Everyone Allows Geocentrism, Except David Palm
A Must Read
R. Sungenis: In Mr. Palm’s decade-long obsession to discredit
geocentrism, we have come upon the mother lode. The first
phase was showing Mr. Palm and his mentor Mr. MacAndrew
that Albert Einstein allows for geocentrism. Palm’s only answer
to this fact is the specious claim that we cannot use Einstein
because we don’t believe in Einstein’s theories, while they do!
Since they couldn’t use Einstein, they attempted to switch the debate to Isaac Newton’s physics, hoping
that Newton will be their savior and not allow geocentrism. Below, however, I show the agreement
between Newton and Einstein, from their own words. Both allow geocentrism as a scientifically viable
reality.
For icing on the cake, I also add Galileo, Weinberg and Mach to show that all the big names in physics
disagree with Mr. Palm’s attempts to take geocentrism off the scientific landscape.
In my books, I list dozens of other well known scientists who agree that geocentrism is scientifically
acceptable. The only problem with these scientists is that due to their philosophical commitments and
their antipathy for Catholic Church, they don’t promote the viability of geocentrism. They teach
heliocentrism, even though they all admit it has no scientific proof.
Before we start, I want to state how Mr. Palm has handled these debates. First, he has attacked me
personally, in public, in many forms and for many years. He posts his charges on his website, but has
never once contacted me to ask if the charges are true or even to get my side of the story. He simply
accuses and believes that his limited knowledge is the final word on the subject. His slander is for one
reason – to damage my reputation and make people distrust me. It is the sin of calumny, but unfortunately
Mr. Palm is way beyond admitting that he has sinned against me.
Second, in order to keep my arguments away from some of the people he wishes to spread his attacks, Mr.
Palm keeps a secret list to whom he sends his critical articles. He will not share the list with me, and thus
I cannot send them my rebuttals. Most of them will never see what I have written here or the dozens of
other rebuttals I have written, and they will go on thinking that Mr. Palm’s arguments cannot be
answered. But this time we are going to put a little fly in Mr. Palm’s ointment. We are sending this
rebuttal to as many people we believe Mr. Palm is sending his articles, plus or minus a few, I’m sure.
Two can play the game Mr. Palm wants to play.
Third, I have challenged Mr. Palm to a public debate in front of an audience on more than one occasion,
but he has steadfastly refused. My goal, of course, is to get Mr. Palm under public cross-examination to
expose his scientific canards and to stop his slanderous attacks. Instead of courageously accepting the
challenge, he chooses to take swipes at me behind his computer. As you can see, Mr. Palm does not play
fair.
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Fourth, Mr. Palm has recently made a personal attack on my undergraduate studies, making the claim that
I cannot say “I was a physics major that changed to a religion major” because I did not graduate as a
physics major (even though I had over half of the required physics courses). The ploy here, of course, is
to make it appear as if I don’t have any physics knowledge to, as Mr. Palm likes to say, “take on the
whole world of physics” with geocentrism.
In the first place, it really doesn’t take much physics to topple the modern cosmology, since anyone with
even a little science knowledge can see by the wild theories that are thrown around today that modern
cosmology is a cadre of broken theories. Physics is much simpler than that. It is especially simple when
one knows the right answers ahead of time as I do from divine revelation and the Church’s official
decisions.
Ironically, the one who does not have any physics training is David Palm. Yet in this present foray, he
makes conclusions in physics as if he were a Newton or an Einstein, telling us that geocentrism won’t
work, for example “because we cannot calculate the force of the stars.” Pray tell, how does one without
any physics training make such tendentious conclusions, especially when he accuses his opponent, me, of
not having any right to make conclusions in physics because I didn’t complete my bachelors in physics?
I’ll leave you to judge.
Nevertheless, we will move on. I believe you will find that Mr. Palm has taken a bite off this fish that he
will not be able to swallow and will be choking on it for a long time to come.
The dialogue begins:
Palm: It Really Is That Simple: Geocentrism Lacks Basic Evidence. Posted on October 30, 2015 by
David Palm. In long-running disputes, sometimes it’s good to get back to basics. A recent exchange with
an enquirer highlighted yet again the inability of the new geocentrism to stand on its own two feet when
confronted with the most basic challenge. My interlocutor asked for a simple explanation why
geocentrism is not viable as a scientific viewpoint. Before laying out that simple explanation, I made just
one stipulation – the geocentric counter-reply must make no appeal to General Relativity (GR). That
stipulation was necessary because I knew that would be the first place they’d go. Geocentrists get lots of
mileage out of a bogus appeal to GR, deploying various claims along the lines of “General Relativity
allows for geocentrism” or “See, even famous scientists X and Y agree that geocentrism is plausible”
(see, for example, “Context Anyone? The (Literally) Incredible Geocentrists Strike Again”.) This
rhetorical ploy has been effective in bamboozling some people into thinking that geocentrism actually has
the support of modern science and scientists. But the appeal to General Relativity by the geocentrists is
illegitimate. Why? Because the geocentrists are the ones making the truth claim that the Earth is the
exact center and is motionless. They insist that it is the one, absolute frame of reference. The new
geocentrists vociferously reject General Relativity, which inherently excludes the concepts of an absolute
center and absolute rest (for evidence of their rejection of GR see here). It does not take a rocket scientist
to understand that one may not both reject a theory and simultaneously appeal to it in order to prop up
one’s own view. This is what Dr. Alec MacAndrew has dubbed the Great Inconsistency at the very heart
of the new geocentrism. He writes: “Surely it is deeply inconsistent and illogical to invoke physics in
support of their claims that they think is wrong-headed, atheistically motivated, a product of the author’s
moral degeneracy and medical ailments, and amounting to no more than science fiction – to do so smacks
of desperation. (“Here Comes the Sun”, p. 17). And: Now an honest scientist who rejects a particular
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theory, doesn’t turn round in the next sentence and use it to support his case – by rejecting it, he is
proclaiming that it is not a good description of reality, so how can he logically and fairly use it in support
of his idea, which presumably he believes does reflect reality? Of course he can’t – or shouldn’t. The fact
that the neo-geocentrists rely on a theory they detest and reject is the fundamental Great Inconsistency at
the heart of neo-geocentrism that has always been there and that they have never succeeded in resolving
(“There He Goes Again”, p. 2).
