make it stick- galaxies are moving away at > speed of light (create concept of "event horizon" to explain it), 95% of mass un-accounted for (create "dark matter" to explain it). Varshni surveyed the known neutron stars and concluded that they sta on 58 cocentric spheres surrounding the earth. Of course he dismissed geocentrism, but had to question everything else! This has also occured for gamma sources and glaxies (they appear to be sitting on cocentric spheres around the earth).

Look, I'd be happy for there to be a page on modern geocentrism, but certainly not a detailed discussion of it here, nor on geocentric model. As a movement with no support from mainstream scientists, it is historically un-notable. Even most creationists reject it. Evercat 20:36, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is this a history page, or a science page? truth_seeker

Pages like this typically have both historical and scientific information... Evercat 20:50, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is it the policy of Wikipedia that opinion dominates science? I.e., if a system is feasible, but not accepted by mainstream science, does this make it incorrect. Let me make my point briefly:

I am not 100% convinced of geocentrism. I am convinced that science cannot differentiate if one or the other were true using its own tools. The reason science prefers heliocentrism is because it is the obvious choice in a naturalistic universe,i.e., no God. If God did create the universe, then the geocentric universe is also equally simple. This needs to be stated fairly in geocentrism and heliocentrism. Just beacuse many (not all) scientists reject God does Wikipedia have the right to exclude God as a possibility, even in scientific discussions. IF God does exist, science should not exclude him. Science should not exclude a theory because God may be vindicated by it. God needs to be mentioned under geocentrism, since only in the case of His creation of the universe with the earth as its center does the geocentric model have the simplicity required to make it a viable theory. Clearly opinion has changed in favor of heliocentrism. This si not necassarily truth. truth_seeler.

One can't rule out the possibility that one is a brain-in-a-vat with any scientific experiment either, but it's not likely. Occam's razor certainly applies to geocentrism...
As for scientists rejecting God, that's irrelevant; what is relevant is that they reject geocentrism. Even the most religious scientist almost certainly rejects geocentrism. Articles like this do not and should not describe every nutty theory that exists. Evercat 21:04, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Note that it would be relevant if the theory had a substantial following (though even then it would be more appropriate for the geocentric model article). But it doesn't. Evercat 21:13, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
While I'm thinking about this, I would ask how you explain the parallax seen in nearby stars? Evercat 21:32, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I seen one crackpot that neatly explain it like this: "they" somehow mistake base of Earth orbit (that going around sun) with base of Earth diameter. Y'now, Earth going around sun is false, or at least unproven ASSUMPTION!... :> For more info here, especially here (read from "The Copernican Premise" - this wacko is... somewhat incoherent). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.51.70.116 (talk • contribs) 05:37, 30 May 2006.

[edit] Recent additions

I only don't want to revert it myself again.

Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promoting new original ideas, research or terms. The idea that heliocentrism should be accurately named geokineticism is new and relatively original.

The part about extrasolar planets is irrelevant here and as staded now, 100% nonsense.

  • the non-neglibility of the star's mass - if anything, the planets masses are neglected
  • then non-neglibility ... is a major basis - what should it mean in physics? If you want to measure some (no matter how small) effect, of course you can not start by neglecting it. But is it a major basis?
  • as stated a reader unfamiliar with the subject may understand it "now, the observation of exoplanets shows the stars move slightly, which shows the Sun also moves". Which is not correct - the fact the Sun is orbiting the centre of the mass was obviously known well before hunt for exoplanets started. --Wikimol 11:16, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recent additions, pt.2

I also disagree with most of 138.130.201.204's revisions. Here are the five changes my reasons for reversion/change:

1. At the time of the controversy the Church held that the earth was at the center of the universe, as did most of the scientists.

Before any scientific discovery is published, most of the scientists don't know about it... that's the purpose of publication. This last part is irrelevant... and most of the scientists of the time were theologians in any case.

