Geocentrist Robert Sungenis, author of Galileo Was Wrong and executive producer of the documentary The Principle considers himself uniquely competent to overthrow the entire world of physics and astrophysics. As such, it seems reasonable to have a look at his background and demonstrated competence in maths and physics.
Physics Major?
Sungenis presents himself as virtually the only person in the world who is both qualified and honest enough to expose the supposed vast scientific conspiracy to hide the truth of geocentrism from the world. He has repeatedly insisted that he’s credible in the field of cosmology because he was a “physics major”. But as documented in “Robert Sungenis, Physics Major?” we find that:
- Sungenis only took the first two most basic prerequisite physics courses that didn’t even involve calculus.
- He didn’t finish the four physics courses required to fulfill the prerequisites for a physics major.
- He inexplicably took two basic astronomy courses that would not contribute to the requirements for a physics major and were so basic as to be labeled “Primarily for nonscience majors”.
- He took none of the undergraduate physics courses that are listed as “Required courses in the major”.
Basic Math and Physics Blunders
Sungenis regularly makes basic blunders in physics, demonstrating that he does not accurately grasp even very elementary concepts. He also makes basic mathematical errors, again calling into question his fundamental competency to be pontificating on scientific matters. Here are many documented examples:
In the article “Geocentric Physics: Is That All You’ve Got?” Dr. Alec MacAndrew demonstrated that the geocentrist attempt posted by Sungenis, attempting to answer the extremely significant “Lagrange point challenge” issued to them by physicist Dr. Tom Bridgman, is plagued by basic mathematical blunders, naturally calling into question the fundamental mathematical and scientific compentence of the geocentrists. Perhaps even more significantly, Dr. MacAndrew discovered that the bulk of their “case” consisted of material plagiarized from mainstream scientists and presented, unattributed, as their own. Further examination shows that the problem of plagiarism by the top geocentrists – Robert Sungenis, Dr. Robert Bennett, and Dr. Gerardus Bouw – is much deeper than that and even extends into the pages of the geocentric “bible,” Galileo Was Wrong. While not exhaustive by any means, “Top Geocentrists Caught Plagiarizing” documents many cases of plagiarism by these top geocentrists.
At one point Sungenis attempted to rebut Sky and Telescope editor Camille Carlisle and demonstrated that he is simply not competent to handle even high school-level physics. In “Elementary Physics Blunders in Sungenis’s Reply to Sky and Telescope’s Camille Carlisle” Dr. Alec MacAndrew pointed out many basic errors in Sungenis’s work. These are compounded by Sungenis’s replacement of the well-known and perfectly adequate mechanism of gravity with a made-up medium that, “magically [does] just what he needs it to do, while remaining completely undetectable whenever he doesn’t need it.”
In his attempt to respond to Dr. MacAndrew, Sungenis ended up compounding his errors by making even more basic math blunders. See “Sungenis Botches the Math….Again!”
Sungenis’s incompetence in physics was again on display in his two mutually exclusive, but equally wrong, attempts to answer the CMB Alignment Challenge which we issued back in February of 2015, in response to the panoply of extravagant claims made by the new geocentrists about certain unexpected features of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). As Dr. MacAndrew says, “There is no shame in not knowing about a subject, but there should be shame in not knowing and yet pretending that you do, especially when you use your counterfeit knowledge to bamboozle others.” See “Sungenis Fails the CMB Alignment Challenge…Twice”
In “Aether, Springs, and Light: Physics Blunders in Galileo Was Wrong” we find that when Sungenis tried to explain the propagation of light and more particularly the speed of light in his own system he managed to get the physics exactly backwards, while deploying still more basic mathematical errors.
In “The ‘Simple’ and ‘Scary’ Mindset of Robert Sungenis” we took a somewhat lighthearted look at Robert Sungenis falling hook, line, and sinker for a Youtube video which purported to “prove” the incredible claim that our Sun is much less massive than the Earth. Sungenis’s original verdict on the video’s claim was that, “It’s so simple it’s scary — scary in that it makes you wonder what other simple ideas we are missing because we’ve been so brainwashed by the Copernicans. I can’t find any flaw in this man’s logic or math . . .” Two days later, after receiving help from others, Sungenis completely reversed himself, declaring that the video was instead, “wrong, very wrong”. (His followers bravely stuck by him, though, as laid out in “Sungenis Followers Double Down”. One of them excused Sungenis, stating that without “specific expertise” the video could appear convincing. But Sungenis found this fundamentally erroneous video completely convincing. Shouldn’t Sungenis’s followers expect their leader to have at least the sort of elementary “specific expertise” that would allow him to spot the flaws in a preposterous claim that the Sun is much less massive than the Earth? If not, then how in the world can they trust his analysis of the complex physics and mathematics involved in proving the case for geocentrism?)
Somewhat more recently Sungenis has insisted that by “using the parameters of modern science”, “it turns out that the Earth is the heaviest object in the universe, just as Aristotle said.” His alleged support for this remarkable claim is laid out in more detail in a section of his book, Galileo Was Wrong. Turning there we find yet again that when Sungenis and his associates try to do actual physics the results are shot through with demonstrable misconceptions, oversights, logical contradictions, and outright math errors. All of these and more are documented in “Getting on the Wrong Wavelength: More Basic Physics Blunders by the Geocentrists”
In “Geocentrism and Stellar Aberration” we find not only that the geocentric “explanation” for stellar aberration absolutely will not work, but that in laying out that case Sungenis demonstrates that he fundamentally misunderstands aberration.
Dr. Tom Bridgman has said of the new geocentrists:
Geocentrists, like many other pseudo-scientists I’ve confronted on this blog, seem to be nothing but posers. They want credit and recognition for achievements they have not done (link).
and:
Everything I’ve seen from Geocentrists is a cheat, trying to take someone else’s heliocentric solution and then moving the origin to the Earth. They don’t appear to have the competence, or courage, it takes to actually transform the known equations of motion, Newtonian gravity and acceleration, well-tested in everything from laboratories to mechanics to spacecraft, to a reference frame where the body of the Earth is not rotating (link).
The bottom line is that the new geocentrists in general and Robert Sungenis in particular have yet to demonstrate that they have even a basic competence in science. And Sungenis, at least, dispenses himself and his cohorts from the same academic standards he expects from everybody else. It’s another unfortunate example from him of “one standard for me and another for thee.”