R. Sungenis: The only one dealing with “rhetoric” here is Mr. Palm. He has been told repeatedly that any
appeal we make to General Relativity (GR) is only to show the dubious foundation of his own position.
I’ve used this methodology whenever I debate opponents. Why? Because there is no better argument to
defeat your opponent than to use your opponent’s own beliefs to discredit him. In other words, we use GR
because Mr. Palm believes in GR, but GR supports the possibility of geocentrism. So why wouldn’t we
want to use GR?
Of course, this knock-out punch forces Mr. Palm to try to turn the tables by pretentiously claiming that
we are using GR as one of our most credible sources of evidence to support geocentrism, which is simply
not true. Again, we only use GR because Mr. Palm and the rest of modern science use GR (or at least his
mentor, Alec MacAndrew, uses GR and Mr. Palm just watches from the sidelines). Mr. Palm has been
told this fact several times, but he finds it hard to admit, so he just keeps using the same canard over and
over again.
Palm: General Relativity (GR) inherently excludes an absolute center and absolute motion. The new
geocentrists vociferously reject GR (again, see here.) In order to avoid the Great Inconsistency, the
geocentrists must lay aside any and all reference to General Relativity. Their view needs to stand on its
own two feet. It is their burden to show how their own theory is viable on its own, given the evidence that
we have. And that’s where it all falls apart for them. Strict geocentrism was rejected by all working
astronomers and physicists many decades before General Relativity or Big Bang cosmology came on the
scene. And it’s pretty safe to say that it will continue to be rejected even if those theories are supplanted
by other theories. Why? Because in order to be viable, scientific theories must be backed by observational
evidence. Can geocentrism stand on its own, with no appeal to GR? Can it provide observational evidence
to answer to even the most basic questions? No. As Dr. MacAndrew has laid out well in “Here Comes the
Sun: How the Geocentrists Persist in Scientific and Logical Errors”, the gravity of the Sun dominates our
solar system. The scientific explanation for why the Earth does not fall into the Sun is that it is orbiting
the Sun, just like the other planets. And this means that it’s moving and that it’s not the center even of
our solar system, let alone of the entire universe. The only other way this could work is if there were some
other masses that perfectly and continuously offset the Sun’s enormous gravitational influence on the
Earth. And this is where the geocentrists think they have an “out” – they say our problem is that we’re
looking at our solar system in isolation without regard to the influence of the rest of the bodies in the
universe. Robert Sungenis states, “each night we see that there are countless stars the circle the Earth.
Each of those 5 sextillion stars have gravity, and that gravity will affect how the Sun and Earth react to
one another, especially if the Earth is put in the center of that gravity” (“Karl Keating’s “Scientific”
Attempt to Debunk Geocentrism”, p. 2). So according to him it’s the gravity of the “5 sextillion stars”
that keeps the Earth from plunging into the Sun. But this raises two insuperable problems. First, because
of the extreme distances involved, the distant stars and galaxies simply do not provide enough
gravitational influence to offset the nearby Sun’s gravity. As Dr. MacAndrew demonstrates in his paper,
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even if you put all of the galactic clusters that lie within 2.5 billion light years on one side of the Earth
and positioned them much closer than they actually are, their combined gravitational pull would still be,
“30 million times less than the Sun’s gravitational field at the Earth” (see “Here Comes the Sun”, p. 5).
R. Sungenis: This was already answered in my rebuttal to MacAndrew in “There Goes the Sun” at
(http://galileowaswrong.com/there-goes-the-sun-a-rebuttal-to-alec-macandrew/), but for some reason Mr.
Palm fails to mention it. But let me add even more rebuttal to it.
First of all, MacAndrew has no way to prove how far away the stars are, since the only empirical
evidence we have (stellar parallax) can’t go beyond 300 light years, and is really only accurate at less than
100 light years. Moreover, it has never been proven that light travels at c (186,000 miles per second) in
deep space, only in our terrestrial environment. Third, since MacAndrew believes in GR, he should know
that GR allows light to go any speed (yes, a veritable contradiction in Einstein’s two theories that is just
glossed over in modern academia).1 So Palm’s argument about distance is unsubstantiated.
