To Canopus56

In 1920,they were no better or worse than Newton in how they viewed
the 'fixed stars' as powerful telescopes had yet to discover stellar
galactic island the rotation of stars around the galactic axis.

So,look at how they viewed the universe in 1920 -

"If we ponder over the question as to how the universe, considered as a
whole, is to be regarded, the first answer that suggests itself to us
is surely this: As regards space (and time) the universe is infinite.
There are stars everywhere, so that the density of matter, although
very variable in detail, is nevertheless on the average everywhere the
same. In other words: However far we might travel through space, we
should find everywhere an attenuated swarm of fixed stars of
approximately the same kind and density."

Now watch this guy tell an enormous fib and uses Newton to do it -

"This view is not in harmony with the theory of Newton. The latter
theory rather requires that the universe should have a kind of centre
in which the density of the stars is a maximum, and that as we proceed
outwards from this centre the group-density of the stars should
diminish, until finally, at great distances, it is succeeded by an
infinite region of emptiness. The stellar universe ought to be a finite
island in the infinite ocean of space."

This is what Newton actually thought -

"Cor. 2. And since these stars are liable to no sensible parallax from
the annual motion of the earth, they can have no force, because of
their immense distance, to produce any sensible effect in our system.
Not to mention that the fixed stars, every where promiscuously
dispersed in the heavens, by their contrary actions destroy their
mutual actions, by Prop. LXX, Book I."


So going back to the quoted text you see this guy in 1920 rejecting the
idea of stellar islands and the center about which these stars
rotate.It is actually quite funny with a little bit of effort and the
knowledge that it was written before galaxies were discovered.

So everyone gets to look at the relativistic conception -

"This view is not in harmony with the theory of Newton. The latter
theory rather requires that the universe should have a kind of centre
in which the density of the stars is a maximum, and that as we proceed
outwards from this centre the group-density of the stars should
diminish, until finally, at great distances, it is succeeded by an
infinite region of emptiness. The stellar universe ought to be a finite
island in the infinite ocean of space."

http://www.bartleby.com/173/30.html

And then they get to see this picture which makes the guy look like a
complete idiot -

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0409/m51_hst.jpg

There were no finite stellar islands in 1920 to observe but not only is
the Universe compromised of stars organised into finite stellar
islands,there are billions of these rotating centers constituting the
universe itself.

Pity you all are stuck with a claustraphobic homocentric notions as a
testament to human silliness when before you is the breathtaking scale
of the Universe.