Pioneer spacecraft anomolies

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by emanuel</i>
<br />In discussing the fact that the Pioneer spacecroft are slowing down unexpectedly, the author opens the door wide by saying, "A third possibility is that gravity has been hiding secrets that three centuries of research have failed to uncover."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Emanuel,

I very much appreciate the suggestion. But I will have to miss this opportunity because:

-- My level of overwhelm with other pressing matters is too great right now to draft a carefully worded letter that might have a prayer of being more interesting to general readers than the hundreds of letters they receive daily.

-- Newspapers are rarely the proper forum for debating the merits of controversial scientific issues. Scientists and reporters alike are wary of scientists who try to dodge peer review.

-- In any case, I am convinced that the Pioneer anomalies have nothing whatever to do with gravity. See metaresearch.org/home/viewpoint/meta-in-news.asp#Pioneer at this web site.

However, nothing precludes others who are so inclined from writing and expressing their sentiments and/or supplying citations to relevant works. -|Tom|-

Tom:

The author of the paper you cited by Katz:
xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/9809/9809070.pdf

Said nothing new. Actually the original paper by NASA group:
xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/9808/9808081.pdf

had already considered anisotropic waste heat radiation, and ruled out that possibility. Who are Katz to repeat the same argument and get a different conclusion, unless he is more familiar with the Pioneer Spaceship engineering structure?

Katz can't even get his common sense straight. He calculated the amount of waste heat by subtracting the full amount of electrical power, which is totally wrong. The bulk of electric power, except for a tiny portion which is radiated in EM wave for communication, eventually end up being waste heat just as well. Why should we trust a guy who makes such low level mistakes in his arguments?

Initially I am just as skeptical about the anormalcy acceleration and thought it must be some sort of artifacts. But I read a long paper which detailed everything they have thought about and their careful analysis of many tiny things that most people wouldn't even think about. That really impressed me and made me believe this anormality is real.

Further, my own research of a fundamental physics theory leads to a conclusion that mandates such an anormality "acceleration" must exist for all objects at a distance. My calculation leads to the same value as reported. I will talk about that later. But briefly it is roughly:
(4/PI)*C^2/(Radius of Universe)

Quantoken

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Quantoken</i>
<br />Initially I am just as skeptical about the anormalcy acceleration and thought it must be some sort of artifacts. But I read a long paper which detailed everything they have thought about and their careful analysis of many tiny things that most people wouldn't even think about. That really impressed me and made me believe this anormality is real.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">There's that ugly word "believe" again. It should always be avoided because in science "I believe" is synonymous with "I have a bias".

I have no horse in this race, but have read the various papers on both sides too. I know enough to know that one cannot always take claimed results at face value, so I read looking for biases. One of the biggest is when someone cannot concede a point, even one that is not lethal to one's position and requires an ad hoc defense. When someone does that, I know not to trust his/her other claims that cannot be independently and easily verified. That person will cling to his/her position almost unconditionally, and will usually carry an important belief to the grave.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Further, my own research of a fundamental physics theory leads to a conclusion that mandates such an anormality "acceleration" must exist for all objects at a distance.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">So now you do have a horse of your own in the race. You should at the very least recognize that you may have lost your objectivity on the matter.

In brief, how do you explain that the anomaly (equivalent to the force from an undiscovered Jupiter) exists with the three spacecraft having reactors on board (the two Pioneers at great distances and Ulysses near Jupiter's orbit), but not for any other planet, moon, asteroid, comet, artificial satellite, or spacecraft?

According to most experts, the waste heat is enough to produce a force 30 times larger than the Pioneer anomaly, but is almost isotropic. Exactly isotropic (going off in all directions equally) would produce no net force. But the known spacecraft structure should produce an asymmetry of at least 1.0-1.5%, which then accounts for at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the Pioneer anomaly. At the very least, won't that throw off your theory's predictions, the way it has the "55" other theories I've seen for this effect? What decisive test distinguishes your theory from all others? -|Tom|-

Tom:

Good you asked those questions. Let me address them because I have asked the same question before arriving at my conclusion with confidence.

"In brief, how do you explain that the anomaly (equivalent to the force from an undiscovered Jupiter) exists with the three spacecraft having reactors on board (the two Pioneers at great distances and Ulysses near Jupiter's orbit), but not for any other planet, moon, asteroid, comet, artificial satellite, or spacecraft?"

The reason it is only detected on Pioneers is because the two pioneer ships are the only thing that is both far away from any significant gravity source, AND also provide an accurate beacon signal allowing detection of this acceleration. It is not an actual "acceleration", but some unknown time dilation effect that is interpretted as acceleration. Basically what they detected was actually the beacon signal is a little blue-ish than expected, i.e., the frequency is slightly higher than expected.