Red shift will not help Palm either since redshift is not a proven distance marker. There are dozens of
theories as to why redshift occurs, but no one knows for sure. In fact, you may be interested to know the
real story behind redshift. It has a “geocentric connection.” Redshift as a distance marker was invented by
Edwin Hubble in 1937 for the express purpose of eliminating the evidence from redshift that showed
Earth in the center of the universe. Here is Hubble on the issue when he found that the redshift of galaxies
put Earth in the center of the universe:
“Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in
the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a
central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome
and would be accepted only as a last resort in order to save the
phenomena….The unwelcome supposition of a favored location must
be avoided at all costs.
“Such a favored position, of course, is intolerable; moreover, it
represents a discrepancy with the theory, because the theory
postulates homogeneity. Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity,
and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from
uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be
compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial
curvature. There seems to be no other escape.”2
So, in order to avoid having the Earth in the center, Hubble invented the “expanding universe.” This takes
the center out of the universe and makes the universe into a giant balloon, with only a surface. Hubble
then put the galaxies on the surface of the balloon (including the Milky Way where Earth resides), and
1
“If gravitational fields are present the velocities of either material bodies or of light can assume any numerical
value depending on the strength of the gravitational field. If one considers the rotating roundabout [earth] as being at
rest, the centrifugal gravitational field assumes enormous values at large distances, and it is consistent with the
theory of General Relativity for the velocities of distant bodies to exceed 3 × 108 m/sec [c] under these conditions”
(An Introduction to the Theory of Relativity, William G. V. Rosser, 1964, p. 460).
2
The Observational Approach to Cosmology , 1937 pp. 50-59.
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obviously, nothing could be in the center since a balloon surface doesn’t have a center. He then said that
we would see redshift everywhere we looked because the balloon universe was expanding, and thus each
galaxy would be moving away from the other (NB: when the light source moves away, it creates a
redshift in the wavelength of the light). It was an ingenious way to escape geocentrism, but there was not
a shred of proof for it. Even Hubble admits that it is an ad hoc theory to save the status quo.
As we can see, Hubble was just like David Palm – he had a deep-seated hatred of having the Earth in the
center of the universe due to his philosophical and political beliefs, so he desperately tried to create a
universe that would remove Earth from the center.
For the record, however, I’m not the one who proposed that the innumerable stars affect our solar system.
It was proposed by Ernst Mach in the late 1800s, the famous physicist praised by Albert Einstein for this
new view of gravitational mechanics. Mach discovered that Newton’s laws, if confined to the solar
system, were misplaced and inadequate. Here is Mach’s contribution, courtesy of the description given by
Einstein himself:
“Yet, as E. Mach has shown, this argument is not sound. One need not view the
existence of such centrifugal forces as originating from the motion of K [the
Earth]; one could just as well account for them as resulting from the average
rotational effect of distant, detectable masses [stars] as evidenced in the vicinity of
K [the Earth], whereby K [the Earth] is treated as being at rest. If Newtonian
mechanics disallow such a view, then this could very well be the foundation for the
defects of that theory…”3
Could it have been said any better?
So if Palm doesn’t believe the stars can affect our environment, he is the odd man out. Everyone sees it.
All the physicists of the world can’t help it, since this is right where modern physics leads them. The only
difference between Mach and Einstein is HOW the affect of the stars reaches Earth, and this is where they
parted company. Mach believed it was instantaneous: Einstein believed it was limited to c.
In an attempt to dilute Mach’s contribution, Mr. Palm (the man who has no physics training) concludes in
his single footnote the following:
Suffice to say that the new geocentrists compound their bogus appeal to GR by simply
assuming Mach’s Principle, a conjecture, not a theory which is neither settled nor widely
accepted.
Really dude? So let’s recap Mr. Palm’s contentions:
(1) Mr. Palm says we can’t appeal to GR to defend geocentrism simply because we don’t believe in GR
and he does (which logic is fatuous);
3
Hans Thirring, “Über die Wirkung rotierender ferner Massen in der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie,” Physikalische
Zeitschrift 19, 33, 1918, translated: “On the Effect of Rotating Distant Masses in Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation.”
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(2) He says we can’t use Mach’s Principle because it is a “mere conjecture” and not widely accepted,
even though, as we see above, Einstein endorsed Mach over Newton, and Palm gives us no names of
physicists who reject Mach.4
So, it is quite obvious that the game Mr. Palm wants to play is to attempt to disallow two physics theories
that he realizes support geocentrism. Does something smell fishy to you? It should.
Alas, Mr. Palm continues:
A reader ignorant of the crucial distinctions can easily be bamboozled by their selective quotes
from various physicists.
R. Sungenis: “Selective quotes”? Since Mr. Palm makes such an accusation to accuse us of
“bamboozling” our readers, doesn’t this require him to provide at least one or two examples to prove his
case? But it has become rather obvious that Mr. Palm is merely on a fishing expedition, hoping that he
can put some doubt in the reader’s mind just by making an arbitrary accusation of ill will.
Palm continues:
If the neo-geocentrists really think that Mach’s Principle is correct then by all means let them
demonstrate mathematically why that must be so!
R. Sungenis: They have. But Mr. Palm wouldn’t understand it, even if he read it. That’s because he
doesn’t understand physics, especially theoretical physics, but that’s what happens when you become the
scientific plaything of an atheist like Alec MacAndrew to do your bidding and have no way of judging
whether what MacAndrew says is right or wrong.
