Newtonism

How many explanations fit the bill for explaining errors in Newton's
Celestial Mechanics? I have heard that the idea the apparent centre of
the sun not being the centre of mass will do it as well as the
aberrations required to make relativity fit.

I came across another one too but lost the link.


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"Michael McNeil" wrote in message
news:fc2e7c15db7f162563c7f030a8196ec2.45219@mygate .mailgate.org...
How many explanations fit the bill for explaining errors in Newton's
Celestial Mechanics? I have heard that the idea the apparent centre of
the sun not being the centre of mass will do it as well as the
aberrations required to make relativity fit.

I came across another one too but lost the link.

I believe the two biggies are ...

the advance of the perihelion of Mercury
the degree to which light is bent around massive bodies

I'm not aware of any problem in Newton with the centre of mass of the solar
system not being the centre of the Sun. Should fit perfectly well.

"John Zinni" wrote in message
news
I'm not aware of any problem in Newton with the centre of mass of the solar
system not being the centre of the Sun. Should fit perfectly well.
I read in Encyclopaedia Britannica that the errors in celestial dynamics
that produce the observed problem with Mercury could be explained by
different causes than the reasons Einstein came up with. It did list
them but I have never been able to locate the material since then.
Perhaps it is omitted from the Enc.Brit. disks.



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On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:52:13 +0000 (UTC), "Michael McNeil"
wrote:

"John Zinni" wrote in message
news
I'm not aware of any problem in Newton with the centre of mass of the solar
system not being the centre of the Sun. Should fit perfectly well.
I read in Encyclopaedia Britannica that the errors in celestial dynamics
that produce the observed problem with Mercury could be explained by
different causes than the reasons Einstein came up with. It did list
them but I have never been able to locate the material since then.
Perhaps it is omitted from the Enc.Brit. disks.

Or perhaps later revisions eliminated the "different causes", when it
was figured out Einstein was most likely all along, and no other
theory explained the observations as accurately.

If you have the Encyc Brit. CD's, have you looked up Doppler yet?

Understand it yet?

Perhaps you want to explain to the denizens of sci.astro why light
from outside the Solar System behaves differently than light from
*within* the Solar System.

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"Michael McNeil" wrote in message
news:fc2e7c15db7f162563c7f030a8196ec2.45219@mygate .mailgate.org...
How many explanations fit the bill for explaining errors in Newton's
Celestial Mechanics? I have heard that the idea the apparent centre of
the sun not being the centre of mass will do it as well as the
aberrations required to make relativity fit.

I came across another one too but lost the link.



This sounds like the early proposal that the Sun might be slightly oblate,
which would be enough to produce a small perihelion advance of 43" per
century. Another theory proposed that there is a small planet interior to
Mercury. There are several observational demonstrations that these
explanations are not correct.

No sign of of an inferior orbiting body of any significant size has ever
been detected. Observations of the Sun have shown that the figure is very
accurately spherical. And the amount by which GR would affect the
perihelion advance of Venus and Earth is sufficiently different, from that
due to the oblate Sun models, to rule out the latter by direct measurement
of perihelion advance.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

Thanks John Zinni and Mike Dworetsky (needless to say I ignored the
Wally)

This sounds like the early proposal that the Sun might be slightly oblate,
which would be enough to produce a small perihelion advance of 43" per
century. Another theory proposed that there is a small planet interior to
Mercury. There are several observational demonstrations that these
explanations are not correct.

No sign of of an inferior orbiting body of any significant size has ever
been detected. Observations of the Sun have shown that the figure is very
accurately spherical. And the amount by which GR would affect the
perihelion advance of Venus and Earth is sufficiently different, from that
due to the oblate Sun models, to rule out the latter by direct measurement
of perihelion advance.

I presume that the time function(s) used in relativity have exact laws
or whatever and are not just numbers added to the algorythms to correct
the other functions?

If the centre of mass of the sun is not the centre of the sun (rather in
the manner of mascons on earth) this would be the oblateness you are
talking about or is there something else?

I appreciate that the problem of looking at the sun is that radiation
(or heat and light) make observations of anything past macula
impossible. Or have I got that wrong?

I had a link to someone's home page that showed a mathematical
relationship between the distances of the planets. (Not Bode's Law.
Something to do with the square or cube of the distance fom the sun of
one planet being the distance of another (or some such function of that
one) It was an attempt to relate the distances with Pythagoras' Theorem.
It worked too except it put the centre of the solar system outside of
the sun.)

