Introducing the TYCHOS

[simonshack]

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THE TYCHOS CURES NEWTON'S HEADACHE (THE MOON)



Dear friends, it is most ironic that the greatest (and still ongoing) astronomical controversy of all times revolved around our own Moon's motions. After all, the Moon is our largest, nearmost and thus most intensely studied celestial body: shouldn't our world's scientific community have fully settled the matter by now, after all these years / centuries? How can the Moon's motions still be such a hotly debated question? Here's what we can read today at Wikipedia (my bolds) :

"Lunar theory attempts to account for the motions of the Moon. There are many small variations (or perturbations) in the Moon's motion, and many attempts have been made to account for them."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_theory

Attempts. Just attempts....The "Lunar theory" Wikipedia page goes on saying that "after centuries of being problematic, lunar motion is now modeled to a very high degree of accuracy." Well, that is simply untrue - since modern scientists are still looking to solve the Moon's seemingly inexplicable orbital motions - as this abstract (from a scientific study dated 2011) concludes:

"Thus, the issue of finding a satisfactorily explanation for the anomalous behavior of the Moon's eccentricity remains open." https://arxiv.org/abs/1102.0212

As for what concerns Newton's stance on the matter, the Moon's motions were notoriously problematic to him :

"The motion of the Moon is very complicated. Sir Isaac Newton is supposed to have told his friend Halley that lunar theory "made his head ache and kept him awake so often that he would think of it no more."
https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/ ... /0006-0024

No wonder that the Moon's motions caused pain in Sir Isaac's brain : they stubbornly refused to comply with his gravitational theories!
Let's have a quick look at what the Moon Controversy was all about - as documented in astronomy literature:


https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00348444

To be sure, the Moon's motions were (and still are) in serious conflict with Newton's gravitational "Laws". It is a matter of historical record that Newton's "Laws" were contradicted by the Moon's "inexplicable, renegade behavior" - and that this plain fact ignited a humongous, endless controversy among our world's scientific community which, incredibly enough, remains unresolved to this day. Now, don't let any smartass astronomer tell you otherwise (i.e. that "the Moon controversy was eventually resolved") - for it would be a bare-faced lie which flies in the face of what has been repeatedly admitted in (earnest) astronomy literature - as I am partially documenting here.

What astronomy students are taught today is that the Moon's utterly bewildering motions were successively "resolved" by some of the most revered scientists of our times (e.g. Euler, Horrocks, Lagrange, Laplace, Clairaut, Dunthorne, Mayer, Einstein - to name a few), all of whom contributed in constructing a vast number of "terms" and "perturbations" that would supposedly account for the Moon's puzzling motions. Eventually, a veritable hodgepodge of theories were formulated in order to "rescue" Newton's sacrosanct Gravitational Laws. Here's what we can read today at the "Lunar Theory" Wikipedia page:

"The analysts of the mid-18th century expressed the perturbations of the Moon's position in longitude using about 25-30 trigonometrical terms. However, work in the nineteenth and twentieth century led to very different formulations of the theory so these terms are no longer current. The number of terms needed to express the Moon's position with the accuracy sought at the beginning of the twentieth century was over 1400; and the number of terms needed to emulate the accuracy of modern numerical integrations based on laser-ranging observations is in the tens of thousands: there is no limit to the increase in number of terms needed as requirements of accuracy increase." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_theory

As you can see, dear friends, there is apparently "no limit" to the increase of terms needed to explain the Moon's motion! The numbers of these terms keep growing - year by year. And most assuredly, our modern-day astronomy students are strongly discouraged from questioning the validity of the same. To be sure, it is "scientific heresy" to question the "established science" of our world's most acclaimed scientists. But let me submit a few more excerpts of astronomy literature to back up and document my previous assertion (that most astronomers, back in the days, agreed at least upon ONE thing, i.e. that the Moon's motions gravely contradicted Netwon's Gravitational Laws):

Here's an extract from the book "Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science" - by Charles Coulston Gillispie (1997) :


Source: https://books.google.it/books?id=PwBaDw ... an&f=false

And here's an extract from the "Edinburgh Review or Critical Journal", again highlighting the fact that the Moon's observed motions (with its so-called "anomalies and inequalities") were in stark contradiction with Newton's gravitational theories :


Source: https://books.google.it/books?id=jOxhfG ... on&f=false

The problems with the Moon's motions ranged from its observed periodic (short-term) motions - and all the way to its secular (long-term) motions over the centuries. The latter triggered a gigantic (and still unsettled) debate - as studies of the ancient solar / lunar eclipses suggested that the Moon, over time, was thought to be continually "accelerating" although, paradoxically enough, its orbital speed was thought to be decreasing! Other theories proposed that Earth's rotation was actually decelerating. In short - and to put it bluntly and frankly - it was all a big mess.

“Astronomers who studied the timing of eclipses over many centuries found that the Moon seemed to be accelerating in its orbit, but what was actually happening was that the Earth’s rotation was slowing down. The effect was first noticed by Edmund Halley in 1695, and first measured by Richard Dunthorne in 1748 — though neither one really understood what they were seeing.”
https://www.tychos.info/citation/134A_M ... g-Away.htm

I shall start with these supposed secular "accelerations" of the Moon - and demonstrate how the TYCHOS can account for them in the simplest imaginable manner. My two below graphics should suffice to illustrate the matter in easily comprehensible fashion.


