Chapter 22: Deconstructing Bradley and Einstein
22.1 Introduction
If there were some sort of ‘posthumous Nobel prize’ dedicated to the preservation of the heliocentric theory, the award would probably go to James Bradley and Albert Einstein. The latter, of course, needs no introduction, but very few people know that his initial claim to fame was that of having “convincingly resolved the anomalous precession of Mercury’s perihelion”, which was threatening to falsify and invalidate Newtonian physics. In this chapter we shall see how these two ‘superstars of science’ deluded themselves and the world with their ill-conceived attempts to salvage the unphysical Copernican/Keplerian model.
Fig. 22.1 James Bradley________________________________________ Fig.22.2 Albert Einstein
22.2 Bradley’s illusory ‘stellar aberration’
First, I would like to share with you the strange tale behind a phenomenon astronomers refer to as ‘stellar aberration’, a term coined by Sir James Bradley, Astronomer Royal between 1742 and 1762. Bradley is universally celebrated as the man who provided definitive proof of Earth’s alleged motion around the Sun, as it supposedly hurtles along a 300 Mkm-wide orbit at 90 times the speed of sound.
“James Bradley’s discovery of stellar aberration, published 1729, eventually gave direct evidence excluding the possibility of all forms of geocentrism including Tycho Brahe's.” "Tycho Brahe" - by Wikipedians (opens in a new tab)
Back in 1725, Bradley, soon to become Astronomer Royal, was studying a star called Gamma Draconis with a state-of-the-art telescope crafted by George Graham, London’s leading instrument maker. The telescope was fitted into his chimney because the star he had chosen to observe happened to regularly transit just above London where he lived. At 33 years of age, Bradley was already an experienced astronomer and he had duly calculated just how the chosen star should move against the more distant stars. He looked and looked for several weeks, but the star didn’t seem to move much in relation to the background stars. However, after a month or so, he finally saw that the star had moved a tiddly weeny bit. As he checked his calculations however, he realized to his dismay that the star had moved very oddly and in an entirely unexpected manner and direction. Together with his assistant, Molyneux (a wealthy man who had funded the ambitious stargazing project), he feverishly checked and re-checked the equipment, but couldn’t find anything amiss with it.
The two inquisitive men were vexed and baffled so they decided to undertake a massive survey of the skies over several years. In all, they eventually looked at the motions of 200 other nearby stars and to their growing consternation and distress found all those stars to move in the same strange manner as Gamma Draconis. Sadly, Molyneux passed away early, stepping into his grave without an answer to the upsetting mystery. The task to resolve the pesky puzzle was thus left to Bradley. As the story goes, the solution to the riddle came to him during a boat trip on the river Thames. Here is how astronomy historian Thony Christie of the ‘Renaissance Mathematicus’ blog recounts Bradley’s ‘eureka moment’:
"Molyneux died in 1728 before Bradley solved the puzzle. The solution is said to have come to Bradley during a boat trip on the Thames. When the boat changed direction, he noticed that the windvane on the mast also changed direction. This appeared to Bradley to be irrational, as the direction of the wind had not changed. He discussed the phenomenon with one of the sailors, who confirmed that this was always the case. The explanation is that the direction of the wind vane is a combination of the prevailing wind and the headwind created by the movement of the boat, so when the direction of the headwind changes the direction of the windvane also changes." "The emergence of modern astronomy – a complex mosaic: Part XLV" (opens in a new tab) by Thony Christie (2020)
One could sum up Bradley’s fantastical theory in one sentence: “The stars are seen to move in the ‘wrong’ direction―meaning contrary to what would be expected if Earth revolved around the Sun―because the light particles they emit are just like raindrops slanting at an angle towards the face of a walking man”. Incredibly enough, this inane theory has been widely embraced as ‘definitive proof’ of Earth’s supposed revolution around the Sun.
"Bradley realised that the direction of the light coming from the stars was affected in the same way by the movement of the Earth orbiting the Sun. He and Molyneux had discovered stellar aberration and the first empirical evidence of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The more common phenomenon used to explain aberration uses rain. When one is standing still the rain appears to fall vertically but when one in walking the rain appears to slant into one’s face at an angle. The same happens to starlight falling onto the moving Earth."
