From the Midst of Creation: The Tychonic Model – Geocentrism vs Heliocentrism

סַד אֶ֖רֶץ עַל־מְכוֹנֶ֑יהָ בַּל־תִּ֜מּ֗וֹט ע֘וֹלָ֥ם וָעֶֽד:

 “The Earth is established; it will never be moved.” (Tehillim 104:5).

One of the fundamental debates, in the former generations of Astronomy, was the debate between Geocentrism and Heliocentrism. Geocentrism is the belief that the earth is at the center. Heliocentrism is the belief that the sun is at the center.

Planets were seen as independently moving stars unlike the constellations that moved together in a unified formation. The Earth was not considered a planet as it was considered Eretz – land or Earth. The word Eretz uses the same parts of the mouth as the word Aradh (Arabic) and Earth (English). The ancient Greeks and Jews saw the Earth as the only terrestrial place in our universe.

The concept of Absolute Geocentrism was popularized through the works of Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 CE). The theory of Ptolemy is that everything revolves around the Earth including the planets.

The fundamental debate became relevant when Copernicus (1473–1543 CE) attempted to popularize the theory of Heliocentrism – the belief that the Sun is at the center of a star system with the Earth and Planets revolving around it. Most Astronomers, in his era did not believe in him because there was not enough evidence to prove his theory. Neither did any Rabbi…

It is a common misconception that humanity made a transition from Absolute Geocentrism to Absolute Heliocentrism without any appropriate middle ground. Born three years after Copernicus, Tycho Brahe was born, and this astronomer formed the theory that the Planets are revolving around the Sun while the Sun and the Moon are revolving around the Earth. Nilakantha Somayaji, an Indian mathematician and astronomer theorized the same theory in his writing titled Tantrasamgraha at the same time despite not knowing Brahe and Brahe not knowing about him.

This system was based on observations and mathematical calculations he made by the observation of the celestial bodies above. This was theorized in the same era where various Astronomers in India theorized the same general concept.

The untimely death of Brahe led to his student, Johannes Kepler, to advance in the same work except for the fact that Kepler was trying to prove Heliocentrism instead.

The flaws in Absolute Heliocentrism stem from the very evidence that was ironically promoted by Kepler. The discovery, popularized by Kepler, claim that the planets do not move in circular orbits around the Sun but, instead, make elliptical (oval-shaped) orbits around the Sun From the perspective of Heliocentrists, the Earth is in an elliptical orbit with the Sun at the center. Now, with the aforementioned information of Brahe and Kepler, the Geocentrist could claim that the Sun is an elliptical orbit around the Earth.

The other flaw which was manipulated and misrepresented by Kepler has to do with the unusual orbit of Mars. Unlike other planets, Mars does not demonstrate that it only rotates around the Sun. This has been observed by its strange transit in space. The “retrograde” transit of Mars does not seem to be found in the transits of other planets. Mars does not move around the sun in a typical, elliptical orbit. It moves via pattern that makes it appear to be moving away from the motions of other planets.

Some suggest that there is another Celestial body that Mars is orbiting around. This could include another star or maybe the gravitational force of Jupiter…

Astronomers have observed that most Star Systems are Binary – 2 stars in rotation around each other. This concept meant that mainstream Astronomers have proven that stars rotate in space and are not perfectly still.

Since most people want to claim that they believe in modern science, most people need to know what science can actually claim. None of the contemporary Astronomers are claiming that the sun is perfectly still. They acknowledge it is in motion with the rest of the moving universe as explained through the Theory of Relativity. This scientific theory was written by the scientific חכם Albert Einstein who promoted the concept of “Special Relativity” and “General Relativity”.

For the sake of understanding how the Theory of Relativity relates to Astronomy. Let’s analyze the former – Special Relativity. This is “limited to objects that are moving with respect to inertial frames of reference—i.e, in a state of uniform motion with respect to one another such that an observer cannot, by purely mechanical experiments, distinguish one from the other. Beginning with the behaviour of light (and all other electromagnetic radiation), the theory of special relativity draws conclusions that are contrary to everyday experience but fully confirmed by experiments. Special relativity revealed that the speed of light is a limit that can be approached but not reached by any material object; it is the origin of the most famous equation in science, E = mc².” (Encyclopedia Britannica – Relativity). This opened up the idea that contradicted the third Law of Gravity as stated by Isaac Newton. This law believed that Space and Time were unchanging forces in the universe. “In constructing his system, Newton also defined space and time, taking both to be absolutes that are unaffected by anything external. Time, he wrote, “flows equably,” while space “remains always similar and immovable.” (ibid).

According to the aforementioned article by Encyclopedia Britannica: “The law of gravity was brilliantly successful in explaining the mechanism behind Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, which the German astronomer Johannes Kepler had formulated at the beginning of the 17th century. Newton’s mechanics and law of gravity, along with his assumptions about the nature of space and time, seemed wholly successful in explaining the dynamics of the universe, from motion on Earth to cosmic events.” (ibid).

But the Theory of Relativity trumps the theory of Isaac Newton. As stated in the aforementioned article:

“In order to make the speed of light constant, Einstein replaced absolute space and time with new definitions that depend on the state of motion of an observer. Einstein explained his approach by considering two observers and a train. One observer stands alongside a straight track; the other rides a train moving at constant speed along the track. Each views the world relative to his own surroundings. The fixed observer measures distance from a mark inscribed on the track and measures time with his watch; the train passenger measures distance from a mark inscribed on his railroad car and measures time with his own watch.