The TYCHOS - and the Moon's apparent secular acceleration

My below diagram illustrates how and why the Moon will APPEAR to accelerate over the centuries (yet, it is only an illusion caused by what I believe must be the true geometry / configuration of our solar system - as expounded in my TYCHOS model) :




My next graphic shows how the Moon (in the TYCHOS model) will naturally appear to accelerate in relation to an earthly observer - yet, at the same time, will appear to decelerate in relation to the Sun (due to the Gregorian calendar's faulty year count - as thoroughly expounded in my TYCHOS book (http://www.tychos.info) :



This, dear friends, concludes the TYCHOS model's explanations for the observed SECULAR (long-term) motions of the Moon. In short, the apparent "accelerations" (of the Moon) and "decelerations" (of Earth's rotation) are illusory. They are all due to Earth's tranquil yet steady 1.6-km/h motion around its PVP orbit (covering 14,036km every year), a motion that the TYCHOS model has now proven beyond reasonable doubt.


Let us now take a close look at the PERIODIC (short-term) motions of the Moon - an issue which has baffled astronomers and mathematicians alike for many centuries :



The TYCHOS - and the Moon's major longitudinal variation (a.k.a. the "evection")

The Moon is observed to oscillate (it apparently "accelerates and decelerates" Eastwards and Westwards against the 'fixed' stars) by +/- 1.274° (or 4586.45" seconds of arc) with a period of 31.8 days. This is what astronomers call the Moon's "EVECTION" - which they believe to be caused "by the action of the Sun" - or / and by a host of other proposed effects, such as "tidal forces", "core-mantle coupling" - assorted turbulences and "planetary perturbations".

All these various "gravitational / or non-gravitational disturbances" had to be imagined / invented by our most eminent astronomers, physicists and mathema[g]icians - since the Moon's observed motions obstinately refused to obey Newtons' Laws. The theories kept piling up, yet none of them succeeded to attain any sort of plausible, let alone precise answers to the puzzling motions of the Moon.

Perhaps the most cringeworthy attempt ever made to "save Newton's face" was that of Paul Dirac, considered as "one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century." Here's what we may read in a paper by F.R Stephenson published in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association :

"The most plausible cause of a non-tidal acceleration is a possible time rate of change of G, as was first proposed by Dirac. Such a change would affect the planets as well as the Moon, producing accelerations (or decelerations) in the exact ratio of the mean motions."
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1981JBAA...91..136S

Huh? A "time rate of change of G", the so-called "gravitational constant"? Oh well... So hey, gentlemen, let's just tweak that "constant" and make it a "non-constant," et voilà - Newton wins again!.. It is almost comical to see how many ad hoc "solutions" have been unashamedly put forth - by the brightest (or most acclaimed) minds of science - so as to try and "accomodate" the Newtonian principles.


We shall now examine (under the TYCHOS "lens") the largest observed "inequality" (or "anomaly") of the lunar motion - i.e. what is known as the Moon's "EVECTION" :

EVECTION https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evection

"In astronomy, evection (Latin for "carrying away") is the largest inequality produced by the action of the Sun in the monthly revolution of the Moon around the Earth. The evection, formerly called the Moon's second anomaly, was approximately known in ancient times, and its discovery is attributed to Ptolemy.

Evection causes the Moon's ecliptic longitude to vary by approximately ± 1.274° [or ± 4586.45" seconds of arc], with a period of about 31.8 days. The evection in longitude is given by the expression +4586.45''\ sin(2D-L), where D is the mean angular distance of the Moon from the Sun (its elongation), and L is the mean angular distance of the moon from its perigee (mean anomaly). It arises from an approximately six-monthly periodic variation of the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit and a libration of similar period in the position of the Moon's perigee, caused by the action of the Sun."

In simpler words, this means that the Moon's longitude in the sky is observed to vary by as much as ± twice its diameter (Eastwards or Westwards of the so-called "mean moon"*) for a total of somewhat more than four lunar diameters (3474km X 4) - or approximately 14,000km. Here follows a simple diagram to visualize this fact:

* [The "mean moon"] is an imaginary body which orbits the Earth, in the ecliptic plane, at a steady angular velocity that is equal to the Moon's mean orbital angular velocity http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/3 ... de133.html

The Moon is observed to move every minute of time (as seen from Earth) by 32.9" seconds of arc. We can therefore express the amplitude of the Moon's observed oscillation (4586.45") in minutes of time:

4586.45 / 32.9 = 139.4 min
Hence, the Moon is observed to oscillate back and forth (i.e. appears to speed up and slow down) by +/- 139.4 minutes of (solar) time every 31.8 days.

31.8 days is 16.6% more than 27.2848 days - which is the mean value of the Moon's 360° annual revolutions within the time frame of a tropical year, i.e. 365.24219 / 13.386266. The latter little-known value is from a rigorously researched paper by the Binary Research Institute:

"Lunar calculations, comparing the delta of the moon’s revolutions around the earth in a tropical year, 13.386266, to the number of new moons in a tropical year, 12.368266, apply the same principle and confirm the same thing; the delta of “one” (lunar orbits in this case) occurs in the time frame of the tropical year." http://binaryresearchinstitute.com/bri/ ... pg-web.pdf

Now, in 31.8 days the Moon will have moved considerably more than 360°. However, since we wish to know the mean / average amplitude of the Moon's evection over just 360° of its motion , we need to reduce our 139.4-min figure by 16.6% - which gives us a figure of 116.4 minutes of time. In other words, the Moon "accelerates" by 116.4 min of time during one half of its orbit around Earth - and "decelerates" by 116.4 min of time in the other half of its orbit (the two halves corresponding "spatially" to the Sun's two six-month periods).

Our celestial sphere's time scale (around which our clocks are calibrated) is of course determined by the Sun's annual 360° revolution around Earth: there are 525,948min in a 360° solar (or "tropical") year.