2. It was vigorously resisted, though, by the Aristotelian scientists at the universities and...

Aristotelian scientists at universities? At the time universities only offered advanced degrees in law, medicine, and theology. The scientists there were mostly theologians. Disagreement with Aristotle was known among theologians well before this time; notably in the 14th century Jean Buridan and Nicholas of Oresme came up with the notion of 'impetus' to explain the motion of a projectile after firing from a catapult, which had been irreconcilable with a strict Aristotelian view.
The primary opposition to Galileo was from Cardinal Bellarmine and the Dominicans, and was primarily theological in nature; with the (common at the time) literal interpretation of St. Augustine's The City of God the night sky (the Heavens) was immutable and perfect, representing God's promise of an everlasting, perfect Heaven. (A more allegorical interpretation of The City of God is compatable with heliocentrism.)
While it is true that Cardinal Bellarmine had at one time been a Professor of Theology, it is quite a stretch to make him into 'Aristotelian scientists at the universities'...
Not so. Arthur Koestler and others have amply documented that the first opposition came from the Aristotelians at the Universities. Bellarmine was open to Galileo stating the Copernican view as a hypothesis. See also John Heilbron's work cited in the new addition to the article. 203.213.77.138 06:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
As to the 'Aristotelian Scientists', From White, 1898:
"The first important attack on Galileo began in 1610, when he announced that his telescope had revealed the moons of the planet Jupiter. The enemy saw that this took the Copernican theory out of the realm of hypothesis, and they gave battle immediately. They denounced both his method and its results as absurd and impious. As to his method, professors bred in the "safe science" favoured by the Church argued that the divinely appointed way of arriving at the truth in astronomy was by theological reasoning on texts of Scripture; and, as to his results, they insisted, first, that Aristotle knew nothing of these new revelations; and, next, that the Bible showed by all applicable types that there could be only seven planets; that this was proved by the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven-branched candlestick of the tabernacle, and by the seven churches of Asia; that from Galileo's doctrine consequences must logically result destructive to Christian truth. Bishops and priests therefore warned their flocks, and multitudes of the faithful besought the Inquisition to deal speedily and sharply with the heretic."
It is well documented the Bellarmine and an Inquisition on the matter expressly forbade Galileo from expressing heliocentric opinion. Again from White:
"The Pope himself, Paul V, now intervened again: he ordered that Galileo be brought before the Inquisition. Then the greatest man of science in that age was brought face to face with the greatest theologian - Galileo was confronted by Bellarmin. Bellarmin shows Galileo the error of his opinion and orders him to renounce it. De Lauda, fortified by a letter from the Pope, gives orders that the astronomer be placed in the dungeons of the Inquisition should he refuse to yield. Bellarmin now commands Galileo, "in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves, nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing." This injunction Galileo acquiesces in and promises to obey."
in addition to being misleading, your generalizations are offtopic for the Heliocentrism page. A long discussion of midaeval theology is inappropriate, as is a brief out-of-context apologia for the 16th century Church. --Noren 17:49, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What a joke, using someone as discredited as that 19th century atheist bigot White ROTFL. Next you'll be telling us that the church believed in a flat earth as well, on the same authority. I cited what Bellarmine actually said, not what a bigot twisted.
Discussing the heliocentric system, White goes on “Many minds had received it [the doctrine of Copernicus], but within the hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. He was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives. For this he was entrapped at Venice, imprisoned during six years in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, then burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds.” In fact, we do not know the exact reasons Bruno was prosecuted but modern scholars like Frances Yates suggest it was because he was a magus who was trying to start a new neo-Platonic religion. He did believe the earth revolved around the sun but this was purely for religious reasons as he effectively worshipped it. In any case, it was incidental to his fate as were his other pseudo-scientific ideas.
One would like to take the charitable view that White really believed his theory and was not making up evidence to support a position he knew to be false. Instead, he skews the evidence by accepting that which agrees with his hypothesis while being sceptical of what does not. This means that he has included falsehoods that he would have noticed if he had taken a properly objective attitude towards all his evidence. The points given above together with Numbers and Lindberg’s criticisms noted in their article are sufficient, however, to prove White’s work as utterly worthless as history. Draper, with no footnotes or references cannot even claim to give an illusion of scholarship. Colin Russell, in a recent summary of the historiography of the alleged warfare sums up the views of modern scholarship, saying “Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship”. [NOTE] But even today, historians who should know better, like Daniel Boorstin, Charles Freeman and William Manchester, have produced popular books that wheel out all the old misconceptions and prejudices.The Mythical Conflict between Science and Religion
You'd do better to rely on modern historians like Heilbron rather than polemicists like White with an anti-Christian axe to grind. 203.213.77.138 07:52, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

3. Thus a more accurate term for the modern view is geokineticism (from Greek kinein, to move), which merely says that the earth moves without taking any position on the center of motion.