Here follows another description of Bradley's arcane concept of 'stellar aberration'. Note for later what is described as 'the most puzzling fact', i.e. that the observed star displacements are 'exactly three months out of phase':
“The aberration of starlight was discovered in 1727 by the astronomer James Bradley while he was searching for evidence of stellar parallax, which in principle ought to be observable if the Copernican theory of the solar system is correct. He succeeded in detecting an annual variation in the apparent positions of stars, but the variation was not consistent with parallax. The observed displacement was greatest for stars in the direction perpendicular to the orbital plane of the Earth, and most puzzling was the fact that the displacement was exactly three months (i.e., 90 degrees) out of phase with the effect that would result from parallax due to the annual change in the Earth’s position in orbit around the Sun.” "Stellar Aberration from Reflections on Relativity" (opens in a new tab) by Kevin Brown (2017)
The excerpts reproduced in Figures 22.3 and 22.4 neatly sum up Bradley’s observations and fallacious conclusions. As you read them, keep in mind the diagrams in Chapter 21 showing ‘a man’s yearly path’. Bradley was, of course, wholly unaware of the trochoidal motion of his own position as observer and therefore had no clue why the stars were moving in such a peculiar manner.
Fig. 22.3 Excerpt from "The Sky at Einstein’s Feet" (opens in a new tab) by William C. Keel (2006)
Fig. 22.4 Excerpt from “The Aberration of Starlight”, by David P. Stern (2006).
“For instance Polaris, the pole star, seemed to travel annually around an ellipse whose width was 40”, 40 seconds of arc. As discussed in the section on parallax, that might suggest that the distance to Polaris was 1/40 of a parsec or 0.1 light year. However, the shifts in position did not occur at the times they were expected. The greatest shift of Polaris in any given direction occurred not when the Earth’s was at the opposite end of its orbit, as it should have been, but 3 months later. For instance, in the drawing above, the apparent position of Polaris should have been shifted the furthest in the direction of ‘December’ when Earth was in its ‘June’ position, which is far as it can go in the opposite direction. Instead, it happened in September, when the Earth had moved 90° from its position in June.” "The Aberration of Starlight" (opens in a new tab) by David P. Stern (2006)
That’s right: to his amazement, Bradley found that the maximum annual elongation of Polaris from an earthly observer does not occur over the expected 6-month period, but will occur 3 months later, that is, 9 months after the start of a year-long observation. Bradley’s ‘puzzling’ observations are succinctly summarized in an article published in February 2023:
"The greatest apparent displacement of the star being observed should have been found between observations six months apart, when the locations of the observations were furthest apart. The actual displacements, however, followed a completely different pattern and were clearly not due to parallax. The Pole Star, Polaris, for example, was found to follow a roughly circular path, with a diameter of about 40 arc seconds (40”)." "What is the Aberration of Light?" (opens in a new tab) by Phil Riddel (2023)
Fig. 22.5
Figure 22.5 conceptually illustrates why any circumpolar star will reach its maximum elongation, as viewed by an earthly observer, over a 9-month period, rather than a 6-month period. Presumably, Bradley’s rough estimate of 40” was based on the vector D2 which, for an earthly observer, represents about 40”. Vector D1 represents 51.136", i.e., the observed annual precession of the starfield, which Bradley, however, could not reconcile with the ‘lunisolar wobble’ theory (see Chapter 10) since it does not imply that stars would move in trochoidal paths.
The obscure ‘stellar aberration’ concept, which Bradley concocted in his urge to justify otherwise inexplicable observations, has to be among the most contorted attempts at rescuing the Copernican model from its inevitable demise. As a matter of fact, Bradley’s theory was subsequently falsified by his illustrious colleague George Airy who filled a telescope with water and showed that, contrary to expectations, no variation of the ‘aberration’ could be observed (an experiment referred to as ‘Airy’s Failure’). In spite of this setback, Bradley’s thesis has somehow survived to this day and is still widely held as valid in astronomy circles. In hindsight, it is ironic that Bradley’s laborious enterprises very nearly ended up demolishing heliocentrism ‘from within’, so to speak, since his own empirical observations contradicted predictions based on the Copernican model.