Hence, we will need to quantify the amplitude of Moon's evection against our 360° "solar minute-scale", since the observed longitudinal (East-West) oscillations that this evection induces (over a 360° lunar journey around our celestial sphere) corresponds to ±116.4 minutes of solar / clock time.

Now, 116.4 min amounts to 0.0221% of 525,948 min (i.e. one solar year)

As of the TYCHOS, the Moon's "mean" (or actually constant) orbital speed is ca. 3656 km/h.

We see that 0.0221% of 3656 equals 0.8079 or approximately 0.8. This 0.8 "coefficient" would thus represent the six-monthly* speed variation - i.e. the apparent yet illusory acceleration (and / or) deceleration of the Moon.

(*Remember the above-quoted Wikipedia statement: "It [the Moon's evection] arises from an approximately six-monthly periodic variation of the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit.")

In the TYCHOS, we may illustrate this apparent variation of the Moon's speed like so :



Hence, this 0.8 factor would appear to nicely confirm Earth's orbital speed of 1.6 km/h - as proposed by the TYCHOS - as this tranquil speed of Earth would account for the Moon's largest longitudinal inequality known as the "evection". As it is, my proposed 1.6km/h speed of Earth has already solved many other 'mysteries' of astronomy, so this is just yet another confirmation of its qualitative and quantitative exactness.

Let us now perform a last cross-verification of this result (for math geeks and assorted critics) to verify our above figure of 116.4 minutes representing the Moon's observed, six-monthly EAST-WEST "acceleration/deceleration :

1.601169km/h (Earth's orbital speed) is 0.043795% of 3656km/h (the Moon's orbital speed).

0.043795% of 39,290min (the minutes contained in 27.2848 days, i.e. the Moon's mean "tropical" period) is 17.2min.

Now, the full amplitude of the Moon's evection is gauged over a six-month period. In six months, there are 182.625 days, which is 6.6933 X 27.2848 days. In order to verify our above-determined 116.4min-value for the Moon's evection, we should therefore multiply 17.2 minutes by 6.6933:

17.2 X 6.6933 = 115.12 minutes.

Ok, so 115.12 is not exactly 116.4 (a 1.1% discrepancy) - but you may agree that it is a reasonably close match - within the margins of probable error. Perhaps further study will clarify this 1.1% discord, conceivably due to periodic variations of the eccentricity (not ellipticity) of the Moon's circular orbit. To be sure, the Moon's motions are quite complicated - and the TYCHOS does not pretend to resolve all of their subtle irregularities. However, I have just demonstrated that the Moon's LARGEST longitudinal "anomaly" (the so-called evection) can be shown to be accounted for by Earth's 1.6km/h-motion - as proposed by the TYCHOS model.



The TYCHOS accounts for the Moon's perigee oscillation

Here is a classic diagram depicting the minimal and maximal Earth-Moon distances (perigee versus apogee):



In simple words, the Moon's orbit is off-center of Earth's barycenter. Now, does using the "barycenter" word necessarily mean that we are still talking Newtonian gravitational physics? No. Magnetic forces (as experimentally demonstrable here on Earth) may be at play. The TYCHOS model is, in any case, primarily focused on determining the correct geometry of our solar system. As long as we Earthlings haven't correctly determined this geometry (so as to make it agree with empirical observation), we surely cannot pretend to formulate any valid theories as to the physics regulating the same.

NOTE: The above diagram showing the Moon's orbit strangely talks about "overemphasised eccentricity" - whereas what is depicted is a very flat, highly-exaggerated ellipse (a senseless yet all-too-common feature in astronomy illustrations). The circular orbits of our solar system's bodies can be eccentric (i.e. offset from the centre of the body they revolve around) - but need not be ellipitical to be eccentric. As we shall see, in the TYCHOS the perceived ellipticity of our Moon's orbit (as viewed from Earth) is caused by our 1.6km/h motion around the PVP orbit ( see blue orbit in the Tychosium simulator: https://codepen.io/simonshack/pen/JavqPO?editors=0010 )


As I came upon this database which features annual charts of all the Moon-Earth distances for the lunar perigee (and apogee) passages, I was curious to see if those distances might be of interest to the TYCHOS model. Before we get on, I should remind the reader of one of the most 'crucial' distance-values established by the TYCHOS model:

14,036km.
This is the distance that Earth covers every year (in the TYCHOS) - as it moves along its PVP orbit at 1.6km/h. I will henceforth refer to this key value as the "EAM" (Earth's Annual Motion).

As I consulted that detailed chart of the Moon's perigee transits, my attention was naturally drawn to these long-term (i.e. secular) average minimal and maximal lunar perigee distances:

"Over the 5000-year period from -1999 to 3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE), the distance of the Moon's perigee varies from 356,355 to 370,399 km."
http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/moon/m ... p2001.html

So let's see: the difference between 356,355km and 370,399km is:

370,399km - 356,355km= 14,044 km

How interesting: this value is only 8km "off" of the "EAM". As it is, by carefully consulting these lunar perigee charts, it can be easily verified that the Moon's perigee regularly oscillates back and forth every solar year by an average distance of approximately 14,000 km !

As we saw earlier, the Moon's longitudinal variations are also in the 14,000-km range. We may therefore intuitively sense the plain logic of it all - and conceptually illustrate it with the following diagram :



Thus far we have determined that Earth's annual 14,036-km motion (as of the TYCHOS paradigm) can nicely account for both of the major lunar variations (i.e. the Moon's so-called "anomalous inequalities"): the ca. 14,000-km oscillation of its perigee - and its ca.14,000-km longitudinal oscillation (a.k.a. the lunar "evection").