This is irrelevant to a Heliocentrism article, since the subject itself is the center... which celestial objects are in motion is but a side issue.
It is not irrelevant to what the modern system is. No one holds to a heliocentic view any more, so it is a clear misnomer. Geokineticism is an accurate term. It is also used in http://faculty.washington.edu/ktupper/journal2.html and http://www.biblio.com/books/7045257.html even in reference to Galileo's theory. After all, even he was apocryphally asked to deny the earth's motion. 203.213.77.138 06:35, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The first page appears to be some coursework on homepage of scholar in Women Studies and Comparative History of Ideas. The second one is a book description probabily self-entered by the book seller (i.e. anyone who registered). --Wikimol 21:19, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The point remains is that geokineticism is an established word, and most accurately describes Galileo's apocryphal Eppur si muove.203.213.77.138 07:52, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Google knows about 24 pages using the word. If anything, the results indicate it is creationist agenda to push the word in place of heliocentrism. Geokinetics has other more established meaning in physics, thus revert. --Wikimol 13:28, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh right, next you'll be blaming creationist for the latest earthquake. Don't expect a rational argument why the blatant misnomer "heliocentric" is a superior term to the spirit of Galileo's theory. 203.213.77.138

4. (The masses of the planets, mostly Jupiter, amount to 0.14% of that of the Sun.) In fact, the non-neglibility of the star's mass in comparison with the planets is a major basis for the hunt for extrasolar planets via the star's "wobble".

In addition to being irrelevant, this is stated awkwardly enough to be false. No star's mass is negligible in comparison to its planets, as stars are typically far, far more massive than planets- the reverse of that is much more likely. In addition, the mass of the star Sol ('the star' being Sol as that paragraph was written) is practically irrelevant in the hunt for extrasolar planets. The wobble caused by other planets on other stars matters in this... but again, the hunt for extrasolar planets is far, far offtopic for Heliocentrism.
You misunderstood. If there were any aliens looking for planets around Sol, they would likely detect it from Sol's wobble -- but there would be no wobble if Sol was at the exact focus of the solar system. 203.213.77.138 04:56, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The ability of hypothetical aliens to detect Jupiter from afar is very far from on topic here, even if it has a bit to do with the center of the solar system. And your decription of the science is still blatantly false, no star's mass is negligible with respect to that of its planets. --Noren 17:49, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That's the whole point, for goodness's sake! That's why heliocentrism is a misnomer. 203.213.77.138 07:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

5. The Galileo affair: history or heroic hagiography

This link primarly seems to be a rant about modern creationism and a strawman it labels "scientists" while ignoring the historical theological debate almost entirely.
Rubbish -- creationism doesn't even come into this article, and it is entirely about the history. Some editors are far too keen to push the usual misinformation about the Galileo affair.203.213.77.138 04:56, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Here's the very first paragraph of the introduction:
"The process against Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in the 17th century is frequently used as an argument against creationist scientists and theologians, who make their belief in the trustworthiness of the Bible the starting point of their scientific research. Absolute faith in the Bible, critics say, blinds creationists to scientific progress and hinders science. Thus, Hatisjorg and Wolfgang Hemminger wrote in their book against creationism"
I cannot understand how you could either miss the first paragraph of that link or, alternatively, having read that first paragraph of the article interpret it as 'creationism doesn't even come into this article'. --Noren 17:49, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm aware of that -- indeed there are many people who tar the creationists with the Galileo brush. But the article is not about creationism at all, but a historical survey. 203.213.77.138 07:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hermes Trismegistus

Any proof of that he proposed a heliocentric worldview? It is not in the Wikipage on this probably mythical figure. There is no mention in the Copernicus Wikipage either. This paragraph should be referenced.203.213.77.138 07:03, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've seen none. The name appears in Copernicus' writings but in the section I read it appeared to be in a list referencing ancient sun reverence and/or cults rather than heliocentrism. --Noren 16:39, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
So should this paragraph be in the article? 203.213.77.138 07:48, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's gone now. No objection to returning it if it could be documented.203.213.77.138 14:01, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's back. It's nonsense. There is no evidence that there ever was an Egyptian of this name, and since HT was the Greek translation of Thoth, little likelihood. Te Greek texts that claim to have been written by him are variously dated, but are probably some centuries AD, and I do not recall any mention of heliocentrism - and it is deeply unlikely that Copernicus saw thme or could read them. I have added {{dubious}} tags in case anyone cares to defend the text, but I expect to remove it tomorrow. Septentrionalis 04:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy dispute

The article is flagged with the boilerplate message that there is an accuracy dispute, and it refers one to the Talk page, here, to find out why. But, having scanned this page, I see no really obvious and clear place where anyone says ~"I have put the accuracy-dispute box on this article, and here's why." I see that the flag has been here for more than two months; also, that no one seems to care any more. Perhaps someone who does care could neatly summarize the points of dispute?

I can do a binary search of the History to find out when it was added and by whom; and I can then scan the Talk page to find out what that person said. But I might not fully understand the problem from reading the long, rambling, rude dispute that I see in the preceding sections of this page.