Dr. Julian Barbour, a physicist who appears in our movie, The Principle, gives pages and pages of
mathematics using Mach’s Principle in all of his books. He is one of the most respected physicists today
and he collaborates with various Machian physicists all over the world. Interestingly enough, after all his
math, in one of his books he makes this concluding statement: “Thus, even now, three and a half centuries
after Galileo’s condemnation by the Inquisition, it is still remarkably difficult to say categorically whether
the earth moves, and if so, in what precise sense.”5
I could add dozens of such physicists. Below I cite physicist Andre Assis to provide the math of how
Mach’s Principle has been demonstrated by mathematics. Perhaps Mr. Palm will take
the time to read it and learn something instead of trying to pretend it isn’t there. By the
way, Assis’ work, and all the other people who provide the mathematics of Mach’s
Principle, is included in my book, Galileo Was Wrong, but we never see Mr. Palm
referring to it, yet he knows it is there.
In fact, at my behest, physicist Dr. Luka Popov from Croatia wrote an article on how
Mach’s Principle validates geocentrism and it was peer-reviewed and accepted by the
4
In fact, Palm would have a hard time defending his thesis against a physicist such as Dr. Julian Barbour who
appears in our movie, The Principle. Barbour shows Mach’s Principle is alive and well among many modern
physicists today.
5
Absolute or Relative Motion, p. 226.
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European Journal of Physics in 2013. So much for Mr. Palm’s accusation of “conjecture” and “not
widely accepted.”
Let’s look at another physicist who has applied the mathematics to arrive at a geocentric system. Here is
the famous physicist, Max Born on the work of Hans Thirring:
“...Thus we may return to Ptolemy’s point of view of a ‘motionless Earth.’ This would mean
that we use a system of reference rigidly fixed to the Earth in which all stars are performing a
rotational motion with the same angular velocity around the Earth’s axis…one has to show that
the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein’s field equations, by
distant rotating masses [stars]. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a
rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though
there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from
Einstein’s point of view, Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right. What point of view is
chosen is a matter of expediency.6
In other words, Thirring is telling us that Einstein’s GR maintains that if the whole star field were to
rotate around the Earth and the Earth were kept motionless, then the stars would produce all the inertial
effects that are claimed by the heliocentric model (i.e., centrifugal, Coriolis, and Euler forces), which is
precisely what I have been saying about the Geocentric model. As such, there is no dynamical difference
between geocentrism and heliocentrism. So why is Mr. Palm saying that geocentrism is not allowable,
that is, if he believes in Einstein’s theories as he says he does? At least Einstein was honest with his own
theory (i.e., that it allows geocentrism). The only thing Mr. Palm can say is that we can’t use Einstein’s
theory.
Third, as I’ve stated before, the universe is a spherical ball and the celestial objects are placed within it.
As such, all the celestial objects will follow the circular trajectory of the spherical universe as it rotates.
They have no choice in the matter, so to speak. And it doesn’t matter whether the Earth is in the center or
not – all the celestial objects will go around the virtual center because the spherical universe carries them.
As the famous world class physicist, George F. R. Ellis admits:
I can construct [for] you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its
center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it
on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that.
What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical
criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that (Scientific
American, October 1995).
But let’s ask the question. If the universe is rotating, why don’t all the celestial objects rush to the
perimeter of the universe due to the centrifugal force upon them – like clothes in the spin cycle of a
washing machine? The answer is gravity. For example, all the stars on the eastern universal hemisphere
will pull against all the stars on the western universal hemisphere, and vice-versa. Since they are pulling
against one another due to each’s gravity, what will stop them from eventually collapsing in on one
another? The answer is centrifugal force, which is an outward radial pull that offsets the inward radial pull
6
Max Born, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, 1962, 1965, pp. 344-345.
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of gravity. Again, as Thirring stated above for the geocentric system, as the universe spins it creates
centrifugal force outward against the inward pull of gravity.
Can the universe be built in such a way that the combined inward force of gravity can be precisely
balanced against the outward pull of centrifugal force? Of course. That is precisely what God did. He
knew all the forces. He knew the exact speed needed for the universe to rotate in order to create the
precise centrifugal force needed to offset gravity.
Do you think God can do that, or is it too hard for Him? Apparently, in Mr. Palm’s new twist to his
argument, he thinks it is too hard for God to make all the necessary calculations. God can make the
human body with its trillions of cells to interact with each other in astounding ways, but according to Mr.
Palm, God can’t make all the celestial bodies of the universe balance because it is too hard for Him.
Perhaps Mr. Palm will take solace in the fact that even Einstein, his mentor, tried to create this same
balance in the universe by employing his tensor equation G = 8πΤ. G is the inward pull of gravity,
whereas 8πΤ is the outward pull of energy. This gave the universe balance so that it could last for infinity,
(at least that’s the kind of universe the atheist Einstein wanted in order to escape the idea of creation by
God).