And now comes the "cherry on the cake" - so to speak: the above diagram only conceptually illustrates the fluctuating behavior of the Moon's perigee. So what about the Moon's apogee? Can we also find a 14,000-km "component" in connection to its apogee (the Moon's furthest distance from Earth)? Indeed we can! Here's what we can read about the AVERAGE values of the lunar perigee and apogee:

"The Moon’s distance from Earth (center-to-center) varies with mean values of 363,396 km at perigee (closest) to 405,504 km at apogee (most distant)."
http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/moon/m ... p2001.html

So let's see, we have a difference of: 405,504km - 363,396km = 42,108km

We see that 42,108 equals 3X 14,036 (14,036 + 14,036 + 14,036)!

Since (as we have just seen) the Moon's perigee oscillates by about (1X)14,036km, the other two (2X14,036km) would seem to be logically accounted for by its apogee.

As astounding as this may be, this allows me to reasonably conclude that the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit (i.e. the relation between its perigee and apogee) exhibits an exact 2:1 ratio based on the TYCHOS' all-important EAM value of 14,036km - the distance covered by Earth each year.

Now, to keep our feet firmly anchored on Earth, let me state what follows, dear friends: I am fully aware that all of this may seem almost too good to be true (for the TYCHOS) - but I am certainly not making it up: I have only 'bumped into' this discovery (through patient & persistent efforts, mind you!) - whilst perusing available observational data. Of course, this same data (e.g. the 14,036-km-value) would have meant next to nothing to a Copernican / Keplerian researcher.

To the inevitable naysayers who will argue that this may all just be a case of (multiple) coincidences - I wish them the best of luck computing the odds / probabilities of this being the case. More likely - and in my honest opinion - the Moon's orbital perigee / apogee variations unequivocally "reflect" Earth's annual motion and decidedly concur to corroborate the TYCHOS model's principal contention: namely, that Earth travels at 1,6km/h - covering 14,036km every year.

As ever, more study is needed to finally figure out the exact periodic & secular dynamics of the Moon's motions, yet I am confident that this is well within reach given modern computing power - and given that we now know "what to look for", geometrically speaking.


And thus, my dear friends, the TYCHOS elegantly "conquers the Moon" (and cures Newton's headache)...

[patrix]

Exellent writeup Simon. It is a strange feeling to know this is a very historical moment, but that this will not be realized for many years to come. So let's pull together everyone to make those years as few as possible!

[simonshack]

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ARE ALL STARS PART OF "BINARY" / "DOUBLE" (or multiple) SYSTEMS?

In the first pages of my TYCHOS book I point out that - in Tycho Brahe's times (end of 16th century) - no one knew of the existence of double stars - or what are generally referred to as "binary" star systems. Everyone thought that all of our visible stars in our sky were so-called single stars. Still today, our Sun is considered to be a single, companion-less star. It was only in 1650 (50 years after Tycho Brahe's death) that Giovanni Riccioli discovered the very first double star. Of course, the TYCHOS model proposes that our solar system is a binary system composed of the Sun and Mars - similar to the binary system composed of Sirius A and Sirius B (the four of them being proportionally equal in size : as I "serendipitously discovered", Mars is 0.4881% the diameter of the Sun, whereas Sirius B is 0.4888% the diameter of Sirius A).

Interestingly, Giovanni Riccioli was the author of the "New Almagest" which proposed a modified version of Tycho Brahe's geoheliocentric solar system.
< Note the old Ptolemaic model that lies discarded on the ground, made obsolete by the telescope's discoveries.
"The frontispiece to Riccioli's Almagestrum Novum tells his perspective on the state of astronomy in 1651. Urania, the winged muse of astronomy, holds up a scale with two competing models, a sun centered Copernican model, and the Tychonic geocentric model. Under God's hand from the top of the image, the scale reports the Tychonic model to be heavier and thus the winner." http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/f ... odels.html

By the mid-18th century, double stars were still considered to be a rarity. This belief slowly started to wane when the famous William Herschel started finding hundreds of double stars all over our celestial sphere. Here's a chart of Herschel's 805 certified double star systems: http://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/IMG/WHdisc.gif


"William Herschel's Double Star Discoveries - His 805 confirmed discoveries displayed as an all sky star chart." http://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/herschel.html

Fast-forwarding to the 1980's, one of the major experts in binary star systems, Wullf Heintz, estimated by the end of his career that at least 85% of all the stars had to be part of binary systems. Heintz was the successor of the famed Peter van De Kamp - another world-renowned expert in the field of binary stars. The two colleagues and (onetime) friends are known to have had a fall out over a bitter (and, as we shall see, ultimately ironic) dispute which I will relate in more detail shortly.
< Peter van De Kamp

Today, the numbers of known binary star systems are in the range of several HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS - as we can read in this Russian academic paper [by Malkov, Karchevsky, Kaygorodov, Kovaleva, Skvortsov] published as recently as October 2018:

Binary Star Database (BDB): New Developments and Applications
The Identification List of Binaries (ILB) is a star catalogue constructed to facilitate cross-referencing between different catalogues of binary stars. (...) ILB currently contains about 520,000 entries: 120,000 systems, 140,000 pairs and 260,000 components.
https://res.mdpi.com/data/data-03-00039 ... tachment=1

Clearly, binary systems are certainly no longer a "rarity" - as previously believed! To be sure, practically ALL of our nearest stars have now been firmly established as being double (or multiple) binary systems. You may verify this by yourself by looking them up one by one: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars

But back to Heintz and Van De Kamp : we can read about their bitter controversy on Wikipedia - which had to do with Van de Kamp's strong conviction, matured over many decades of studies, that even the Barnard's star had a binary companion (the Barnard's star is one of our nearmost stars - and is famed for being the fastest-moving star in our skies. Yet, in a human lifetime, it will only move by about the angular diameter of our Moon, i.e. approximately 0.5°...). Let me condense the relevant text to be found on Wikipedia :

