My first thought was to use the same observations that Galileo made as soon as he started using a telescope: firstly, that Jupiter’s four large (Galilean) moons clearly are orbiting that planet, showing that there are at least some bodies that revolve around planets other than Earth; secondly that the changing apparent size and “phase” of Venus and (if you can see it) Mercury only make sense if they’re orbiting the Sun; thirdly, a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember right now because I’m hungry.
On the other hand, if this guy won’t even accept evidence of the Earth’s rotation, I doubt if there’s any kind of evidence he’d acknowledge. It sounds like he’s capable of twisting anything in his mind to fit his existing view of the Universe.
The only reason anyone ever thought the sun orbited the earth is because of the earths rotation. For all our practical purposes it does except for our modern extraterrestrial endeavours. For all our practical purposes we assume that there are objects that remain stationary when we now know that buildings on the equator are racing at a speed of 25,000 mph.
I could suppose that someone could come along to challenge the inerrency of the bible on that point as well.
Well, technically, the Earth and the Sun orbit each other. It’s just that the Sun, with a mass 333,333 times greater than Earth’s, tends to do a whole lot less of the orbiting.
Nitpick: The Sol-Jupiter barycenter is just outside the photosphere. The overall system barycenter would be fairly close to that (to a first approximation, it would be inside the photosphere when Jupiter and Saturn are on opposite sides of the sun and outside the photosphere when Jupiter and Saturn are on the same side of the sun).
One of the issues that other Catholics have with CAI is that they do not accept several papal and conciliar pronouncements. (See above.) They are just loons who have their own version of the church.
25,000mph? It’s not THAT fast, is it? That would mean the earth rotates once an hour. I assume you meant 25,000 miles per day.
Unless you’re talking about the earth’s orbital speed rather than rotational speed, but I thought that was more like 18 miles per second, which translates to something like 64,000mph. I could be mis-remembering, though. And your use of the equator makes it seem like you’re talking about rotational speed.
I swear I’m not trying to nitpick here – I just saw that and it seemed a little bit off.
Good on you! Thankyou for the correction. In fact I appreciate you pointing out that a “stationary” object on the earth actually moves on the order of three times faster than what I said.
Of course we are ignoring the observer on Sagittarius .
By the way, if anyone has the research skills and/or education to tell me what my speed is relative to Sagittarius I’ll resign myself to the belief that the most practical source of knowledge to consult is the SDMB.
And I’ll be able to be an expert at the next social gathering that I attend
Shucks, I’ll offer a grand to anyone who can prove to my satisfaction that I exist. Be forewarned, I’ve read some Buddhist metaphysics and I did a lot of acid back in the Sixties … … furthermore, I’ll probably have to pay you with small change and food stamps over six or seven years …
Oh, yeah, like I’d really believe that. I get in a plane, we fly for a while, I have no clue where we are, then we fly over some ice and shit. Could be anywhere. No dice.
Nothing. That’s where they can get away with this idea for so long (indefinately). The scientific method cannot prove anything.
The observation of the existance of the coriolis force is discounted because it could be an unknown force acting on a stationary sphere. To these people, it does not matter than you can mathematically derive the coriolis force and the bulge of Earth’s spheroid and run experiments to compare the derived values and the observed ones. They are metaphorically sticking their fingers in their ears and going “lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaicanthearyoulalalalalalalalalalalalalala.”
In any event, the coriolis force stems from Earth’s rotation, not its orbit, which is the real reason why its existance does not prove Earth’s rotation. The parallax of stars is a much better piece of evidence for the latter.
… furthermore, I’ll probably have to pay you with small change and food stamps over six or seven years …