Even Galileo thought it was possible – at the end of his life. Two years before he died, he totally
renounced the heliocentric theory he held to for 40 years by saying this:
“The falsity of the Copernican system should not in any way be called into question, above all,
not by Catholics, since we have the unshakeable authority
of the Sacred Scripture, interpreted by the most erudite
theologians, whose consensus gives us certainty regarding
the stability of the Earth, situated in the center, and the
motion of the sun around the Earth. The conjectures
employed by Copernicus and his followers in maintaining
the contrary thesis are all sufficiently rebutted by that most
solid argument deriving from the omnipotence of God. He
is able to bring about in different ways, indeed, in an
infinite number of ways, things that, according to our
opinion and observation, appear to happen in one particular
way. We should not seek to shorten the hand of God and boldly insist on something beyond the
limits of our competence.”7
But Mr. Palm doesn’t think it is possible. His divinity is apparently not as omnipotent as Galileo’s. Mr.
Palm is like the person to whom Galileo wrote the above letter, Francesco Rinuccini. Rinuccini was so
incensed at Galileo’s sudden rejection of heliocentrism that he attempted to erase Galileo’s signature off
the letter.8 Fortunately, enough of the signature survived for us to know it had been tampered with.
Palm: And the geocentrists have a second, even more serious problem. Not only is the gravitational field
of these distant masses not remotely sufficient, but in order for them to exactly offset the Sun’s (and to a
7
8
Le Opere Di Galileo Galilei, p. 316, footnote #2.
Stillman Drake, Galileo At Work: His Scientific Biography, pp. 418-419.
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lesser extent the Moon’s and other planets’) gravitational fields, these offsetting masses would have to be
moving constantly and be positioned perfectly at every second of every day of every year in order for the
Earth to remain motionless. This has been laid out very well with some nice visuals by Gary Hoge in “As
the Universe Turns”. There is no observational evidence whatsoever that the other bodies in the universe
are constantly moving in the precise way necessary to offset the Sun’s enormous gravity.
R. Sungenis: First of all, “the Sun’s enormous gravity” is used for the planets that revolve around it, and
thank God the sun’s gravity is strong enough to do so, since, if not, the planets would not revolve around
the sun but drift off into space.
Second, Mr. Palm doesn’t realize that the Sun would work in the same way whether the Earth was in the
center of the universe or not. As noted above, since the sun and stars are carried by the spherical universe
as it rotates around the Earth, the sun and stars will continue to revolve around the center because they are
forced to revolve with the universe. The only question is: what precisely are they revolving around? The
answer is: they revolve around the universe’s center of mass. The center of mass is the exact infinitesimal
point around which all bodies in rotation rotate. This is because it is the point in which all the gravity and
inertial forces are balanced.
The next question is, can Earth share a center of mass with the universe and be unaffected by the Sun and
the planets? The answer is yes, as Einstein, Thirring, Mach, Assis, Popov, and all the other scientists
we’ve cited agree. The Earth can occupy the center of mass for the universe and not be affected by any
forces as long as all the physical requirements are satisfied (e.g., size, speed, distance, mass). Who knows
what they should be? Only God, since He is the only one who knows what is required to make a universe.
All we can do is show people it is possible by even the rudimentary physics we know today.
If Mr. Palm doesn’t believe the above scientists (or still wishes to disallow Einstein since only he accepts
Einstein; or still wishes to discount Mach because he is not as popular as Einstein), perhaps he will
believe Isaac Newton when he says the same as we do. Since Mr. Palm and Mr. MacAndrew have
insisted on switching the debate to Newton, then they can have no objections to using Newton. Here is
what Newton wrote in Proposition 43:
“In order for the Earth to be at rest in the center of the system of the Sun, Planets, and Comets,
there is required both universal gravity and another force in addition that acts
on all bodies equally according to the quantity of matter in each of them and
is equal and opposite to the accelerative gravity with which the Earth tends
to the Sun…Since this force is equal and opposite to its gravity toward the
Sun, the Earth can truly remain in equilibrium between these two forces and
be at rest. And thus celestial bodies can move around the Earth at rest, as in
the Tychonic system.”9
So there you have it. The case is now closed. Newton allows the very thing that David Palm denies.
Everyone thought that Newton’s mechanics would not allow geocentrism, but here even Newton himself
realized, especially after talks with Christiaan Huygens, that if he expanded his own laws outside the solar
system, the geocentric system becomes viable, precisely as Mach and Einstein said.
9
For those interested, I have a copy of the handwritten text of Newton’s Proposition 43 in my book, Galileo Was
Wrong: The Church Was Right, Volume 1, 11th edition, and Geocentrism 101, 4th edition.
9
It is not just me who is claiming this for Newton. Here is what the world renowned physicist, Steven
Weinberg, recently said about Newton’s proposition, in full agreement with Newton:
“If we were to adopt a frame of reference like Tycho’s in which the Earth is at
rest, then the distant galaxies would seem to be executing circular turns once a
year, and in general relativity this enormous motion would create forces akin to
gravitation, which would act on the Sun and planets and give them the motions
of the Tychonic theory. Newton seems to have had a hint of this. In an
unpublished ‘Proposition 43’ that did not make it into the Principia, Newton
acknowledges that Tycho’s theory could be true if some other force besides
ordinary gravitation acted on the Sun and planets.”10
The “some other force” is most likely centrifugal force, and Weinberg says that General Relativity agrees
with Newton regarding this force. Why? Because as we noted above, Einstein says:
“One need not view the existence of such centrifugal forces as originating from the motion of
K [the Earth]; one could just as well account for them as resulting from the average rotational
effect of distant, detectable masses [stars] as evidenced in the vicinity of K [the Earth],
whereby K [the Earth] is treated as being at rest.”11
So who is the odd man out? It is David Palm. He is the only one saying it is impossible to have
geocentrism. You be the judge.