Barnard's Star affair
"In the spring of 1937, Van de Kamp left McCormick Observatory to take over as director of Swarthmore College's Sproul Observatory. There he made astrometric measurements of Barnard's Star and in the 1960s reported a periodic "wobble" in its motion, apparently due to planetary companions. (...) Astronomer John L. Hershey found that this anomaly apparently occurred after each time the objective lens was removed, cleaned, and replaced. Hundreds more stars showed "wobbles" like Barnard's Star's when photographs before and after cleaning were compared – a virtual impossibility. Wulff Heintz, Van de Kamp's successor at Swarthmore and an expert on double stars, questioned his findings and began publishing criticisms from 1976 onwards; the two are reported to have become estranged because of this. Van de Kamp never admitted that his claim was in error and continued to publish papers about a planetary system around Barnard's Star into the 1980s, while modern radial velocity curves place a limit on the planets much smaller than claimed by Van de Kamp. Recent evidence suggests that there is, indeed, a planet orbiting Barnard's Star, albeit of much lower mass than Van de Kamp could have detected."

And here's what we can read about the search for the Barnard's star's elusive companion - on Wikipedia's BARNARD'S STAR page :

"Even though this research greatly restricted the possible properties of planets around Barnard's Star, it did not rule them out completely as terrestrial planets were always going to be difficult to detect. NASA's Space Interferometry Mission, which was to begin searching for extrasolar Earth-like planets, was reported to have chosen Barnard's Star as an early search target. This mission was shut down in 2010. ESA's similar Darwin interferometry mission had the same goal, but was stripped of funding in 2007." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard%27s_Star

So both NASA's and ESA's efforts to search for Barnard's companion, we are told, were ...shut down ! One may wonder why. Lack of funding? Really? Or are NASA and ESA perhaps unwilling - for some reason - to help establishing that ALL of the stars in our skies are in fact double / multiple binary systems? Hmm. Maybe because this would imply the absurd notion that our Sun is the ONLY non-binary star in the entire universe - and thus utterly destroy the plausibility of the currently-accepted Copernican / heliocentric model ?

Well, it now turns out that Heintz was wrong - and that Van De Kamp was right all along: just last month (November 2018), here's what the ground-based European Observatory announced:

Super-Earth Orbiting Barnard’s Star
Red Dots campaign uncovers compelling evidence of exoplanet around closest single star to Sun
"A planet has been detected orbiting Barnard’s Star, a mere 6 light-years away. This breakthrough — announced in a paper published today in the journal Nature — is a result of the Red Dots and CARMENES projects, whose search for local rocky planets has already uncovered a new world orbiting our nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri.

The planet, designated Barnard's Star b, now steps in as the second-closest known exoplanet to Earth. The gathered data indicate that the planet could be a super-Earth, having a mass at least 3.2 times that of the Earth, which orbits its host star in roughly 233 days. Barnard’s Star, the planet’s host star, is a red dwarf, a cool, low-mass star, which only dimly illuminates this newly-discovered world."
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1837/

And in this 'sister' article, we can read something that is of interest to the TYCHOS model (what with its proposed 1.6-km/h-speed of Earth):

"There have actually been many previous searches for planets around Barnard’s Star, and even announcements of discoveries, but not one has ever been confirmed. The thing is that the candidate planet we found is so small and so far from its host star that its effect on the star is really, really tiny. The planet only changed the star’s speed by 4.3 km/h in each direction and with a long period of 233 days, making it extremely difficult to detect. Finding the planet was only possible by collecting an enormous number of velocity measurements. In total, we combined nearly 800 measurements from seven different facilities."
https://www.eso.org/public/blog/searchi ... exoplanet/

As it is, another quite recent discovery (August 2016) was that of a binary companion ( now named "Proxima Centauri B ) of our NEARMOST star, Proxima Centauri. Here's what we can read about it:

"The Pale Red Dot data, when combined with earlier observations made at ESO observatories and elsewhere, revealed the clear signal of a truly exciting result. At times Proxima Centauri is approaching Earth at about 5 kilometres per hour — normal human walking pace — and at times receding at the same speed. This regular pattern of changing radial velocities repeats with a period of 11.2 days. Careful analysis of the resulting tiny Doppler shifts showed that they indicated the presence of a planet with a mass at least 1.3 times that of the Earth, orbiting about 7 million kilometres from Proxima Centauri — only 5% of the Earth-Sun distance."
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/

Wow: both of these recent discoveries (of the companions of Barnard's star and Proxima Centauri) report extremely slow "wobbling" speeds - in the range of "normal human walking pace" - much like the tranquil orbital speed of Earth (1.6 km/h) proposed by the TYCHOS model! Just think about it: have we not all been accustomed to hear about extremely fast / supersonic / hypersonic speeds - in the context of planetary motions in our cosmos? Yet, we now have nearby stars such as Barnard and Proxima "wobbling" back and forth at a mere 4 or 5 kilometres per hour?

Well, as of the TYCHOS, "alien" astronomers living outside of our solar system would conceivably be measuring our Sun's "wobble" as a 1.6 km/h motion - a speed which is very much within the range of the observed "wobbles" of Barnard and Proxima (respectively 4.3km/h and 5 km/h).

And to be sure, it certainly now appears that, quite possibly, ALL of our stars have a so-called "binary" companion (although they keep calling these newly-detected bodies "exoplanets"). Hence, dear friends, what are the odds for the Sun to be the sole exception to this rule? And why would the Sun be the fastest-moving star of ALL the stars in our cosmos? (the Sun is said to be moving at 222 km-per-second, more than twice than the Barnard's star's alleged speed of 110 km-per-second!). It all really makes very little sense.