The curious statement below is found on the website “Explaining Science”:
"In trying to explain his observations Bradley discovered an entirely different effect which came to be known as stellar aberration. His discovery not only confirmed the heliocentric theory but allowed an accurate measurement of the speed of light. (...) The shift in position of a nearby star caused by parallax proved to be very much smaller than the position shift due to stellar aberration, which unlike parallax does not vary with a star’s distance." "Stellar aberration" - Explainingscience.org (opens in a new tab)
Wait... if ‘stellar aberration’ does not vary with a star’s distance, how then could it have any correlation with the speed of light? The logic here, you may agree, is rather flimsy. At the end of the day, the only rational conclusion to draw from Bradley’s ‘inconvenient’ observations is that they revealed a terrestrial motion which affects all the stars equally: namely, the ever-looping frame of reference that we earthly observers are subject to as we journey along in our trochoidal path (see Chapter 21).
James Bradley’s other major claim to fame was what he called the ‘nutation’ of the Earth’s axis, described as “an annual change of declination in some of the fixed stars that could not be explained by aberration alone”. It is said to be due to gravitational nudges from the Moon and Sun causing the oblate (non-spherical) Earth to wobble. The Wikipedia entry for ‘Astronomical Nutation’ tells us Bradley reached this conclusion after a “20-year series of observations, in which he discovered that the celestial pole moved in a slightly flattened ellipse of 18 by 16 arcseconds about its mean position”.
Fig. 22.6
Fig. 22.6 shows how the TYCHOS can readily account for Bradley’s imagined ‘nutation’, with no need for any wobble of the Earth’s polar axis: the green area illustrates the length (14036 km) and width (12756 km) of the elliptical ‘zone’ within which an earthly observer gyrates annually (corresponding to the EAM and Earth’s diameter, respectively). The ratio of this ellipse is ~1.1:1 (14036 / 12756 = 1.1), which is another way of saying that its major axis and minor axis differ by 9.5%. As of the Wikipedia, Bradley’s flattened ellipse was 18" by 16", but other sources have the major axis at 17.6". An ellipse of 17.6" by 16" does in fact have a 1.1:1 ratio (17.6 / 16 = 1.1), equivalent to a 9.5% difference between the axes. Hence, Bradley’s observed ‘nutation’ was in all likelihood an optical illusion, not an eerie axial wobble. Nonetheless, we must thank Sir Bradley for unwittingly providing further corroboration of ‘a man’s yearly path’, as defined by the TYCHOS model (Chapter 21).
In conclusion: valuable as they might be, James Bradley’s two principal findings, hailed by Joseph Delambre, head of the Paris observatory, as “the most brilliant and useful of the century” and also as “the definitive proofs of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun”, were completely misinterpreted. As we have seen, the TYCHOS model effectively does away with the assorted aberrations, nutations, perturbations, inequalities and anomalies that astronomers have been debating for centuries, all of which kept piling up as heliocentrism came under ever closer scrutiny. At the dawn of the 20th century, something had to be done to save it from cataclysmic collapse. Enter Albert Einstein...