For further verification of this model, the Brazilian physicist, Andre Assis, shows all the math Mr. Palm
could possibly want to see:
As we have seen, Leibniz and Mach emphasized that the Ptolemaic geocentric system and the
Copernican heliocentric system are equally valid and correct…the Copernican world view,
which is usually seen as being proved to be true by Galileo and Newton…the gravitational
attraction between the sun and the planets, the earth and other planets do not fall into the sun
because they have an acceleration relative to the fixed stars. The distant matter in the universe
exerts a force, –mg
, on accelerated planets, keeping them in their annual orbits.
In the Ptolemaic system, the earth is considered to be at rest and without rotation in the center of
the universe, while the sun, other planets and fixed stars rotate around the earth. In relational
mechanics this rotation of distant matter yields the force (8.17)12 such that the equation of
motion takes the form of equation (8.47).13 Now the gravitational attraction of the sun is
balanced by a real gravitational centrifugal force due to the annual rotation of distant masses
around the earth (with a component having a period of one year). In this way the earth can
remain at rest and at an essentially constant distance from the sun. The diurnal rotation of
10
Steven Weinberg, To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science, HarperCollins, 2015, pp. 251-252.
11
Hans Thirring, “Über die Wirkung rotierender ferner Massen in der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie,” Physikalische
Zeitschrift 19, 33, 1918, translated: “On the Effect of Rotating Distant Masses in Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation.”
‒ Φ
12
13
∑
–Φ
2
2
10
, p. 176.
= 0, p. 185.
distant masses around the earth (with a period of one day) yields a real gravitational centrifugal
force flattening the earth at the poles. Foucault’s pendulum is explained by a real Coriolis force
where
is
acting on moving masses over the earth’s surface in the form –2mg
the velocity of the test body relative to the earth and
is the angular rotation of the distant
masses around the earth. The effect of this force will be to keep the plane of oscillation of the
pendulum rotating together with the fixed stars.14
Palm: When recently confronted yet again with this conundrum, geocentrist Rick DeLano followed two
predictable paths. First, he immediately appealed to (drum roll….you guessed it!) General Relativity,
even though he rejects General Relativity and even though I explicitly stated that such an appeal was off
the table, for the obvious reasons I gave above – he rejects General Relativity so he can’t appeal to it.
R. Sungenis: Once again, notice how Mr. Palm arbitrarily set his own rules as to what his opponent can
argue. Not surprisingly, Mr. Palm never admits that Mr. Delano used General Relativity only to show that
the very science Mr. Palm adheres to in order to defend his favorite cosmology is the very science that
allows geocentrism. In other words, Mr. Palm is a scientific hypocrite.
Palm: And, in any case, the concepts of absolute rest and an absolute center are excluded in General
Relativity, so an appeal to it explicitly destroys his argument.
R. Sungenis: If Mr. Palm is trying to say that GR cannot decide whether the Earth rotates in a fixed
universe or the universe rotates around a fixed Earth, then yes, GR is not “absolute.” But the fact remains
that GR allows for a universe that rotates around a fixed Earth, and thus geocentrism is just as viable as
heliocentrism. Unfortunately, that is not what is taught in our schools today, and it is not what Mr. Palm
teaches. Instead, Mr. Palm tries to eliminate GR from these discussions since he doesn’t want anyone to
know that GR supports geocentrism. That is the sign of a desperate man.
Palm: Second, he lapsed into ridicule and insult (and just as I was about to direct the reader to this
exchange, I find that that my interlocutor appears to have taken it down.). What he did not do is answer
the question. What is the observational evidence for masses in the universe that, at every instance of time,
offset the enormous gravitational pull of the Sun and planets in our solar system? On that question,
DeLano was completely silent.
R. Sungenis: Yes, just as silent as Mr. Palm is in admitting that his very own science, General Relativity,
supports geocentrism, not denies it. But in reality, there is no silence from our side, since Mr. Palm has
been told the reason why even Newton allowed geocentrism. Mr. Palm simply doesn’t want to accept it,
and to attempt to dissuade you he creates conundrums like pretending that God cannot situate all the
celestial masses properly in order to allow for geocentrism.
Palm: So here’s the bottom line: For geocentrism to be viable, the geocentrists would have to provide
observational evidence for both the existence of and precise motion of masses that at every instant of time
are positioned perfectly to offset the enormous gravity of the Sun and other planets, thus leaving the Earth
motionless.
14
André Koch Torres Assis, Relational Mechanics, pp. 190-191.
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R. Sungenis: No we don’t. All we need to do is present the fact that the forces of gravity and the inertial
forces balance, just as Newton, Weinberg, Mach, Born, Einstein, Assis and everyone else has insisted.
Mr. Palm is the only one trying to deny it. If he wants to claim differently, then it behooves him to quote
from physicists who disallow such usage. Are there any scientists that Mr. Palm can show us who say that
the only way we can know the effect of the stars on Earth is that we must know the exact gravity and
movement of every star? No, not one, since it is absurd to base theoretical physics on such pedantic and
superfluous evidence. We leave the details to God. All we can do is show that the model will work.