If time flows the same for both observers, as Newton believed, then the two frames of reference are reconciled by the relation: x′ = x − vt. Here x is the distance to some specific event that happens along the track, as measured by the fixed observer; x′ is the distance to the same event as measured by the moving observer; v is the speed of the train—that is, the speed of one observer relative to the other; and t is the time at which the event happens, the same for both observers. For example, suppose the train moves at 40 km per hour. One hour after it sets out, a tree 60 km from the train’s starting point is struck by lightning. The fixed observer measures x as 60 km and t as one hour. The moving observer also measures t as one hour, and so, according to Newton’s equation, he measures x′ as 20 km.

This analysis seems obvious, but Einstein saw a subtlety hidden in its underlying assumptions—in particular, the issue of simultaneity. The two people do not actually observe the lightning strike at the same time. Even at the speed of light, the image of the strike takes time to reach each observer, and, since each is at a different distance from the event, the travel times differ. Taking this insight further, suppose lightning strikes two trees, one 60 km ahead of the fixed observer and the other 60 km behind, exactly as the moving observer passes the fixed observer. Each image travels the same distance to the fixed observer, and so he certainly sees the events simultaneously. The motion of the moving observer brings him closer to one event than the other, however, and he thus sees the events at different times.” (ibid).

Because of the Theory of Relativity, there is no way to prove that our Sun is the center of a Star System since this very theory proves that there is no way to determine which object is moving around another if they are both moving.

This idea can be simpligi If you lift up an object, you know that the object was lifted up and not that all of the other objects were being forced downwards because of the non-moving objects present in the room, but in outer-space, where there is not a single still object, there is no method to prove which object is the Center in space.

The חכמים never made a statement claiming that the sun is at the center before Galileo Galilei promoted his understanding of Heliocentrism after inventing the Telescope.

The Rabbanim are not Anti-Science. They never made a statement claiming  that the Earth is flat, but Yehoshua ben Nun davened for the sun to stop moving not for the earth to stop spinning, so there are many פסוקים that talk about the movement of the sun. The Heliocentric theory of Galileo was something that the Rabbanim, at that time, had begun to have disagreements on. Rabbi Yonathan Eibeshutz held by the concept of Geocentricity while Rabbi Yaakov Emden was a Heliocentrist. This topic was not the cause of major ideological divisions at the time.

So what do the Rabbanim, of more recent generations, think of the topic of Geocentrism vs Heliocentrism?

As said by the 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe in a letter to an editor that had sent a message to Rabbi Rimmler in regards to the rebbe’s ideological position on the debate between Geo-Centrism of Helio-Centrism:

“I read with great surprise the view sited in the said Editor’s Note to the effect that the fact that we can calculate beforehand the time of the eclipse of the moon and of the sun, as well as calculate the orbits of space flights, etc., support the theory that the earth is moving around the sun and not vice versa. This is a most amazing argument, especially and inasmuch as it is well known that the calculations relating to the eclipses of the moon and the sun were made thousands of years before Copernicus. Moreover, one of the tables used in the calculations was that of Ptolemy, whose theory was that the sun was revolving around the earth.

I also fail to understand another line of reasoning in your Editor’s Note, to the effect that when the astronauts orbited around the earth they experienced day and night every few hours, etc. This has no relevance whatever to the question of whether the sun is revolving around the earth or vice versa, but to the fact which is undisputed by anyone, namely that all of us traveling on earth can experience day and night at different intervals, regardless of whether the sun travels around the earth or vice versa. Of course, anyone circulating the earth at a great speed would experience day and night every few hours, but it has no bearing on our point of issue.”

(3 Sivan, 5724)

Another letter states the following:

“It is well known that this was a controversial issue in ancient and medieval science. However, since about half a century ago, with the introduction of the theory of relativity, the latter has been universally accepted as the basis of modern science. To be sure, in the beginning there were scientists working under the Soviet regime who opposed the relativity theory—for various reasons which need not be reviewed here—but even this opposition fell by the wayside later, so that now all scientists generally accept the theory of relativity as the latest and most plausible scientific system.

One of the conclusions of the theory of relativity is that when there are two systems, or planets, in motion relative to each other—such as the sun and earth in our case—either view, namely, the sun rotating around the earth, or the earth rotating around the sun, has equal validity. Thus, if there are phenomena that cannot be adequately explained on the basis of one of these views, such difficulties have their counterpart also if the opposite view is accepted.
…
A further point may be added, though perhaps not directly pertinent to our discussion. It is that every person, including modern scientists, actually has three options to choose from in this matter: (a) that A revolves around B, (b) that B revolves around A, (c) that A and B revolve around each other. But such a choice cannot be dictated by science; it would be one’s personal choice and belief.”
(R”H Kislev 5736)

“The Earth is called ארץ from the point of view of the running (רץ) of the heavenly bodies that circle it” (Lekakh Tov and Radak on Bereshit 1). The sun, stars, and planets were formed on the Fourth Day of Creation (in a universe with a pre-existing Earth); Also, see the sign of Khizkiyah Ha-Melekh (Yeshaya 38) whereby the Sun was moved 10 degrees, Tehillim 19, Tehillim 104, Kohelet 1, Iyov 9 and 26, Bereishit Rabbah 10, Eliyahu Rabbah 10, the Sefer Yetzirah, and a plethora of other sources from our Mikra support the Geocentric diagram of reality.

None of this is to say that our scientific observations are wrong, but perhaps, we should better analyze our observations of reality in order to enhance our understanding of the universe that Hashem made.