22.3 Einstein’s spurious ‘relativities’
Albert Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory (SRT) proposed a different explanation for the pseudo-phenomenon of ‘stellar aberration’. However, as pointed out in later years by various authors, when SRT’s tenets and algebraic formulae are applied to ‘stellar aberration’, they simply fail to account for what is actually observed. In his paper on the Bradley-Einstein controversy, Daniele Russo spells out the embarrassing problem right from the start:
"Abstract: The classical and relativistic explanations of the stellar aberration are compared, on the basis of the physical models implied by the two interpretations. Our analysis shows that the physical model required by the Special Relativity theory is inconsistent with the observed effect." "Stellar Aberration: the Contradiction between Einstein and Bradley" (opens in a new tab) by Daniele Russo (2007)
In his conclusions, Russo justly highlights the SRT's "lack of adequate physical explanations" for the observed 'stellar aberration':
"In classical Physics, a mathematical description of a phenomenon always lays on a physical model. In the case of the SRT, in spite of the simple mathematical model involved, the contrary to experience consequences of the light postulate make it often difficult to conceive adequate physical models for the various relativistic effects. Probably because of this reason, most expositions of the SRT are based on algebraic demonstrations, but lack adequate “physical” explanations that should instead be the basis of every physical theory about the macrocosmic world, as well as an indispensable element to any possible analysis or confutation. The case of the stellar aberration is emblematic. The algebraic route, consisting in the application of the SRT transformation to the system of the star and to that of the observer, does not apparently lead to contradictions. But the underlying physical model, based on a radial light radiation (light clock model), turns out to be incompatible with the parallel starlight irradiation actually reaching the Earth."
So much for Einstein’s Special Relativity: as expounded by Russo in his paper (which I recommend reading in its entirety), the SRT is “inconsistent with the observed (empirically verifiable) effect” and “incompatible with the parallel starlight irradiation actually reaching the Earth”. Therefore, I would tersely state that the SRT has no place in a book which prioritises empirically verifiable observation over algebraic abstraction. In any case, before saying good-bye to Einstein, let us see how his much-touted theory of General Relativity (GR) fares within the TYCHOS paradigm. Surprisingly enough, Einstein’s theory got kick-started by his acclaimed ‘resolution’ of the purportedly anomalous advance of Mercury’s perihelion. The latter was, in fact, considered one of the most compelling proofs of GR:
“Einstein showed that general relativity agrees closely with the observed amount of (Mercury’s) perihelion shift. This was a powerful factor motivating the adoption of general relativity.” "Tests of General Relativity" - Wikipedia (opens in a new tab)
However, a long list of problems have since been pointed out with Einstein’s equations and computational methods, as well as with his highly questionable determinations of Mercury’s supposedly anomalous apsidal precession. As it is, Einstein himself eventually distanced his subsequent GR research from the dubious argumentation surrounding the supposedly ‘anomalous’ advance of Mercury’s perihelion.
“Einstein’s paper devoted to the GR prediction of Mercury’s perihelion advance, is the only one among his publications that contains the explanation of the GR effect. (...) Since then, to our knowledge, he never returned to the methodology of the GR perihelion advance problem. […] As a matter of fact, the GR foundational premises have been subjected to changes and reinterpretations (optional, alternative, or claimed ‘correct’ ones) by Einstein himself, his advocates as well as today’s GR specialists and self-proclaimed ‘experts’.” "Einstein Paper on the Perihelion Motion of Mercury from GRT" (opens in a new tab) by A.A. Vankov (2011)
“It is thus proven that Einstein’s Mercury correction is completely false, and fails for planets as well as black holes! (...) The only possible conclusion to be made is that the Einstein GR correction is completely false. Thus, one of the only proofs that GR is valid has been shown to be incorrect, and invites GR to be discarded as a valid theory!” "The Incorrect Theory of Mercury’s Anomalous Precession" (opens in a new tab) by Roger Rydin (2010)
I will now do my best to summarize in simple layman’s terms and math this historically crucial, worldwide scientific debate, namely the ‘mystery’ of the ‘anomalous precession’ of Mercury’s perihelion. No less than Newton’s sacrosanct laws were at stake, since Mercury was observed to disobey the same. Eventually, the ‘victory’ went to Einstein, rocketing the little-known patent clerk (and proven plagiarist) to universal stardom, literally overnight. By most academic accounts, Einstein’s fledgling Theory of General Relativity was then gloriously confirmed by his dreadfully convoluted ‘explanation’ of Mercury’s seemingly anomalous behavior. The whole issue revolved around a small 43-arcsecond discrepancy in Mercury’s precessional motion around the Sun: Mercury had been observed by Urbain Le Verrier to precess by an ‘excess amount’ of 38″ per century (re-estimated at 43″ by Simon Newcomb in 1882), a fact which contradicted Newton’s laws.