Unfortunately, the only person we see Mr. Palm quoting is Alec MacAndrew, a person that no one in
mainstream physics recognizes as an authority. Conversely, I have made it a practice since I’ve started
writing my books and making my movies to quote only from the most prestigious and respected
physicists in the world. To a man, they all acknowledge the scientific viability of geocentrism. Most don’t
prefer it, however, due to their philosophical beliefs. No surprise there. Most of them are atheists, and a
central Earth is the last thing with which they want to be faced. Of course, the only rebuttal Mr. Palm
gives is to claim that the quotes are “selective,” but he hasn’t given one example of such selectivity. That
is very poor scholarship. Tell me, are the quotes I gave above from Einstein, Mach and Newton
“selective,” or do they give you a pretty good idea of where each man stood on the issue?
As it stands, Mr. Palm lives in a dream world of his own making. He neither accepts that the majority of
the world’s renowned physicists allow for the viability of geocentrism, nor does he believe that God can
create what these physicists have acknowledged! Perhaps he should take a lesson from Galileo, the man
who rejected his devotion to heliocentrism before his death.
Palm: There is no such observational evidence.
R. Sungenis: That’s because Mr. Palm doesn’t understand the geocentric universe. Moving stars are not
needed to make it work or be stable. Moving stars is simply another canard that Mr. Palm is trying to
throw into the mix without having any scientific evidence for its necessity – and all this from a man who
has no physics training. All we need is what Thirring, Assis and Popov provided mathematically and the
other physicists have acknowledged theoretically (e.g., Newton, Mach, Einstein, Weinberg, Ellis,
Hawking, Born, and the rest).
But Mr. Palm has a vested interest in trying to make the issue too complicated. He doesn’t want it to
work. He wants to destroy it. But that is like using a hammer in an attempt to destroy the Golden Gate
bridge. The fact is, Mr. Palm hasn’t pointed out even one scientist in ten years who agrees with him that it
won’t work. Not one.
Palm: Therefore, geocentrism is not a viable scientific theory. That is why the geocentrists don’t have
the support of a single working astronomer or physicist.
R. Sungenis: That is false, and the sad part is, Mr. Palm knows it, since he has been given this
information previously, and now we have added Newton to the list. Mr. Palm simply cannot be trusted to
give an accurate representation of the current state of affairs.
Palm: As a scientific theory providing a coherent explanation for what we observe, geocentrism falls flat.
12
R. Sungenis: The only thing that “falls flat” are Mr. Palm’s arguments. He hasn’t presented one single
proven argument, in all of his writings over the last ten years, that discredits geocentrism. But I thank him
for a valiant try, since all he really did is strengthen the geocentric arguments ten-fold.
Palm: It really is just that simple. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is what happens when you
turn the scientific method on its head. Modern geocentrism amounts to faulty theology, dictating
unshakable “scientific” conclusions, in search of supporting evidence.
R. Sungenis: Let’s remind ourselves who the harbinger is for “turning the scientific method on its head.”
That person was Albert Einstein, no holds barred. Here’s the other side of the story:
After the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment that showed the Earth wasn’t moving through space, the
scientific world was beside itself with consternation. As Einstein’s biographer puts it:
“The problem which now faced science was considerable. For there
seemed to be only three alternatives. The first was that the Earth was
standing still, which meant scuttling the whole Copernican theory and
was unthinkable.”15
Everyone in the physics establishment saw the same implications, and they were quite worried. As several
authors describe it:
The data [of the interferometers] were almost unbelievable…. There was only one other
possible conclusion to draw – that the Earth was at rest. This, of course, was preposterous.16
Always the speed of light was precisely the same….Thus, failure [of Michelson-Morley] to
observe different speeds of light at different times of the year suggested that the Earth must be
‘at rest’…It was therefore the ‘preferred’ frame for measuring absolute motion in space. Yet we
have known since Galileo that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Why should it be at
rest in space?17
In the effort to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment…the thought was advanced that the
Earth might be stationary….Such an idea was not considered seriously, since it would mean in
effect that our Earth occupied the omnipotent position in the universe, with all the other
heavenly bodies paying homage by revolving around it.18
Even Michelson couldn’t avoid the implications of his experiment:
Einstein: The Life and Times, 1984, pp. 109-110.
Bernard Jaffe, Michelson and the Speed of Light, p. 76.
17
Adolf Baker, Modern Physics & Antiphysics, pp. 53-54.
18
Arthur S. Otis, Light Velocity and Relativity, p. 58.
15
16
13
This conclusion directly contradicts the explanation of the phenomenon of aberration which has
been hitherto generally accepted, and which presupposes that the Earth moves.19
The “other alternative” was merely an ad hoc theory that both Lorentz and Einstein
dreamed up in order to deny the Earth was standing still. Hendrik Lorentz went first in
1892. He claimed that Michelson’s experiment made it look like the Earth wasn’t
moving only because his apparatus shrank against the ether in space – just enough to
give such an appearance. How convenient! But he was forced to such an answer,
otherwise he would have to admit the Earth wasn’t moving in space and the Catholic
Church was right.
A decade or so later, no one had come up with a better explanation. So, in 1905, Einstein was forced to
accept Lorentz’s “shrinking” hypothesis, but he didn’t like Lorentz’s cause for the shrinkage – ether
pressure – since there was no scientific evidence that ether shrank objects.
