Galileo Was Wrong, A Scientific Documentary On Geocentrism
Galileo Was Wrong, A Scientific Documentary On Geocentrism produced by CAI Publishing INC., is a science documentary that is different from the usual science that we are supposed to believe in. It is an astonishingly good science documentary film for many different reasons. This film is so good and has such a high positive educational value that it ought to be shown in every advanced high school physics class, as well as physics for liberal arts, introductory college physics, and astronomy or cosmology classes. Every college in America should provide this film to its students for its amazing educational value. This film also should be shown on PBS and the BBC as an educational film, since it is far superior to the NOVA and Discovery science documentary films that appear on those networks. This is the best educational film that I have ever seen that covers the topics of modern physics and cosmology. It is the latest most up to date documentary that discusses the current, and as we discover in the film, the most important science discoveries of our lifetime.
The film is the creation of Robert Sungenis, who wrote and produced this astounding film. He and his small team of really talented people have produced an amazingly professional film on a shoestring budget. Robert in collaboration with Keith Jones produced this film. Robert’s son Austin Sungenis wrote the original music score. Keith with Robert’s help is responsible for the graphics and the animations. These are an important part of the film and give it a lot of its credibility. That is because the animated graphics help make the arguments understandable to the viewer. That is certainly the most important quality of this film. That is its ability to make a lot of difficult scientific subjects understandable.
The film has a theme and it is that theme that holds the film together and gives it coherence. The theme is to present a modern theory of geocentrism. This is a philosophy, informed by theology, that holds that the earth is the center of the universe and that the sun, planets, stars of our galaxy, galaxies, and quasars revolve around a stationary immobile earth. The resulting scientific cosmological model is supposed to have been discredited by the discovery by Galileo of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, that revolve around that planet. Hence follows the name of the film, Galileo Was Wrong, but that title is misleading, in that the film is not about Galileo or his proof that the earth moved through space in its annual revolution around the sun. The film, contrary to the accepted scientific belief of our day, marshals detailed convincingly valid evidence for a massive 4.5 hour documentary full of compelling scientific evidence that demonstrates that the earth is stationary in space at the center of the universe. This is a pretty astounding claim. It is tempting to dismiss this idea as not worthy of being discussed or investigated. However, the evidence presented is based upon sound accurate science facts. The film needs to be viewed, and its arguments for geocentrism digested, then carefully analyzed, by anyone who is interested in real factual science, and not just the blind acceptance of the established beliefs currently being taught in schools.
This review gives the film a score on a 1 to 10 scale in the following subject areas. Educational Value, Quality of scientific facts, Science Quality or Scientific Merit, Historical Accuracy, Technical Proficiency or the quality of the production its graphics sound etc., Entertainment Value or its ability to maintain the interest and understanding of the viewer, and finally its level of Speculation. The film ratings are as follows: Educational Value-10, Scientific facts-10, Scientific Merit-9, Historical Accuracy-9, Technical Proficiency-10, Entertainment Value-9, Speculation-9. The reader should take notice that these are very high ratings, and that is because this writer thinks this is an outstanding scientific documentary film. Here is why.
Beginning with the easier ratings, the technical proficiency will be discussed first. The film opens with a stunning montage of astronomical scenes in the DVD scene selection. There is an amazing accompanying music score. Before I viewed the film, I was mesmerized by just watching and listening to this introductory sequence. It is longer than most DVD sequences of this type. I could have watched this for a very long time over and over again. It was that compelling as just pure sight and sound entertainment. The film uses standard documentary practice, by presenting graphics and voice over narration. In some places, film is used for voice over. In particular the film sequences of Einstein were very interesting to me. I would have liked to have viewed more film sequences with voice over. There was a lot of use of animated graphics to depict the geocentric and heliocentric cosmological models. These are very high quality and made the issues discussed by narrator much easier to understand. There were some amazing graphics in which original letters were displayed and passages cited in narration. Other places scientific documents were shown on screen while the narrator cited the underlined or highlighted passages. This gave the positive impression of authenticity to what was said. These cited passages were of themselves a very important to the history of science in that it pulled together a lot of discordant facts to present the story in its historical context. The audio was good quality and the video was perfectly viewable except in some places where there appeared to be a DVD malfunction that lasted briefly. Overall this is a very high quality DVD video production, hence the 10 rating.