Certainly there are points that ought to fixed, and I'll start doing that as time allows. But my fixes won't necessarily address what someone else was concerned about. Dandrake 06:43, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

BTW I've removed the old-peer-review notice from this page. It is quite obsolete, and there's no reason for people who come here to waste a little time finding that out. Dandrake 07:07, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

The "Disputed" tag was added on 13:21, 2005 Mar 24 by User:Wikimol with the summary "(recent addition disputed)". The relevant discussion is in Talk:Heliocentrism#Recent additions and Talk:Heliocentrism#Recent additions, pt.2. An attempt to remove the tag on 2005 Mar 31 by 203.213.77.138 was reverted without comment by Viriditas. As far as I can tell, the objectionable statements have since been removed or modified. I will remove the tag. Art Carlson 08:01, 2005 May 31 (UTC)
Thanks. I now see the point of Wikimol's action. I have my own accuracy issues with the page, but they certainly don't require a dispute tag. If anybody doesn't like having the tag pulled, we can hear the reasons here, no?
Dandrake 18:29, May 31, 2005 (UTC)


The subhead "The Galileo affair" is the title of a book. There would be no copyright problems with using it; but there are serious POV problems in an article that seems to endorse that book's interpretations.

The text of my submission might be considered a bit out of focus. The contention that it immediately responds to is really that everyone knew it didn't matter if someone was accused of heresy; it was all just political games. It is worth pointing out, I think, that the issue of heresy was taken very seriously by people who had unlimited power over the life of any scientist in half of Europe. Moreover, a couple of paragraphs above, it's asserted that he was really condemned only for disobedience. It's necessary to provide the data to show that this is simply a falsehood. But this whole part of the article needs to be refactored. Dandrake 19:38, May 31, 2005 (UTC)


I've weakened the claim that there was no mention of disobedience in the indictment, since I don't have an authoritative complete text. The rest stands.

Removed the following claim about astronomy in the cathedrals:

Although this analysis of the sun's motion further weakened the geocentric model, this research was well supported.

How could measurements of the Sun's positions weaken the geocentric model? Apart from Galileo's argument from sunspots, which is not involved here, what Sun-Earth observations could be relevant? Someone plase document this, so that we can reinsert the text if it's right. I note that in most of the discourse that tries to justify the Inquisition and badmouth Galileo's science, it's contended that he really didn't have any good proof and was way over the line in promoting Copernicanism. And now we're told that in the years shortly after his death some accurate measrument of solar positions strenghtened Galileo's side.

And may we have some documentation for the Jesuits' teaching of heliocentrism in the same century? We need that not only for a citable authority, but in order to see just what they taught. Did they teach it as an astronomical fact? As a strong possibility under investigaton? If so, they were openly violating decrees of the Inquisition, affirmed by the Pope; an unusual thing for Jesuits to do. Dandrake 20:46, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)


Changed the treatment of Tycho's system. It is often asserted that the Church had already turned to Tycho when the little Galileo misunderstanding began, but it is nowhere supported by evidence, so far as I've seen. We now have, at last, a discussion supported by a modern scholarly citation; that it's a Jesuit citation is just jam.

And I've changed the comma-heavy format of the References to one more readable. Citation style still needs to be consistent. I favor putting the page reference in the citation rather than in the Reference at the end; consider what happens if there are multiple citations from one book, a quite common situation. Nonetheless, it might be better to go to the new footnote style (footnote-3, I think it's called, gonna look it up now); I'm not sure, and some discussion might be a good idea. --Dandrake 19:00, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Since no one has provided an answer to the quesion I posed a week ago, I'm pulling the following text:

Paradoxically, only 50 years after Galileo, astronomers of the Jesuit Order, "the intellectual spearhead of the Catholic Church", taught geokinetic astronomy in China, though the ban on the works of Galileo and Kepler and others had not been lifted.

If anyone has a citation for this, we can find out precisely what is being asserted, and then it could be useful in the article. --Dandrake 00:56, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

The final paragraph of the Religious dispute section asserted that Archimedes objected on the grounds of the lack of stellar parallax. The Sand Reckoner does not make any such objection, but assumes the Sun to be on the same sphere as the fixed stars; this would actually eliminate stellar parallax. There may be other translations and other interpretations; they could be discussed here. Emanwhile, it has been removed. --Dandrake 01:16, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Status of the article

Heliocentrism will never be a nice, stable little article to which people who don't know what it means can go to find out. Too controversial. So be it.

It's now a sprawling article that argues with itself. I'm proposing to make some changes and hoping for some collaboration with others who don't like that ugly sort of article.