In conclusion: we live in a binary system composed by the Sun and Mars. Tycho Brahe's geometrical configuration of our solar system was basically correct. He only missed a few pieces of the puzzle - which the TYCHOS has now integrated in his original "geoheliocentric" model: the 1.6km/h-motion of Earth around its PVP orbit (Polaris-Vega-Polaris) as it rotates once a day around its axis, completing one of its PVP orbits in 25344 years. Mercury and Venus are the Sun's two moons. Phobos and Deimos are Mars's two moons. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto/Charon ( another mini-binary system ) all revolve in circular / yet somewhat eccentric orbits around our Sun-Mars binary system.* (Pluto-Charon binary system: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/ ... 42/3101592 )

* Giovanni Riccioli favoured a modified version of Tycho Brahe's system. Here is how he described the system that "came to [his] mind" when he was in Parma : "it shares everything with the Tychonian system, except the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter; for [me] their center was not the Sun, but Earth itself". This is, in fact, precisely what the TYCHOS model propounds! One truly has to wonder why Riccioli (pronounced "Ritcholee" in English) is today virtually unknown to the general public - since some scholars consider his work to have superseded that of Galileo. And remember, Riccioli can claim the extraordinary distinction of having been the first man on this planet to have discovered a double star !

"The historian of science Edward Grant has described [Riccioli's] Book 9 as being the "probably the lengthiest, most penetrating, and authoritative" analysis of this question made by "any author of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries", in his opinion apparently superseding even Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems — Ptolemaic and Copernican. Indeed, one writer has recently described Book 9 as "the book Galileo was supposed to write". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_ ... a_Riccioli

The TYCHOSIUM 2D shows how our "inner" solar system revolves : https://codepen.io/simonshack/pen/JavqPO?editors=0010

The TYCHOSIUM 3D (a work in progress) will show how our entire solar system (incl. Jupiter-to-Pluto) revolves - in 3D.

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As for the problem that some of you will have with the definition of a "binary" or "double star" (there are numerous different types of them), I will recommend you to read this fine paper by Bruce McEvoy - which explains how this only comes down to a question of grammatical nomenclature or, if you will, semantics (e.g. - WHY do we call Mars "a planet" - whereas we call Sirius B "a star" ? They are both VERY MUCH alike - unless you buy the official Newtonian notion that Sirius B is 400,000 X "denser / or heavier" than Earth ... while being slightly smaller than our planet!):

As it is grammatically confusing to give the same name to a thing and to the illusion of the thing — as if a mirage were called optical water — the received usage is profoundly defective. I adopt the following terminology:

• Optical pair (or optical group) for any stars joined by visual appearance only, without any evidence either for or against a possible gravitational bond;

• Pair asterism (or group asterism) for two or more stars assumed from available physical evidence — an extended linear relative motion, divergent proper motions or discrepant geometric or spectroscopic parallax distances — to be dynamically unrelated; and

• Double star (without the redundant multiple star) to denote the three defining criteria that Heintz assigns to it.https://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/bineye5.html#binarystar

[simonshack]

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Dear all,

New Year's eve is upon us - and I dearly hope you all feel happy and comfortable cruising at a tranquil 1mph around the TYCHOS geoaxial binary solar system.

At this moment, I'm expecting a few friends coming to celebrate the New Year - and frantically cleaning my house, so I'll just quickly post this new graphic of mine and let you marvel at the harmonious, commensurate orbital relationships between our Sun, Mars and Earth. I will comment on this further tomorrow - but for those who've been following the TYCHOS research, I trust you will grasp and appreciate the sheer beauty of it all :


THE TYCHOSIUM 2D: https://codepen.io/simonshack/pen/JavqPO?editors=0010

LEGEND:

456.8 Mkm : the officially-accepted and long-established diameter of Mars's orbit
299.2 Mkm: the officially-accepted and long-established diameter of our Sun's orbit

113.2 Mkm : the diameter of Earth's PVP orbit - as established by my TYCHOS research
22.2 Mkm : the eccentricity of Mars's orbit in relation to the Sun's orbit around Earth

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

[simonshack]

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WIKIPEDIA'S PROBLEM WITH EARTH'S SO-CALLED "LUNISOLAR WOBBLE"

Perhaps the most dramatic problem of the Copernican heliocentric theory is that - incredibly enough - it actually lacks an explanation for the most undeniable fact observed in our skies, namely, what is commonly-known as the "Precession of the Equinoxes".

Here's a brief (conventional) "explanation" of what has historically been referred to as "the Precession of the Equinoxes":
https://www.universetoday.com/77640/pre ... equinoxes/

In simple words, what is observed is that ALL THE STARS in our skies appear to slip "backwards" (i.e. from West to East) by about 50.3 arcseconds every year. This, in relation to any earthly observer - or, if you will, in relation to the Sun. To wit, this is also directly related to the fact that our Northern stars change over time (currently star Polaris is our North star - but about 5000 years ago, star Thuban was our North star).

Now, according to the Copernican theory, this would be caused by a slow, clockwise*, wobbling of Earth - a.k.a. "Earth's 3d motion". As the theory goes, Earth revolves counterclockwise around the Sun - and rotates counterclockwise around its axis... yet this axial rotation would also somehow have a (very slow) clockwise motion... That's right, we are told that "Earth is like a spinning top which, as it slows down, starts wobbling from side to side before it falls over". Well - but uh - common sense dictates that such a wobble cannot possibly gyrate in the opposite direction of a spinning top's rotation!