This film is rated 10 for Educational Value. There are many reason for this rating, the main one being that this film has a high factual content. It demonstrates what science is trying to accomplish, it illustrates the use of scientific method in a dramatic way, and it demonstrates the means by which science achieves its goals. It does this by the use of a thorough and complete discussion of the history, scientific experiments, the theories and interpretations used in the past and it shows how science grows by incorporating new discoveries and new interpretations. The experimental evidence is described in detail and the facts that the experiments support are fully analyzed.
Regarding entertainment value, the film was marred by being tedious and overly long. There were a lot of long narration sequences and that tended to cause my mind to wander and daydream. This is not easily fixed in a film that covers as much ground as this film does. Fortunately the film is divided up into self contained chapters, that can be viewed in different sessions. Clearly, the value of the film is in the details and not in its ability to hold the viewers attention. I gave the film a high rating because it kept me interested despite the fact that I was familiar with most of the topics being covered. I gave the film a 9 rating for entertainment value. This is a high rating, because I was entertained for 4.5 hours.
In the area of scientific facts the film is outstanding. This is not something that is to be dismissed. The film is carefully researched and it is meticulous in presenting the technical details. This is enhanced by the graphics that make describing a difficult to understand experiment understandable. There is a lot of material covered in the film. The film does not cut corners in giving the scientific facts. They are marshaled and presented according to relevance. The education level assumed for the audience is fairly advanced as well. So the film challenges the viewers abilities to understand complex and new scientific facts, and its does a very good job of it. Most important though is that the facts are carefully researched and accurate. They are correct fully established science, not made up or misinterpreted. The scientific facts rating of 10 is justly deserved.
The scientific merit rating is subjective and reflects upon the reviewers personal opinions on what constitutes good science. I gave the film a rating of 9 because I was not quite satisfied that the way some of the facts were interpreted was exactly correct. To be clear about this, the difference between the facts and the interpretation is basically what is most important in science. The film does a really good job of discussing the facts from the philosophical perspective of building a cosmological model based on geocentrism. Scientific merit in my view refers to the overall quality of the conclusions based upon the presented facts of the case. There were some, but not many, places where the film was obscure or ambiguous or perhaps I should say unconvincing. The really strong point of the film that justifies recommending that it be shown to students is its high educational value and the fact that the film is actually doing science. That is it is showing exactly how a scientific argument is constructed and demonstrated using empirical facts to make the case. Overall, the film received a 9 rating because the arguments were based upon sound logical reasoning, with factual evidence in support, and were mostly convincing.
I gave the film a 9 rating for historical accuracy, because I did not think all of the facts were correct in every instance. That means there were some places where I thought there was a slight error. These instances involve complicated technical details and were not significant with regards to the overall accuracy of the film. The film was not perfect but very close. I will discuss the places where there were some problems later.
In the speculation rating the film received a 8 out of 10, where a high rating implies little speculation. This is mainly in the area where the film discusses a geocentric cosmological model. There is a section at the end which discusses this model. This is based upon the evidence that was presented regarding the scientific facts of the experiments and the observational investigations. Since there is little scientific discussion of geocentric cosmology in the scientific literature, this model is just the producers interpretation of the facts. I think that this has not been discussed much in the scientific community that there is an element of speculation in this model. But I think it is not a model born out of fantasy, or unbridled speculation, so I think that what is speculation in the film is based upon the facts as interpreted by the producers of the film. Hence I gave the film an 8 rating. The primary reason for giving the film a rating of 8 is that there were some speculative ideas and reasoning in the film.