So Einstein decided to eliminate the ether and postulate that the shrinkage had to be from a mysterious
“principle of nature” wherein objects shrink when they move. In other words, they shrank by some
magical process unexplained by Einstein or his followers TO THIS VERY DAY. In fact, Einstein was
accused by his critics of violating the metaphysical principle of cause-and-effect. It didn’t matter to
Einstein, however. He had kept the Earth moving and everyone was happy. No one had to become
Catholic. The ironic fact is, however, no one had ever measured a shrinkage. It was just assumed to be so
because, well, ‘everyone knew the Earth was moving,’ just like everyone knew the Emperor had clothes
on. 
Not only did Lorentz and Einstein give the world this ad hoc and unprovable theory of shrinking objects
in order to make it appear the Earth was still moving, they also “turned science on its head” by adding
time dilation and mass increase. The reason they were forced to is simple. If an object is moving from
point A to point B but it is shrinking while it is moving, then the object is not going to reach point B in
the same time it would if it were not shrinking. So, in order to compensate for this problem, Einstein had
to increase the time that the object traveled to point B. Viola! We have time dilation added to the mix.
That’s not all. If the object shrinks while it travels to point B, then it becomes denser and thus the mass
must increase in proportion to its volume.
So, to recap, Einstein “turned the scientific method on its head” by inventing the ad hoc theories of:
(1) length contraction,
(2) time dilation,
(3) mass increase.
And he did so in order to escape the simple fact that the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment showed the
Earth wasn’t moving through space, just like the Catholic Church said 300 years earlier.
Albert A. Michelson, “The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” American Journal of
Science, Vol. 22, August 1881, p. 125.
19
14
Ironically, Einstein knew an immovable Earth was one solution to the problem. As his biographer puts it:
As Einstein wrestled with the cosmological implications of the General Theory, the first of
these alternatives, the Earth-centered universe of the Middle Ages, was effectively ruled out…20
Indeed, it was “ruled out,” yet not by any scientific proof but only because, after having four hundred
years of Copernicanism drummed into one’s head from childhood, it was “unthinkable” to believe that
mankind got it wrong and that the Earth was actually motionless in space.
But there was a price to pay for this presumption. Rejecting what was “unthinkable” created what was
unmanageable. If the Earth wouldn’t budge, then science had to budge, and thus Einstein was forced to
invent a whole new physics. As Mr. Palm says, “turn the scientific method on its head.” Consequently,
Relativity theory advanced principles and postulates that heretofore would have been considered
completely absurd by previous scientists, all in an effort to answer the numerous experiments that showed
the Earth was motionless in space. In that day The Times of London called Einstein’s Relativity “an
affront to common sense.”21 Indeed it was, and still is.
So, we will borrow Mr. Palm’s words above: “It really is just that simple. But it shouldn’t come as a
surprise.”
Why? Because Albert Einstein was an atheist, an immoral man, and virulently anti-Christian, and
specifically anti-Catholic. The last thing Einstein and his fellow atheists wanted to admit was that the
Catholic Church was right in 1616 and 1633 when it condemned his Copernicanism and Relativity.
Einstein and his fellow atheists would do anything to avoid such an embarrassment, even, to borrow Mr.
Palm’s words, if it meant “turning the scientific method on its head,” which is precisely what Einstein did
when he invented Relativity in 1905 since there was absolutely no proof that a body shrank when it
moved.
The ironic thing is, Einstein was forced to invent General Relativity ten years later in 1915 for the
weaknesses of the Special theory (since the Special theory did not include gravity or acceleration, and
thus really could not be applied practically anywhere in the universe). But when he did so, he quickly
discovered that whereas he tried to use the Special theory to keep the Earth moving and away from the
center, the General theory, as we noted earlier, allowed the Earth to be non-moving and in the center of
the universe. As such, Einstein was hoist by his own petard, but few have been made aware of it.
We should also mention that the General theory contradicted two more important aspects of the Special
theory. (1) The Special theory says there is no ether and objects shrink on their own; but the General
theory says there is ether but makes no stipulation that objects shrink when they move; and (2) the Special
theory says the speed of light is constant and could never vary in the vacuum of space; but the General
theory says that light, and ANY material object, can travel at any speed in the vacuum of space. Go
figure.
Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 267.
Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 101. In 1920, physicist Oliver Lodge said that Relativity was “repugnant to
common sense” and of Relativists he said “however much we may admire their skill and ability, I ask whether they
ought not to be regarded as Bolsheviks and pulled up” (“Popularity Relativity and the Velocity of Light,” Nature,
vol. CVI, November 4, 1920, p. 326).
20
21
15
Again, this is a perfect example of “turning science on its head” to reach the desired goal. The goal was to
keep the Earth moving and out of the center so that atheists like Einstein would not need to bow to the
God who made the Earth. They would twist and turn physics until they got their wish.
In fact, most of modern cosmology has been one effort after another to keep the Earth out of the center
when the scientific evidence put it in the center. This is what our movie, The Principle, and our DVD,
Journey to the Center of the Universe, show in painstaking detail.
It behooves you to find out the truth.
Robert Sungenis
November 18, 2015
www.theprinciplemovie.com
www.JourneytotheCenteroftheUniverse.com
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