*(Please understand that, by convention, the terms "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" refer to the motions of our solar system as viewed from above our solar system - i.e. as if we were hovering above Earth's North Pole and looking down.)

A spinning top about to fall over:
(rotation: counterclockwise / wobble: counterclockwise).
source: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precessione_degli_equinozi

Now, here's an illustration from the Italian Wikipedia entry for "Precessione degli Equinozi" :


I trust that anyone can see the absurdity of this Copernican contention - or if not, please try and explain JUST HOW this clockwise wobble could physically occur. To be sure, the "Lunisolar wobble" theory is - still today - the official explanation for our Northern stars to slowly alternate (from Polaris to Vega and back to Polaris over a timespan of about 25,000 years).

I then had to laugh heartily when reading that Italian Wikipedia page. As you will know, Wikipedia allows editors to comment on any specific, questionable claims - and to "flag" the same with a request for clarification. Well, in this case - here's what some (smart) editor has complained about:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precessio ... i_equinozi

My best translation of the above Wikipedia text:

Clockwise precession of the Earth's axis

The fact that the precession motion of the Earth is clockwise while that of rotation on itself is counterclockwise is not in contrast with the example of the spinning top. In fact, if the Earth were straight and a force tried to tilt it, then it would develop a motion of counterclockwise precession, in the same direction as the rotation on itself, just as in the case of the spinning top.

In this case, however, the opposite situation occurs: the Earth is inclined and a force tends to straighten it, giving rise to a clockwise precession motion, contrary to the counterclockwise direction of rotation of the Earth. [There is no explanation of the exact reason why the direction of rotation of the precession is opposite to that expected by common logic] < !!!.

Of course, in the TYCHOS model, the "Precession of the Equinoxes" is explained - in the simplest and most "economical" manner - by Earth's clockwise motion as it proceeds at 1mph (or 1.6 km/h) around its PVP orbit (Polaris-Vega-Polaris). An exemplary Occam's razor solution if there ever was one...
https://codepen.io/simonshack/pen/JavqPO?editors=0010

"Occam's razor (also Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor (Latin: novacula Occami); further known as the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae) is the problem-solving principle that essentially states that simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones. When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor


***********
Note: The Copernican "Lunisolar wobble" theory has, in later years, been definitively disproved by a number of proficient independent researchers - as described in Chapter 18 of my book. The supposed "wobble" of Earth cannot exist since this would, for instance (and among other problems), also affect the periodicity of the transits of Venus and Mercury across the Sun's disc, something which is NOT observed. https://www.tychos.info/chapter-18/

[simonshack]

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The WONDROUS "SYNCHRONICITIES" of the Sun/Earth/Moon trio

A string of remarkable synchronicities (for lack of a better term) emerge when comparing the respective rotations and revolutions of Earth, the Sun and the Moon.

They are remarkable in the sense that, if viewed through the COPERNICAN "lens", it becomes extremely difficult to fathom why those multiple (and apparently "coincidental") synchronicities would exist. After all, if Earth is just one of several planets circling the Sun (along with our Moon), it would seem to be a quite quaint circumstance that these three separate celestial bodies would have such "commensurate" (or "resonant") gyrational periods - as I will henceforth illustrate.

Firstly, one has to wonder why the Sun rotates around its axis in the same amount of time (ca 27.3 days - see "Carrington number") that our Moon revolves around its orbit (ca 27.3 days). Did you know this, dear reader? In any case, it is an empirically-observable fact. We can see sunspots on the Sun - and they tell us how long it takes for the Sun to rotate around its axis (about 27.3 days). As for our Moon, we can easily observe it returning to the "same place" (in about 27.3 days).

Let's see how this would look like - under the TYCHOS model's configuration :

Figure 1: The Sun and Moon's 27.3-days synchronicity - as viewed in the TYCHOS model :

Source of Carrington quote: https://books.google.it/books?id=btOgDA ... am&f=false

Not that many people are aware of this fact, mind you: as far as I know (and after having read volumes of astronomy literature over the years) this has never been pointed out - nor much less debated - in any cosmological study! Incredibly enough, you might say...

Let's now see how this Sun-Moon relationship would look like - under the COPERNICAN model's configuration :

Figure 2: The Sun and Moon's 27.3-days synchronicity - as viewed in the COPERNICAN model :


The thing is, if our Moon were just one among dozens of moons (Jupiter's moons, Saturn's moons, etc) circling the Sun, why would only one of these (our own Moon) have such an "intimate relationship" with the Sun? Conversely, if our Moon were instead central to the Sun's orbit (as of the TYCHOS model - see Figure 1), you may agree that this observable fact would suddenly appear to make far more "intuitive sense"- and not only philosophically speaking.

Let us now cross-compare the respective rotational speeds of the Sun, Earth and the Moon.

Rotational speed of Sun: 6675 km/h

Rotational speed of Earth: 1670 km/h

Rotational speed of Moon: 16.68 km/h

We see that:

The Sun's rotational speed is near-exactly 4X Earth's rotational speed (6675/1670 ≈ 4)

The Sun's rotational speed is near-exactly 400X our Moon's rotational speed (6675/16.68 ≈ 400)

[Also, note that Earth's rotational speed is near-exactly 100X our Moon's rotational speed (1670/16.68 ≈ 100)]

One truly has to ask oneself : WHY would our little Moon have such an "intimate / synchronous gyrational relationship" with the Sun - if it were only one of many moons circling around the Sun?

On the other hand, if our Earth & Moon are circling in the middle of the Sun's orbit (as of the TYCHOS model), this all becomes a decidedly less mysterious affair: the Sun, Earth and the Moon share such "synchronicities" simply because they ALL share the same rotational center (unlike the Copernican heliocentric paradigm).