The theme of the film is that the scientific facts do not support the heliocentric model that is accepted as correct by the scientific community. There are a lot of experiments that contradict the motion of the earth revolving around the sun. The most famous is the Michelson-Morley experiment. That experiment and others are discussed in detail. This is one of the best parts of the film since the evidence is discussed in a clear, logical manner based on historical order. It is pointed out that this is the foundation of the relativity theories of Einstein. Then it is noted how the special relativity theory attempts to remove the experimental fact that the earth is not measured to be moving at the required velocity according to the heliocentric model. There is an extensive discussion in the film of the different attempts to remove the discrepancy and how the special relativity is supposed to remove the difficulty. The experimental evidence is presented in a compelling way so that the experiments are understandable. The film endeavors to explain why the special relativity theory is not successful at removing the contradiction against the heliocentric model. This part of the film is important and needs to be presented and explained in every modern physics course. In the film, it is presented as fundamental physics and explained in a manner that is clear and precise. This is why this film needs to be viewed by a wide audience.
In the reviewer’s judgment the arguments presented for the geocentric model were convincing. That is because geocentrism was not a new or alien idea. The idea that all motion is relative is an obvious fact that is proclaimed by all the current physics textbooks. The difficulty in deciding for geocentrism versus heliocentrism is inherent in the relativity of motion argument that was used by Galileo to justify that the earth moved. The fact is that the relativity principle obviates the heliocentric model just as much as it supports that model. The argument is basically a two edged sword. The relativity argument cuts both ways. It can be used to argue for the moving earth, but then just as well against the moving earth. If all motion is relative, then the reference coordinate system is only a convention.
The current convention is that the earth moves, but it doesn’t have to be the only way to view the earth. We can view the earth as at rest and the universe moving around it. Unfortunately, this argument is perpetuated because science has staked itself upon a “know-it-all view” of science that there is only one correct truth. That demands a concept of absolute truth and the idea that science deals in absolute truth in an absolute universe of facts. Unfortunately, this idea is contradicted by the theory of relativity that science uses to justify its claims. In the relativity view of reality, all truth is relative. Hence there is a logical contradiction in the philosophy of science.
The next difficulty has to do with the claim regarding the center of the universe. In the geocentric system, the earth is at rest in the center of the universe. The claim advanced by Galileo was that the sun was the center and the earth moved around the sun. The seeds of the destruction of heliocentrism were contained in the movement that apparently destroyed the geocentric system. That was the claim that the universe was not finite and bounded. The earth was not at the center if the earth moved around the sun in a finite bounded universe. But if the universe is infinite and unbounded, there is no center and so neither geocentrism or heliocentrism is valid. This fact has has not been clearly understood in current science dogma. That dogma invokes the Copernican principle that there is no center of the universe and concludes incorrectly that all locations in space are equally unimportant. But since we live on the earth, that makes the earth a special place, and one result of that is that we are at the center of the universe, at least form our perspective of it.
The conflict between science and religion can be expressed in the following way. Theology, a philosophy that deals with human existence, finds intolerable the idea that we humans are insignificant and therefore not special. On the other hand scientific materialism seeks to minimize the importance of human existence. We are just an accident and so nothing special in that view. From the viewpoint that human existence is special, the idea that the earth is not the center of the universe is absurd, particularly since all the evidence certainly points to that conclusion. What is not understood in this debate is that in a universe where the principle of relativity rules and there is no definite center, the argument of geocentrism versus heliocentrism is largely a waste of time. Mathematics tells us that we can pick any point in space to be the center, since there is no privileged mathematically defined center. That follows if the space is infinite and unbounded. What is remarkable about the film Galileo Was Wrong is that the scientific evidence is pushing science towards the geocentric viewpoint. That is something that believers in heliocentrism are resisting. The problem for science is that there are inconsistencies within the heliocentric system of thought and these need to be corrected. Adopting geocentrism is a simple way to fix the problems. The film is a step towards accomplishing this.
