Oh, Mr. Copernicus!

Oceans apart (one man was in Berlin, the other in Buenos Aires), two amateur astronomers last week had independently decided that Copernicus had everything inside out and backwards. The earth, Germany's Valentin Herz explained, does not revolve from west to east; it spins in the opposite direction. Argentina's Antonio Duran Navarro had an even more novel idea. Says Navarro: "The universe, 8,000 miles in diameter, is contained within the earth."

The two astronomers did not know each other, and had taken years to work out their respective theories. But both had arrived at their conclusions by the same method--while lying on their backs, gazing at the heavens.

Backside To. After 30 years of complicated experimenting, Herz (who makes his living as an accountant) decided that the earth rotates faster than its oceans and atmosphere. Therefore, the inertia of water and air produce currents that appear to move in the opposite direction. Herz concluded that, since the important (in his opinion) air and ocean currents of the planet do, indeed, move uniformly eastward, the earth must be moving westward.

The sun? Only an illusion, explains Herz. Actually, he says, the sun is much closer to the earth than most people suspect; in fact, it is probably somewhere near the South Pole. What people see in the sky is not the sun, but its "reflection," cast on the earth's atmosphere. Moreover, the earth, according to Herz, rotates more slowly than is generally believed--perhaps as slowly as one revolution every 28 days. Since the dawdling sun's "reflection" whips around the earth every 24 hours, it's not very surprising that people have been confused all these years.

Outside In. Duran Navarro (a lawyer by profession) arrived at his theory by a process of elimination. If the earth's inhabitants live on the outside of a spinning sphere (as is popularly supposed), why, he reasoned, doesn't everything fly off into outer space? (Navarro takes no stock at all in centripetal force.)

"Now, if we put everything inside and spin the sphere," he explains, "how different it is! Centrifugal force places all objects in their right sequence by density: solids, liquids, gases; and in the very center there will be a vacuum, whereto protons and electrons converge to form 'fotons' which in turn constitute the sun. . . ." As imaginatively sketched by Navarro's son, the universe fits, cozily inside a globe with a thick, unpleasantly scrofulous outside crust (see cut).

Meanwhile, however it managed to do it, the earth last week followed its allotted course.

And in Bombay, Dr. M. A. Chandary published a learned pamphlet expounding his view that the sun is not really hot.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.