Occam's razor (also Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor (Latin: novacula Occami); further known as the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae) is the problem-solving principle that essentially states that simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

The TYCHOS model is your Occam's razor explanation for the observed behavior of our surrounding cosmos. I can only hope that people will seriously consider this - before my allotted time on this wonderful planet runs out. I need no prizes or accolades as rewards for my efforts: a mere reviewing-process of my model among knowledgeable astronomers (or/and intellectually honest individuals) will suffice. As of today, it hasn't even started - yet, sorry to say - the TYCHOS won't go away.

[simonshack]

*

IMPORTANT POSTILLA / CLARIFICATION

This is a due clarification of my latest post in a separate thread, "Is Betelgeuse roughly the same size as our Sun?"


Of course - and to clarify - I'm not adamant that my 42633 stellar-distance reduction factor is absolutely correct (I may be 'crazy' but I'm not a fool). My point is only that Tycho Brahe might well have been more correct than the Copernicans - as he argued for reasonably-sized stars and rejected the idea of "supergiant stars" dwarfing our Sun to a quite insignificant, teeny-weeny little star. Moreover, today we know that most (over 85% and counting) of our visible stars are 'locked' in double / binary systems, i.e. they revolve (in intersecting orbits and around their common center of mass) around a smaller companion in relatively short orbital periods (examples: Sirius A and B: 50.1 years / Alpha Centauri A and B : 79 years / Polaris A and B: 29 years / etc. etc.). Some even have far shorter orbital periods - of months, weeks, days or hours, but none are known to have a super-duper-gigantic orbit lasting anywhere near 240 MILLION years - as our Sun is claimed to have! According to Copernicans, the Sun would thus be the ONLY known star which lacks a "local" orbit of its own (while hurtling around our galaxy at 800,000 km/h!) - unlike the vast majority of (double) stars we see in our skies, a most unlikely proposition form a purely probabilistic viewpoint.


To wit, Tycho Brahe's own geoheliocentric model featured the Sun and Mars revolving around each other (in intersecting orbits - much like all known double/binary star systems. At the time (late 16th century), Brahe didn't know about the existence of double stars, since the first pair was only discovered about 50 years after his death by Giovanni Battista Riccioli. In our days, modern astronomers keep discovering new double / binary star systems almost on a daily basis - so it is not beyond possibility that the remaining 15% of "single stars" do, in fact, have a binary companion (which is simply too small & faint to be observed even with our best modern instruments). Of course, were this the case (and 100% of our visible stars eventually turn out to be members of double / or multiple systems), our Sun would then be the ONLY single star in our universe - a most absurd notion if there ever was one! The Copernican theory will then - hopefully - die a natural death and be logically discarded for good (unless human intelligence is a dead-born baby).


Here are the models of Tycho Brahe and Pathani Samanta (India's greatest naked-eye observational astronomer who also reached the same conclusion as Brahe):



And here is the TYCHOS, my proposed completion of their work - featuring the "missing piece of the puzzle", i.e. Earth's PVP orbit :



In later months, Patrik and I have been hard at work refining the TYCHOSIUM 3D, an interactive digital "planetarium" which simulates the TYCHOS geoheliocentric model 3-dimensionally. To our delight, it is (slowly but surely) turning out to be a most remarkably accurate machine - insofar as it correctly tracks the motions of our solar system's bodies to a high level of precision. Lately, I have spent days / weeks patiently testing it against numerous existing tables (i.e. observational data from about the mid-16th century and predictions thereof well beyond the year 2000) of planetary conjunctions / transits / oppositions / eclipses, etc. and the results have been extremely satisfactory (as it is, way beyond my expectations). In any event, we have proven beyond any doubt that the TYCHOS model is a totally feasible geometric / mechanical configuration of our solar system - something which cannot be said about the Copernican model (as demonstrated in Chapter 7of my book.

The first "definitive" version of the TYCHOSIUM should hopefully be scheduled for release sometime this year, so stay tuned my dear friends... Soon however (on the 24th of February), Patrik and I will be presenting the TYCHOSIUM 3D at a public event in Gothenburg- for the first time. So please, dear fellow Swedes, try to make time for this event - which won't be televised nor youtubed (according to my perhaps objectionable wishes). Hopefully, I won't make a mess of the presentation - what with my rusty Swedish (and poor knowledge of Swedish astronomy terms...).That's all for now, dear readers and friends - wish us luck, if you will!

[simonshack]

*
Hey all,

I'm off to Sweden tomorrow (have packed my suitcase and given instructions to my friends about how to feed my dog). Will anyone wish me luck?

[michiganj]

Best of luck Simon to both you and Patrik! And kick some Copernican ass !

[patrix]

Best of luck Simon to both you and Patrik! And kick some Copernican ass !

Thank you! :-) And as I just said to a colleague who I invited to our presentation - Sometimes you get a crazy idea. Something that's completely unlikely. For example, that the Solar system model we currently hold as true can be incorrect.

What we do then (naturally) is to look for evidence that can dismiss it. I've done that the past year, and failed. What I've found during my investigation is instead that historic and current evidence supports Simon’s model.

Which in turn means that this is not just a crazy idea, but one of the most important discoveries in modern history. So, thank you Simon for keeping this “crazy” idea in your head . . . investigating it, and making this discovery.

The first "definitive" version of the TYCHOSIUM should hopefully be scheduled for release sometime this year, so stay tuned my dear friends...

I like deadlines sometimes. It gives you an aim, so let's make this official - The scheduled release for TYCHOSIUM 3D will be Wednesday the 20th of March. A fitting date since the TYCHOS was released on the vernal equinox last year.