To conclude, this is a science documentary that ought to be required viewing in schools and universities around the world. It is an educational rich film that demonstrates what science is about, how science is done and why are are doing science in our culture. These are very important reasons to make this film required viewing. This is the best educational science documentary film that I have ever seen and I advise anyone who has an interest in physical science , astronomy, cosmology, and theology to view this film.
Geocentrism was the prevailing idea that the Earth was stationary. This couldn’t explain a number of things like stellar parallax, and so was abandoned. The video seems to (incorrectly) suggest that this debate was never really settled. In fact this is not the case, the data fits heliocentrism beginning with Kepler’s law’s of orbits.
Having spoken to the author of this DVD, Robert Sungenis. He doesn’t understand the basic physics which he claims proves geocentricity. There are statements in the review which are factually incorrect:
“The theme is to present a modern theory of geocentrism.”
There is no theory of geocentrism, the equations provided to me from Sungenis was broken, the units on either side didn’t match.
“Then it is noted how the special relativity theory attempts to remove the experimental fact that the earth is not measured to be moving at the required velocity according to the heliocentric model.”
This is incorrect, special relativity was derived to settle some consistency issues within Maxwell’s equations. It had nothing to do with moving reference frames from the Earth to the Sun.
“Mathematics tells us that we can pick any point in space to be the center, since there is no privileged mathematically defined center. That follows if the space is infinite and unbounded”
This is false. Trivially so.
Hi Mat,
I think you should challenge Sungenis to a youtube debate.
Just my thoughts.
This fellow Dr Matt Hunt is clearly closed minded, and has not viewed the video or considered the scientific facts. He merely expresses his uninformed opinion. Dr Hunt is an example of the scientifically uninformed who think that they are experts, just because they read a statement in a textbook. He falsely states that special relativity has developed only to remove an inconsistency in Maxwell’s equations. Einstein says he did it to resolve the Michelson Morley experimental discrepancy. He needs to read some books on special relativity, since he clearly doesn’t understand the physics of that theory. But what he really needs to do is to actually view the film and to actually take the time to understand the facts that are presented for the geocentrism argument. He is no scientist because he doesn’t actually look at the factual evidence, and so formulates his opinion based upon a prejudiced ignorance.
Hunt also shows doesn’t understand basic mathematics since he says that:“Mathematics tells us that we can pick any point in space to be the center, since there is no privileged mathematically defined center. That follows if the space is infinite and unbounded”
This is false. Trivially so.
No proof being offered other than his claim that it is so is surprising. I don’t think Dr Hunt has a clue what he is talking about. His claim that the statement is false, would destroy Galilean and Einstein relativity theories. The essence of Galilean relativity is that any coordinate system suffices to define physics, as long as it is not accelerated. In Einstein relativity we are supposed to be able to choose multiple centers at the same time. That is false and leads to all kinds of problems, but Dr Hunt says that space is absolute and that is the problem with his entire argument. If you claim that heliocentrism is correct then you have to embrace an absolute space and time
The film Galileo Was Wrong, points out the paradox of modern physics. The idea of absolute space was introduced by Newton to justify the heliocentric system of belief. In that system there is an absolute space and time, and so one can prove that the earth moves around the sun using mathematics that assumes the sun as coordinate center of an absolute space. However, with the discovery that the motion of the earth can not be detected, that conception was discarded. However, people like Dr Hunt still cling to the outmoded ideas of heliocentrism and refuse to adjust their thinking to the scientific facts of experiments.
Can you do a review of http://www.alternativephysics.org. I think it fits in a similar vein of what you described for this documentary in that the author puts forth his own theories in a way that makes the reader critically think about accepted theories. I have very little physics training but was able to follow it for the most part and it seems to me to make a lot of sense. He also is against relativity as well as quantum mechanics. You might find angst with part of his theories because he uses a particle explanation for electricity, as opposed to Ivor Catt theory C. I have contacted him through his website and he is quick to respond. You might even have a discussion with him on Theory C.