Impossible to tell what is center of solar system?

[Touchstone]

Right - it is a mathematical construct.

Bottom line - those that ridicule anyone who believes the earth is the center should read your post a few times.

Well, math is what we use to understand our experiences, to make sensible our observations and experiences. Math is part of the “map”, but the map is not the territory, and it seems you are getting them confused. Spacetime is what it is. The math we use provides us ways to approximate how it behaves, but the spacetime is not the math.

-TS

 

[sidbrown]

Well, math is what we use to understand our experiences,

It is? OK, what mathematical equation would you use to understand the experience of human consciousness?

 

[JimG]

Scientists describe the universe like a balloon. How thick is what we would call the latex fabric?

Since we can only see part of the universe it can be true that it has a center. Since we cannot see, we cannot rule it out.

If the universe is like a balloon, then there is one point where all points have the same radius value, aka center.

The balloon is only an analogy. The universe is like a balloon in that it is thought to be positively curved into a spherical shape. But if you take a balloon and paint dots on it to represent the galaxies, the surface of the balloon is still 2-dimensional.

Now think of the entire surface of the balloon as representing an (at least) 3-dimensional space curved in upon itself. Like traveling the surface of a globe, you could set out in any direction in a straight line, say, starting from earth, and eventually return to your starting point without ever turning around.

Think of the balloon starting from a small size: as you gradually blow it up it expands, and the points on the surface become farther apart. That’s the analog to an expanding universe. What’s inside the balloon? Nothing except previous (smaller) concentric versions of itself. So I suppose that if you could travel toward the “center” point of an expanding 4-dimensional spherical universe you would just be traveling backward in time.

 

[You]

. one dimension
| two dimensions
|< three dimensions
|< ~> |< four dimensions

…anyone draw the fifth dimension?

 

[buffalo]

. one dimension
| two dimensions
|< three dimensions
|< ~> |< four dimensions

…anyone draw the fifth dimension?

I think I got it.

 

[You]

I think I got it.

http://www.blacktoptens.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/FifthDimension.jpg

…and they said it couldn’t be done.

 

[cassini]

I heard that the debate to what is the center of the solar system is useless. This is because there isn’t any background or stable base to tell what moves and what doesn’t. Anything may move, but we can’t tell because we have no stable object to test it from.

Does this idea hold any water?

Just spotted your post aball. Yes, the idea does hold water. I note however that in spite of its uselessness CAF produces a lengthy debate. We have posts using cosmological theories against other posts using cosmological theories, a total waste of time and effort.

I also note another post asks why such a thread on CAF. Well if it developed in the right way it should have entered the realm of faith, for it did one time. Indeed Scripture is full of questions, and answers, on the matter:

Dost thou know the order of heaven, and canst thou set down the reason thereof on the earth?’ — (Job. 38:33).

‘Give me but one firm point on which to stand, and I will move the earth’ wrote Archimedes (287-212BC); unwittingly coining for posterity the problem asked of Job (man) above and by you aball. Science has no answer, but how about this:

In the Bible, some of God’s most profound teaching comes to us by way of questions. In the passage above, where the Lord queries Job about the order and mechanisms of the universe, He was demonstrating to us all the limits of our human understanding and the folly of thinking we could figure out His Omnipotence.
‘Where is that cosmologist of all cosmologists whom we shall recognise as empowered to pronounce the infallible verdict about rest and motion in a Universe?’ Well when God asked Job if he knew ‘the order of the heavens,’ the same question infers that He of course knows the exact movements of the individual cosmic bodies and by what means they are caused to go about their business every day, every month, every year, every 19 or 600 years. As the preface in Copernicus’s book said 'we can know it for certain, only if God reveals it to us.
So, did God ever reveal anything about the centre of the Universe? Well according to the Church, it is inferred that He created the earth at its centre. How so, well Genesis states the earth was created first. then the sun, moon and stars in space were created around it. Thus according to the Church, Catholic faith, the earth rests at the centre of the cosmos.

But then along came man’s scientific theories and we all know what happened then.

 

[sidbrown]

Thus according to the Church, Catholic faith, the earth rests at the centre of the cosmos.

