SciPhysicsForums.com

The math that supported the Earth centered solar system was junk.
The standard model math looks a lot like the math that supported
the Earth centered solar system. The standard model math can
always be modified with a new virtual particle or a new field if it
appears to be incompatible with experimental results. Can it
ever be wrong?

scipf77 wrote:The math that supported the Earth centered solar system was junk.
The standard model math looks a lot like the math that supported
the Earth centered solar system. The standard model math can
always be modified with a new virtual particle or a new field if it
appears to be incompatible with experimental results. Can it
ever be wrong?

Not junk. In fact, planetary orbits in relation to Earth are very nearly circular, but just enough precessed to require constant correction. The results of Kepler were a simplification that led to his first law; however, as Leslie Lamport notes, "Kepler’s first law states that the orbit of a planet is an ellipse. This is not experimentally verifiable because any finite-precision measurement of the orbit is consistent with an infinite number of mathematical curves. In practice, what we can deduce from Kepler’s law is that measurement of the orbit will, to a good approximation, be consistent with the predicted ellipse." ("Buridan's PrincipleFound. Phys., Apr 2012".

The SM is preceded by, and crafted from, experimental results. That's why it's so ugly.