The present section titles almost reflect a reasonable structure, which reflects the three aspects that interest people. First, the scientific (philosophical, as it was called) development, up to the point at which heliocentrism became the official received wisdon. Second, the various religious (and philosophical, as we'd now say) controversies. Finally, how the science today sees it.

Having the religious discussion here, and getting into it in detail, sounds at first like a poor idea: Isn't that stuff covered under Copernicus, Bellarmine, Galileo, etc.? The question answers the objection. Where would be the best place to discuss the whole issue? Heliocentrism, I think. So, to be specific: Let's take the 17th century out of that section heading and try to cover the whole religious-philosophical history. --Dandrake 01:37, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph on Archimedes did not follow from what's in the Sand Reckoner, at least in the translation cited in the Wikipedia article. The new treatment is based on a reading of the work and on the interpretation cited in the link. --Dandrake 01:24, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Factual correction of the Pythagoreans believes.

I changed the part about the Pythagoreans because it was wrong in saying that the central fire was the same as the sun. if someone can explain their system better please do, I just fixed the error. sources: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philolaus/ Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.5.985b23-986a26; Plutarch On the Scientific Beliefs of the Philosophers 67.173.241.146 06:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC) Katherine

[edit] Heliocentrism day

Doesn't this theory deserve a special day???

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/evolk12/slm/heliocentrismday.htm

Comments appreciated.

-Colin


I say the article has little info usefull to a sixth grader like me doing an essay on heliocentricism and geocentrism.--Niki 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient India

This is the sort of thing that WP:NOR is principally intended to prevent: not making things up off the top of one's head, but presenting one's own interpretation of primary sources. Please find a reliable secondary source that makes this argument; if none exists, there is a strong presumption that students of the Vedas disagree, and have good reason to do so.

For my part, none of this seems any more heliocentric than corresponding passages of the Emperor Julian's oration On the Sun. Septentrionalis 16:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] GA passed

I am promoting this article to Good Article standard. Well done to everyone how has worked on it, and I hope to see it featured (I believe it's not far off!) A suggestion: put in more images of the prominant people in history, needs a Galileo and a Coppernicus most definitely.--Konstable 14:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Obsolete scientific theories

Why is this listed as an absolete theory? I am removing it. Restore it if we have reverted to geocentrism.

It IS obsolete, because the sun isn't really the center of the universe (it moves around the center of the milkyway) and if we are pedantic the sun isn't even the center of the solar system, because planets have masses, too (see view of modern science). --Nikolang 15:53, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other civilisations

The article should develop how and when heliocentrism has been introduced in other civilisation, such as China or pre-colombian ones. 84.102.211.185 23:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a brief discussion of heliocentrism in China in the article on geocentrism. According to Joseph Needham no Chinese astronomer suggested heliocentrism before these ideas were introduced from the West. 86.0.205.114 09:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 01:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Islamic world section

It doesn't look like anything in this section has anything to do with heliocentrism. Even in the text itself there is an acknowledgement that "The surviving writings of Tusi, al-Urdi, and Ibn al-Shatir are all approximately geocentric..." The mathematical contributions of these people are all right, but they do not belong to this article. Most startling, however, is the reference to the Qur'an, where nothing at all points to heliocentrism. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case: "The sun runs to its fixed resting-place" means that the sun runs during the day to its fixed nightly resting place. Furthermore, "The sun shall not outstrip the moon, nor shall the night outstrip the day. Each is floating in an orbit." is a clear a description of the geocentric system with both the Sun and the Moon floating in their orbits around the Earth. If there are authoritative sources saying otherwise, I'll be happy to see them. Beit Or 19:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm unconvince by what are suppose to be the arguments for the restoration of this action. Muslim scientists improved the geocentric model rather "demonstrated flaws in it"[1]. In any case, they worked within the framework of the geocentric model and proposed exactly nothing as far as heliocentrism is concerned. If there are counterarguments, please state them here; I don't want people to think that I'm talking to myself. Beit Or 20:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
The section is about the general development of heliocentrism, and how the Copernican model was eventually developed. You're right that the Islamic world didn't develop any heliocentric model but the point is that they did criticize the geocentric model. They never actually made that step to heliocentrism, but they did play a role in it. The article didn't really mention these criticisms but only the astronomical theorems which laid the groundwork for the Copernican model. For example, Alhazen criticized the geocentric model, although he didn't propose an alternative model. It would be relevant if we actually showed these criticisms. These sites contain more information on it: [2] [3] Jagged 85 07:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient India and Heliocentrism

The article mentions that Aryabatha expressed the orbits of planets using differential equations. This, rather stunning, claim surely deserves a reference. It might be a good idea if somebody more knowledgeable than me on astronomy in ancient India could vet this section.

User:RFB RFB 06:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

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