I thought that it was not against the Catholic faith to believe that there might be intelligent life in other areas of the universe, and that this other intelligent life may have its own path to salvation. If that were so, then there would be a problem describing the center of the universe.
Perhaps it can be said that the earth is a spiritual center of the universe. However, when it comes to describing the gravitational forces in the solar system, the recognised way to account for these dynamical forces is to have the massive sun as one of the foci of an elliptical system of orbiting planets.

 

[Ranklyfrank]

Yes, the idea does hold water.

But only if you take a Bronze age Creation myth as literal truth and then bend a special use of ballistics math towards “proving” your silly ingenuous point. And external stable point or not, it is clearly evident that given relative masses, simplest solutions, solar wind and Coriolis effect, there is a nominally heliocentric barycenter for the Solar system.

And Life, as God, is evenly distributed throughout the Universe by Omnipresence. Therefore the forms of life the may have been created may be anywhere within. Do you seriously think that the Bible in its speaking to Bronze age nomads would launch into explications about extraterrestrial life and the math of celestial mechanics or astrophysics.when it was not even understood that there are galaxies? Cassini, you need to grow up, else we will suspect that indeed both you and Buffalo think that Uranus is the center of the solar system and that you seriously need to get back and down to Earth.

 

[John21652]

But only if you take a Bronze age Creation myth as literal truth and then bend a special use of ballistics math towards “proving” your silly ingenuous point. And external stable point or not, it is clearly evident that given relative masses, simplest solutions, solar wind and Coriolis effect, there is a nominally heliocentric barycenter for the Solar system.

And Life, as God, is evenly distributed throughout the Universe by Omnipresence. Therefore the forms of life the may have been created may be anywhere within. Do you seriously think that the Bible in its speaking to Bronze age nomads would launch into explications about extraterrestrial life and the math of celestial mechanics or astrophysics.when it was not even understood that there are galaxies? Cassini, you need to grow up, else we will suspect that indeed both you and Buffalo think that Uranus is the center of the solar system and that you seriously need to get back and down to Earth.

A very unsophisticated post.

“Silly ingenuous post”, “you need to grow up”, “you seriously need to get back and down to earth”. Such comments will not engender to to any one who wishes to have an intelligent discourse with you. Cassini was using biblical analogy and you canned him for his beliefs and used the most vague and unsophisticated notions in the process. “And Life, as God, is evenly distributed throughout the Universe by Omnipresence.” Show us how.

 

[rossum]

“And Life, as God, is evenly distributed throughout the Universe by Omnipresence.” Show us how.

1 God is alive.
2 God is omnipresent.
3 Life (i.e. God) is present everywhere in the universe.

Was that really so difficult?

rossum

 

[buffalo]

But only if you take a Bronze age Creation myth as literal truth and then bend a special use of ballistics math towards “proving” your silly ingenuous point. And external stable point or not, it is clearly evident that given relative masses, simplest solutions, solar wind and Coriolis effect, there is a nominally heliocentric barycenter for the Solar system.

And Life, as God, is evenly distributed throughout the Universe by Omnipresence. Therefore the forms of life the may have been created may be anywhere within. Do you seriously think that the Bible in its speaking to Bronze age nomads would launch into explications about extraterrestrial life and the math of celestial mechanics or astrophysics.when it was not even understood that there are galaxies? Cassini, you need to grow up, else we will suspect that indeed both you and Buffalo think that Uranus is the center of the solar system and that you seriously need to get back and down to Earth.

Actually, it would be quite easy and simple.

ysfdsdfdf, v:1-3 - you are not alone. I have fashioned others like you. They live in the heavens on a home like yours.

 

[Ranklyfrank]

Actually, it would be quite easy and simple.

ysfdsdfdf, v:1-3 - you are not alone. I have fashioned others like you. They live in the heavens on a home like yours.

Despite not being able to decode your reference, I know that.

 

[buffalo]

Despite not being able to decode your reference, I know that.

I made it up. The point is that Revelation could have simply addressed the issue to even “simple” men.

 

[Ranklyfrank]

Uhhhh…“could have?” (Dear God; what’s he going to claim next?)

 

[LogisticsBranch]

Life (i.e. God) is present everywhere in the universe.