Take the gravity field in GR as an example. If you sit in the gravity field of the earth without any acceleration, it is equivalent to sitting in a spaceship accelerating away from the earth, and the light received on the ground would be red-shifted, according to GR. The amount of red-shift would be proportional to the equivalent acceleration times the distance, i.e., proportional to the gravity potential difference.

Now replace the acceleration away from earth with one that's towards the earth, the opposite effect would be observed, i.e., the light will be blue-shifted. That's what's being observed on Pioneer. Now that is not an actual acceleration, but just an equivalent acceleration field. It's just like when you sit on earth you feel you are acceleration away from earth, but you are actually not moving. The acceleation you feel is just the curvature of spacetime, in another word, it is time dilation. The clock high above ground ticks slightly faster.

In the case of Pioneer, it's the opposite. What the observed blue-shift means is the remote clock on the Pioneer ticks slightly slower, as long as we are concerned. It depends on the distance only, the further away, the further it's clock will be slower. Until it reaches the edge of the universe, then its clock slows to a complete halt as observed by us.

This universal time dilation also explains the observed Hubble Redshift, without the need of Doppler Shift at all. Please note this time dilation is relative: The Pioneer looks at us and see our clock slower than its own, too. However this relative time dilation is neither the special relativity one, nor the general relativity one, it is a universal relativity directly related to the closed-ness of the universe, and one Einstein failed to realize exists.

When Einstein developed his two relativities, he made the assumption that in the same inertial frame, free from any other gravity or acceleration, then clocks at all locations, even billions of light years apart, tick in synch. Unfortunately that assumption, which Einstein took for granted, without a second thought, are not necessarily true. It is only true when the space and time extends flatly and infinitely.

But we know our spacetime is not flat and does not extend infinitely.It is curved and enclosed. Saying that clocks at all locations of this universe all tick in exact sync., is equivalent to saying: "Yeah, we know the space is curved and finite, but still the time is flat and extend infinitely". That's obviously wrong. Both space and time must curve the same way.

My theory is based on the principle that the total quantum information of the universe is a finite and conserved quantity. This necessarily means the spacetime must be curved to be enclosed, and it does not expand or shrink. This would also mean clocks at remote location must be ticking slower when observed by us. This would also lead to the observation that light from remote locations will be red-shifted, which is the observed Hubble Redshift.
All those are mandated to be true, so that the quantum information is conserved and is finite.

Now back to Einstein's hidden assumption of spontaneousness of clocks within the same inertial frame. Using his own logic in developing relativity, we shall not take it for granted that all clocks tick in the same pace, but have to ask the question: How do we know for sure if the clocks are indeed synchronized? Following his own reasoning, then, looks like the only way to learn about whether the clocks tick together, is to use a light signal, or light beacon, to try to see if the clocks are in synch.

Well, the truth is, the only light beacon available, star light from billioins of years away, do tell us the clocks are NOT synchronized. If we trust those light beacons, which we have no reason not to because we have no viable alternative, then we have to conclude that indeed clocks at remote locations are ticking slower.

You also said:
"According to most experts, the waste heat is enough to produce a force 30 times larger than the Pioneer anomaly, but is almost isotropic. Exactly isotropic (going off in all directions equally) would produce no net force. But the known spacecraft structure should produce an asymmetry of at least 1.0-1.5%, which then accounts for at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the Pioneer anomaly. At the very least, won't that throw off your theory's predictions, the way it has the "55" other theories I've seen for this effect? What decisive test distinguishes your theory from all others?"

Whether those "experts" are experts or not depends on what field you are talking about. They certainly are not expert of spaceship designs. The RTGs on Pioneer are places on booms far away from the main spaceship, so any asymmetric effect will be small. Further the boom extends sideway, not in the directioin towards or away from the Sun. So the spinning further reduces whatever asymmetry could remain, by averaging them out. The NASA experts have considered that possibility, and clearly ruled it out. You have to accept they reasoning.

You have to take my theory seriously. I have derived the exactly correct CMB temperature from first principle, to within observation margin of error. I have obtained the correct baryon density, the correct solar constant, the correct universe radius. And I have obtained the correct mass of proton and neutron. Especially for neutron, the mass I obtained are correct up to 9 decimal places, and completely within the experimental error of the official measured value. All of the above involves very simple formulas where there is no adjustable parameter, no fractional number, and no expansion series, and not even any addition of terms.

Quantoken

How can heat cause anything to accelerate? Is it not a fact that mass needs to be ejected to make acceleration happen? A heat explaination seems very like grasping at straws.

Hi Jim,

[Jim] "How can heat cause anything to accelerate?"

Heat is a form of EM radiation. EM waves carry momentum away from their source. When EM waves radiate anisotropically from an object in space (a flashlight, for example), the object accelerates in a direction opposite to the center-of-aniosotropy. Unless it is constrained by some other force.

Regards,
LB