"In 1859, Urbain Le Verrier discovered that the orbital precession of the planet Mercury was not quite what it should be; the ellipse of its orbit was rotating (precessing) slightly faster than predicted by the traditional theory of Newtonian gravity, even after all the effects of the other planets had been accounted for. The effect is small (roughly 43 arcseconds of rotation per century), but well above the measurement error (roughly 0.1 arcseconds per century). Le Verrier realized the importance of his discovery immediately, and challenged astronomers and physicists alike to account for it." "Anomalous precession of Mercury" - Hand Wiki (opens in a new tab)
At the time of the debate prompted by Le Verrier, the General Precession was observed to be about 5026″ per century. Since Mercury’s perihelion was observed to precess by 5600″ per century (43″ more than the 5557″ astronomers expected and could account for), the whole controversy revolved around these observed, yet supposedly anomalous, additional 43 arcseconds per century exhibited by Mercury. Kevin Brown put in a nutshell the issues surrounding Mercury’s ‘anomaly’:
"When we observe the axis of the elliptical orbit of a planet such as Mercury (for example) over a long period of time, referenced to our equinox line, we must expect to find an apparent precession of about 0.01396 degrees per year, which equals 5025 arc seconds per century, assuming Mercury's orbital axis is actually stationary. However, astronomers have actually observed a precession rate of 5600 arc seconds per century for the axis of Mercury's orbit, so evidently the axis is not truly stationary. This might seem like a problem for Newtonian gravity, until we remember that Newton predicted stable elliptical orbits only for the idealized two-body case. When analyzing the actual orbit of Mercury we must also take into account the gravitational pull of the other planets, especially Venus and Earth (because of their proximity) and Jupiter (because of its size). It isn't simple to work out these effects, and unfortunately there is no simple analytical solution to the n-body problem in Newtonian mechanics, but using the calculational techniques developed by Lagrange, Laplace, and others, it is possible to determine that the effects of all the other planets should contribute an additional 532 arc seconds per century to the precession of Mercury's orbit. Combined with the precession of our equinox reference line, this accounts for 5557 arc seconds per century, which is close to the observed value of 5600, but still short by 43 arc seconds per century." "Anomalous Precessions from Reflections on Relativity" (opens in a new tab) by Kevin Brown (2017)
We shall now see how the TYCHOS model can readily account for these allegedly ‘anomalous’ 43 arcseconds of precession. As we go along, keep in mind that the Copernican model has Earth revolving around Mercury once every year, whereas the TYCHOS model has Mercury revolving around Earth once every year. Since Copernicans assume that Earth revolves yearly around the Sun and its junior moon Mercury, they will expect Mercury to return to its perihelion earlier than it does in reality. Why? Because if the Earth truly revolved around the Sun, it would be ‘subtracting’ annually from Mercury an amount corresponding to ‘1 unit of spatial revolution’ (or, if you will, 1 Earth-vs-Mercury rotation). In the TYCHOS, of course, no such subtraction occurs. Now, since we know that Mercury’s synodic period is 116.88 days (which is the interval between two Sun-Mercury conjunctions, as viewed from the Earth, all we need to do is multiply:
0.43″ x 116.88 days = 50.2584″
(Annual General Precession rate observed in the early 20th century ≈ 50.26″)
Evidently, Mercury’s perihelion precession just reflects the General Precession of our Solar System, and those ‘anomalous’ 0.43 arcseconds simply represent 1 Mercurian day (i.e., the aforementioned ‘1 unit’ which the Earth would subtract from Mercury if we were revolving around the Sun). So, to recapitulate:
Equinoctial precession observed in the early 20th century = 5026″ per century.
→ Precession of Mercury considered anomalous by heliocentrists = 43″ per century.