Hi Rossum. You seem to imply pantheism by your statement. Pope John Paul II wrote the following:

*In the Constitution Dei Filius of the First Vatican Council we read: "This one true God, in his goodness and ‘omnipotent power,’ not to increase his own happiness, nor to acquire, but to manifest his perfection through the gifts he distributes to creatures, by a supremely free decision, ‘simultaneously from the beginning of time drew forth from nothingness both the one creature and the other, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the material, and then the human creature, who as it were shares in both orders, being composed of spirit and body’ [1] " (DS 3002).

According to the “canons” added to this doctrinal text, the First Vatican Council confirmed the following truths:

1. The one, true God is Creator and Lord “of visible and invisible things” (DS 3021).
2. It is contrary to faith to affirm that only matter exists (materialism) (DS 3022).
3. It is contrary to faith to assert that God is essentially identified with the world (pantheism) (DS 3023).
4. It is contrary to faith to maintain that creatures, even spiritual ones, are an emanation of the divine substance, or to affirm that the divine Being by its manifestation or evolution becomes everything (DS 3024).
5. Also contrary to faith is the idea that God is the universal or indefinite being which in becoming determinate constitutes the universe divided into genera, species and individuals (DS 3024).
6. It is likewise contrary to faith to deny that the world and all things contained in it, whether spiritual or material, in their entire substance have been created by God out of nothing (DS 3025).*
   vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19860129en.html

p.s. I’ve been on another topic and my rule of thumb is that if I ask a person a question and they don’t have the courtesy to reply then I will not reply to their question(s). Such was the case here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=537156&page=4

Have a nice day.

 

[cassini]

I thought that it was not against the Catholic faith to believe that there might be intelligent life in other areas of the universe, and that this other intelligent life may have its own path to salvation. If that were so, then there would be a problem describing the center of the universe.
Perhaps it can be said that the earth is a spiritual center of the universe. However, when it comes to describing the gravitational forces in the solar system, the recognised way to account for these dynamical forces is to have the massive sun as one of the foci of an elliptical system of orbiting planets.

I better not get into the aliens debate, free will, who would save them and all that…
As for the centre being a spiritual one, not a physical one, well that would be cheating god out of his Omnipotence to make it both. I note sid you challenge the possibility using newtonianism. you use his theories of gravitation as though they were absolute facts, all that mass stuff and attracting forces. Well truth rarely comes from theories, and if it does it is by accident, right but for other reasons. Like gravity could be a pushing force. What if universal movement is caused by electromagnetic effects, that would change everything.

 

[cassini]

But only if you take a Bronze age Creation myth as literal truth and then bend a special use of ballistics math towards “proving” your silly ingenuous point. And external stable point or not, it is clearly evident that given relative masses, simplest solutions, solar wind and Coriolis effect, there is a nominally heliocentric barycenter for the Solar system.

And Life, as God, is evenly distributed throughout the Universe by Omnipresence. Therefore the forms of life the may have been created may be anywhere within. Do you seriously think that the Bible in its speaking to Bronze age nomads would launch into explications about extraterrestrial life and the math of celestial mechanics or astrophysics.when it was not even understood that there are galaxies? Cassini, you need to grow up, else we will suspect that indeed both you and Buffalo think that Uranus is the center of the solar system and that you seriously need to get back and down to Earth.

You obviously got out of bed the wrong side Rank. With that attitude, debating with you would be a chore. No thanks.

 

[rossum]

Hi Rossum. You seem to imply pantheism by your statement.

You are reading far too much into my statement. If God is omnipresent then God is present at every location in the universe.

If God is alive then there is something alive present at every location in the universe.

Omnipresence and a living God are all that is needed for my logic.

rossum

 

[sidbrown]

I better not get into the aliens debate, free will, who would save them and all that…
As for the centre being a spiritual one, not a physical one, well that would be cheating god out of his Omnipotence to make it both. I note sid you challenge the possibility using newtonianism. you use his theories of gravitation as though they were absolute facts, all that mass stuff and attracting forces. Well truth rarely comes from theories, and if it does it is by accident, right but for other reasons. Like gravity could be a pushing force. What if universal movement is caused by electromagnetic effects, that would change everything.

I don;t see electromagnetic effects accounting for the known motion of the planets about the sun. You can always draw a few mathematical curves of the planets and sun with the earth at the center of your solar system. However, this would not account for the known gravitational forces occurring from the masses of the planets, moons, and sun. You are not going to be taken seriously.