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Kartick Chandra Paul, Kolkata's Ptolemy

Submitted by Karthik on 10 September, 2012 - 18:53

A 72-year old resident of Kolkata named Kartick Chandra Paul has spent the last few decades of his life trying to convince people that the Sun revolves around the Earth with the other planets revolving around the Sun. He does his convincing through the use of graffiti and illustrated leaflets that adorn the walls and lamp-posts of South Kolkata.

Paul believes the earth is rooted to one place in the universe and its only motion is rotating along its axis from west to east once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. The sun, he claims, is lighter than earth and revolves around it in an elliptical path tilted at an angle of 231/2 degrees to the equator once in 365 days, 5 hours and 46 seconds.

According to his theory, Mercury and Venus, which do not rotate, and Mars, which does, all revolve around the sun and follow the sun’s revolution around earth.

“I have been saying since 1974 that we will never find life on Mars. Mars has two motions, rotation and revolution, while the earth has only one, rotation. Life can grow on earth but not on Mars,” says Paul.

An article from 2007 in The Telegraph clarifies that, according to K.C. Paul, only Mercury and Venus revolve around the Sun and the Earth. Apparently, the other planets only revolve around the Sun.