Ranging and Pioneer

Thus spake "John (Liberty) Bell"
Oh No wrote:
Thus spake "

What puzzles me here is that your anomalous
acceleration is independent of the craft speed.
If the craft were sitting at a fixed location with
neither radial nor tangential velocity (e.g. station
keeping with a solar sail), this implies you would
still get a downlink frequency shift which increased
linearly with time for a constant uplink frequency
and it would also be independent of distance (as
is observed) hence should apply to short range
measurements over some spread of distance
resolution.

This equates to a question I asked earlier at sci.physics.research
under a different title. You appear to be predicting a continuously
increasing (observed) frequency for this probe, if stationary. If you
integrate this predicted increase over, say, the age of the Earth, you
find that everything that wasn't 'nailed down' from the outset, should
be displaying huge blue shifts by now. Why have we not observed that?

You did not answer that question then, and I can't see that you have
answered it here either. I would dearly like to believe Oz's assertion
that your theory is self consistent, but with unresolved
inconsistencies such as the above, I find it impossible to do so.


The answer to this question is in three parts. Firstly, for local stars
we are looking at orbital motion in the Milky Way. The anomalous
acceleration then shows up as an illusory increase orbital motion, not
as a Doppler drift. The illusory motion is indeed quite substantial -
c61km/s out of 220km/s. But it applies equally to the sun as to other
stars, so that the illusory relative motion is much smaller, less than
1km/s for a star with an orbit within 200pc of the solar orbit. This is
rather less than differences due to random variations in orbit,
c10-20km/s, so it would be difficult to observe. It is of the right
order of magnitude to explain anomalous parallax difference in
Hipparcos, but that calculation is itself more complicated than I had
thought so I will be taking my time over it.

Secondly, for galaxies outside the local group the illusory motion shows
up as a change to recession velocities due to expansion. Again this is
quite substantial. I have it that the universe is expanding at half the
currently accepted rate. Problem here is that we have no direct way to
measure distance, and rely on the distance-redshift relation. The normal
way to check this requires "standard candles", i.e. supernovae SN Ia.
The observed magnitude, m, of each supernova is one measure of distance,
red shift, z, is another measure of distance. By plotting the m-z
relation we can compare the predictions of a given model to observation,
and identify cosmological parameters. This is how the currently accepted
concordance model with Omega~0.28 Omega_Lambda~0.72 is found. I have
calculated the m-z relation in the teleconnection model and find that
for a closed universe with Lambda=0 the fit with Omega~1.89, is slightly
better than that of the concordance model. However the difference
between the curves is very small. The weighting in favour of the
teleconnection model is no more than about 65:55 from the combined Riess
and Astier data sets. More data is required, particularly from supernova
with z1.5. There is a project on the drawing board (SNAP) to find
substantial numbers (1000s) of supernovae at redshifts up to z=2, which
should be able to distinguish (barring systematic errors) but we are
probably about 15yrs from getting any results.

Finally, the prediction for anomalous (illusory) motion is that it takes
place between measured states of position. If we can do a direct
measurement of position (not involving Doppler or other wave function
effects) this should cause wave function collapse and renormalise the
quantum theory, resetting any doppler drift back to zero in the process.
This would induce an apparent jump in motion as Pioneer, for example,
would then be measured to be exactly where it ought to be neglecting
illusory motion. Although we do not appear to have any means to measure
position of Pioneer directly, over the large time scales you suggest, if
it were possible to monitor Pioneer, I think at some times it would be
possible to measure position to measure position to a degree of accuracy
which would reveal these jumps (e.g. ranging to some level of accuracy
would be possible, perhaps using the method you suggested,
notwithstanding unknown response times on Pioneer).

This last part of the explanation is possibly the most significant to
your question, since it is in these apparent jumps in motion that the
inconsistency is resolved. It would certainly be helpful to the
teleconnection model if such jumps in motion could be found. In respect
of Pioneer it seems to me that a new mission will be required to test
this part of the theory.

In respect of the rotation of the Milky way one also expects apparent
jumps in motion, as the true rotation of the galaxy can potentially be
measured directly over sufficient time scales. It is possible that this
has actually been observed in VLBI observations of IM Pegasi, whose
position was observed to jump by 2/3 its diameter over a period of one
hour.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi...10.1086/312026

Apparently three or four such events have been observed in the motion of
IM Pegasi, but publication is not due till April next year. I am hoping
that at that time enough data may be provided for analysis. If the
teleconnection model is correct then improved observations over the next
15-20 years should reveal similar jumps in other stars.

Milliarcsecond Change of IM Pegasi Radio Position in 1 Hour Coincident
with Sharp Rise in Flux Density
Author(s) D. E. Lebach, M. I. Ratner, I. I. Shapiro, R. R. Ransom, M.
F. Bietenholz, N. Bartel, and J.-F. Lestrade
Identifiers The Astrophysical Journal, volume 517, part 2 (1999), pages
L43â~@~SL46
DOI: 10.1086/312026
Bibcode: 1999ApJ...517L..43L


Abstract: Continuum VLBI observations at 3.6 cm of the RS CVn binary
star IM Pegasi (HR 8703) for 16 hr beginning on 1997 January 16 revealed
an apparent motion of the star's radio position that coincided
temporally with a large relative change in its flux density.
Specifically, a rise in flux density from 18 to 46 mJy in 1.4 hr
coincided with a detected position change over that interval of (,
)=(-0.68±0.15, 0.55±0.20) mas. The magnitude of this position change is
much larger than can be explained by parallax, proper motion, and
orbital motion and is about two-thirds the estimated angular diameter of
the primary component of the binary.



Regards

--
Charles Francis
substitute charles for NotI to email