Talk:Heliocentrism

Sorry, my bad. I was confusing "center of the solar system" with "center of the universe". --Ed Poor 15:21, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I have reluctantly left in the word "generally" that someone else inserted. With the 20th century discoveries of relativity, orbit in the Milky Way, Big Bang, etc, heliocentrism is pretty obsolete. RSchlafly 15:45, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

You can't be serious about heliocentrism being obsolete. There's no other way to explain retrograde motion of the planets, unless you bring up epicycles, which have never once been observed by any spacecraft, satellite, or telescope. This page needs a great deal of work, and i would recommend you just scrap what you have and start over. I'd be willing to do it, but something tells me you dont agree with me that the sun is the center of the solar system... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jwalker (talk)

When he says heliocentrism is obsolete, I doubt he's saying that the earth and other planets in the solar system don't revolve around the sun. I think he's pointing out that the entire universe is not centered at the sun. The entire solar system revolves around the center of the milky way, in the same way that the moon revolves around the earth while the earth revolves around the sun. Hermann1359 17:19, 31 January 2008 (EST)

I have made some changes to the article in an effort to clarify. Clearly no-one holds a heliocentric view of the universe any more. Even a strict heliocentric view of the solar system does not really work because orbits are elliptical (although that might be getting to a level of detail that is beyond the scope of this article). I think that the paragraph referring to relativity is incorrect, however. Where orbits are concerned there are preferred frames of reference. More editing required I think. --GDewey 17:26, 31 January 2008 (EST)

Orbits are eliptical, yes, but still centered on the sun... Barikada 18:00, 31 January 2008 (EST)