→ Mercury’s synodic period = 116.88 days. And 5026″/ 116.88 days ≈ 43″
Ergo: Actual anomalous precession of Mercury = 0″
In fact, even Venus was thought to precess in anomalous fashion:
→ Precession of Venus considered anomalous by heliocentrists = 8.6″ per century
→ Venus’ synodic period = 584.4 days. And 5026″/ 584.4 days ≈ 8.6″
Ergo: Actual anomalous precession of Venus = 0″
In other words, the perceived ‘anomalies’ are nothing but the natural precession rates of Mercury and Venus, as related to their revolutions around the Sun and commensurate with our system’s General Precession. Heliocentric astronomers erroneously add ‘1 unit’ to Mercury’s and Venus’ precessional motions because they believe the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Here is another mathematical demonstration of the same fact:
→ Duration of the Sun’s revolution around Earth = 365.25 days. 1 century = 36525 days
→ Daily equinoctial precession in the early 20th century = 5026″ / 36525 ≈ 0.1376″
• Annual revolutions of Mercury around the Sun = 365.25 / 116.88 = 3.125
3.125 x 0.1376″ = 0.43″ (i.e. 1/100 of the alleged 43″ ‘anomaly’ estimated per century)
• Annual revolutions of Venus around the Sun = 365.25 / 584.4 = 0.625
0.625 x 0.1376″ = 0.086″ (i.e. 1/100 of the alleged 8.6″ ‘anomaly’ estimated per century)
This has got to be the simplest falsification of Einstein’s theories ever performed! In what must be the funniest twist of this whole affair, the purported ‘anomalies’ actually prove that the Sun, Mercury and Venus all revolve around the Earth, and not the other way round. Once this is realized and accounted for, there are no vexing anomalies to explain away.
I am by no means the first person to have concluded that the ‘anomalous’ precession of Mercury’s perihelion is spurious and that, consequently, Einstein’s first ‘proof’ of his nebulous theory of General Relativity was based on thin air. For instance, here is what the eminent professor Roger A. Rydin wrote about the subject:
“There are significant arguments that General Relativity has not been proven experimentally, and that it contains mathematical errors that invalidate its predictions. Vankov has analyzed Einstein’s 1915 derivation and concludes that when an inconsistency is corrected, there is no perihelion shift at all!” "The Theory of Mercury’s Anomalous Precession" (opens in a new tab) by Roger A. Rydin (2011)
I will spare you the full account of the 1919 expeditions to Africa and South America led by Sir Arthur Eddington in order to photograph a solar eclipse which purportedly provided the ‘ultimate proof’ of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. Suffice it to say that, as incredible as it may sound, the proclaimed ‘victory’ was founded upon two out of three data sets, the third set having been discarded as ‘defective’. In any case, the observational data collected by Eddington’s 1919 expeditions have been shown to be anything but conclusive in numerous subsequent analytical reviews.
"Einstein became world famous on 7 November 1919, following press publication of a meeting held in London on 6 November 1919 where the results were announced of two British expeditions led by Eddington, Dyson and Davidson to measure how much background starlight is bent as it passes the Sun. Three data sets were obtained: two showed the measured deflection matched the theoretical prediction of Einstein's 1915 Theory of General Relativity, and became the official result; the third was discarded as defective. At the time, the experimental result was accepted by the expert astronomical community. However, in 1980 a study by philosophers of science Earman and Glymour claimed that the data selection in the 1919 analysis was flawed and that the discarded data set was fully valid and was not consistent with the Einstein prediction, and that, therefore, the overall result did not verify General Relativity." "The 1919 eclipse results that verified general relativity and their later detractors: a story re-told" (opens in a new tab) by Gerard Gilmore and Gudrun Tausch-Pebody (2021)
All the same, these highly questionable experimental results established Albert Einstein as the ‘champion scientist’ of our times, though not without substantial help from the solicitous media.
In conclusion, there never were any anomalies in either Mercury’s or Venus’ precessional motions, They are simply a by-product of the erroneous belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Likewise, there never was any ‘aberration of starlight’. Bradley’s and Einstein’s proposed explications thereof were not only contradictory: they were both flawed at their core and must be definitively abandoned.
In the next chapter, we shall see why the stars may well be considerably closer to us than posited by mainstream astronomers―just as Tycho Brahe steadfastly maintained throughout his lifetime, and with very good reason.