reclavea
Fractal Fanatic
From a purely Newtonian view, you can fix any frame of reference and say it’s stationary, and everything else moves around it, but that ignores the gravitational realities of things. Physics dictates that the path of least resistance is chosen. Path of least resistance for the Earth is to go around the Sun. But the Sun itself is not stationary either, we just use it as a convenient frame of reference. Earth’s own rotation also affects the perceived weight of objects on the surface. The effect is small, but measurable. It’s the same effect that causes weightlessness in orbit.
Not Newtonian but you mean from a Relativistic view?
yyz67 is right regarding the history of Relativity. Einstein was not the first. However, he is off with Galileo as Galileo's "evidence" which was over 15 that he presented at his inquisition trial. Physicists today worth their weight all acknowledge he was wrong in every evidence he presented. For instance one was that the tides are caused by the Earth's rotation. Today we know it's the moon's gravitational influence causing the tides.
In any case Ernst Mach in the 1800s showed why that Newtonian physics can easily and clearly NOT be the case.
In Newton’s time he had no idea what the stars were how big there are, what they are made of and of the existence of galaxies, galaxy clusters, superclusters and massive superclusters.
So Newton excluded the stars when he factored in his equation results and limited his formulas just to the Solar System. By doing so...yes the Sun's mass would be the major influence for the Solar System's "barycenter" or center of mass by which all the objects including the Sun itself and the Earth would revolve around. Given the Solar System's mass considerations, the "barycenter" would be located near the center of the Sun's mass. The sun itself would wobble around this spot.
Now Mach correctly showed that Newton could not do this! He must factor in the rest of the universe in his equations.
This is “Mach’s Principle”. With Mach’s Principle the so called “Path of least resistance” could have the Earth occupying the spot of “no resistance” ....ie...the "barycenter" (center of mass) of the universe. Einstein himself utilized "Mach's Principle" for his 1915 General Relativity. Einstein's GTR actually "justifies" the Tycho Model.
Ironically, Newton the incredible genius that he was had a hint or notion of such a possibility and actually planned to place this notion on the last page of his famous book “The Principia” but at the last minute left it out. It’s his Proposition 43.
In Proposition 43, Newton showed that the added force must be a central force, one whose magnitude depends only upon the distance r between the particle and a point fixed in space (the center).
He wrote in Proposition 43:
“In order for the Earth to be at rest in the center of the system of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, there is required both universal gravity and another force in addition that acts on all bodies equally according to the quantity of matter in each of them and is equal and opposite to the accelerative gravity with which the Earth tends to the Sun...Since this force is equal and opposite to its gravity toward the Sun, the Earth can truly remain in equilibrium between these two forces and be at rest. And thus celestial bodies can move around the Earth at rest, as in the Tychonic system.”
Several modern physicists have acknowledged Newton’s alternative, one of them being the Nobel laureate, Steven Weinberg.
Here's how Weinberg describes it in his 2015 book, To Explain the World:
"If we were to adopt a frame of reference like Tycho’s in which the Earth is at rest, then the distant galaxies would seem to be executing circular turns once a year, and in general relativity this enormous motion would create forces akin to gravitation, which would act on the Sun and planets and give them the motions of the Tychonic theory.
Newton seems to have had a hint of this.
In an unpublished ‘Proposition 43’ that did not make it into the Principia, Newton acknowledges that Tycho’s theory could be true if some other force besides ordinary gravitation acted on the Sun and planets."
Steven Weinberg, To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science, HarperCollins, 2015, pp. 251-252.
Weinberg also notes that the inclusion of forces outside the solar system that will allow Tychonian geocentrism are specified in Newton’s Proposition 43, which was originally planned to be added to page 510, the last page of the Principia.