Unfortunately that link went too. Not that the concept was useful in any
known way (as far as I know that is. -Rather like Desargues' Theorem.)




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On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 06:04:29 +0000 (UTC), "Michael McNeil"
wrote:

Thanks John Zinni and Mike Dworetsky (needless to say I ignored the
Wally)

Of course you did. You run away from challenges to back up your
claims.


This sounds like the early proposal that the Sun might be slightly oblate,
which would be enough to produce a small perihelion advance of 43" per
century. Another theory proposed that there is a small planet interior to
Mercury. There are several observational demonstrations that these
explanations are not correct.

No sign of of an inferior orbiting body of any significant size has ever
been detected. Observations of the Sun have shown that the figure is very
accurately spherical. And the amount by which GR would affect the
perihelion advance of Venus and Earth is sufficiently different, from that
due to the oblate Sun models, to rule out the latter by direct measurement
of perihelion advance.

I presume that the time function(s) used in relativity have exact laws
or whatever and are not just numbers added to the algorythms to correct
the other functions?

If the centre of mass of the sun is not the centre of the sun (rather in
the manner of mascons on earth) this would be the oblateness you are
talking about or is there something else?

I appreciate that the problem of looking at the sun is that radiation
(or heat and light) make observations of anything past macula
impossible. Or have I got that wrong?

I had a link to someone's home page that showed a mathematical
relationship between the distances of the planets. (Not Bode's Law.
Something to do with the square or cube of the distance fom the sun of
one planet being the distance of another (or some such function of that
one) It was an attempt to relate the distances with Pythagoras' Theorem.
It worked too except it put the centre of the solar system outside of
the sun.)

Unfortunately that link went too. Not that the concept was useful in any
known way (as far as I know that is. -Rather like Desargues' Theorem.)

--

Find out about Australia's most dangerous Doomsday Cult:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/wanglese/pebble.htm

"You can't fool me, it's turtles all the way down."

"Michael McNeil" wrote in message
news:41a088dea94ba804868854040cee2243.45219@mygate .mailgate.org...
Thanks John Zinni and Mike Dworetsky (needless to say I ignored the
Wally)

This sounds like the early proposal that the Sun might be slightly
oblate,
which would be enough to produce a small perihelion advance of 43" per
century. Another theory proposed that there is a small planet interior
to
Mercury. There are several observational demonstrations that these
explanations are not correct.

No sign of of an inferior orbiting body of any significant size has ever
been detected. Observations of the Sun have shown that the figure is
very
accurately spherical. And the amount by which GR would affect the
perihelion advance of Venus and Earth is sufficiently different, from
that
due to the oblate Sun models, to rule out the latter by direct
measurement
of perihelion advance.

I presume that the time function(s) used in relativity have exact laws
or whatever and are not just numbers added to the algorythms to correct
the other functions?

If the centre of mass of the sun is not the centre of the sun (rather in
the manner of mascons on earth) this would be the oblateness you are
talking about or is there something else?


No, the oblateness proposal was describing a very small flattening of the
Sun at its poles, sort of like Jupiter only much smaller. The centre of
mass is still at the geometric centre. The main problem with this theory is
that the amount of polar flattening needed (or equatorial expansion) was
that it required a larger than observed flattening to produce the perihelion
advance of Mercury.

I appreciate that the problem of looking at the sun is that radiation
(or heat and light) make observations of anything past macula
impossible. Or have I got that wrong?


I'm not sure what you are asking, but the method used to measure the true
oblateness of the Sun required making corrections for the relative
brightness
of faculae, maculae, etc. in the measurement of shape. The method basically
involved masking out the central part of the solar disk almost up to the
limb and examining the brightness of each part of the limb regions.

I had a link to someone's home page that showed a mathematical
relationship between the distances of the planets. (Not Bode's Law.
Something to do with the square or cube of the distance fom the sun of
one planet being the distance of another (or some such function of that
one) It was an attempt to relate the distances with Pythagoras' Theorem.
It worked too except it put the centre of the solar system outside of
the sun.)

Not Johannes Kepler? Bode's Law worked fine for known planets but not once
Uranus and Neptune were discovered.

In any event I doubt that this has anything to do with Mercury, as the
effects of planetary perturbations were already taken into account in coming
up with the figure of 43 arcsec per century.

Unfortunately that link went too. Not that the concept was useful in any
known way (as far as I know that is. -Rather like Desargues' Theorem.)

--
Mike Dworetsky