Requiem for Relativity

Hi Joe, lets assume that aether drift is real. Our solar system is moving in the direction of Vega, at about 208 km/s. The other much studied object in that region is the ring nebula. For much of the solar system's journey, we have been moving in the direction of a gas cloud that formed Vega. Its less than half a billion years old.

Is there anything odd about it, that could be explained by an assumed aether drift? I think we have to write off some things as being simply coincidences. Vega was once our pole star, and its pole points almost directly at us.

It's spinning very fast. 93% of its allowed velocity, much more and it would rip apart. So there's gravitational darkening, its hotter at the poles than at the equator. That might be worth taking a look at in terms of aether drift.

It has a very low metalicity. That means it's short of all elements above helium, and not just metals. That could mean that those elements are there but arent showing up, or that Vega formed from a cloud of gas that was low in everything but hydrogen. That might be worth looking at. This has to be the same cloud of dust that formed our sun. Why did the late comer Vega, get such a low metal ratio?

On that refractive index times the fine structure constant thing from my previous post, that has to be wrong, I'm missing something there. I'll have to kick the equations round to make a table of converted refracted indices. My first thoughts are that the r.i. of the vacuum is not quite one.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Stoat</i>
<br />Hi Joe, lets assume that aether drift is real. Our solar system is moving in the direction of Vega, at about 208 km/s. ...and its pole points almost directly at us.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hold that thought! Dayton Miller remarked that the angular momentum vector of our solar system (approximately, that of any of the planets' orbits, or of the sun's rotation) differs only 6deg from Miller's best (i.e., Mt. Wilson) ether drift determination. A few years ago I found that, contrary to some published claims, the orbital axes of binary stars are significantly nonrandom when considered as a function of position on the celestial sphere.

Hi Joe, interesting that, Vega's pole points almost directly at us, as I said, five degrees of tilt. So do you think what I remarked on as merely coincidence is something more? Our moving makes the dust cloud that became Vega have its axis pointing at us?

(Edited) Perhaps our solar system dumped its angular momentum into the cloud that was to become Vega. That could explain why Vega is close to actually tearing itself apart. Is there another star in the southern hemisphere? Dayton Miller did think we were moving in that direction and did name a star but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called.

I thought I'd put up an image of our solar system heading toward Vega. On the right can be seen the rough position of Joe's planet Barbarossa but I'd stuck it into "Stars in your Backyard" as Nemesis. The image is still good to give people an idea of just how far out this planet is.

I suppose we have to think of how angular momentum is dumped from a "failed" binary system. It cannot be a gradual process, Sudden periodic energy impulses. Transferred to the cloud that would become Vega, It spins up and throws off its heavier content. Then it takes a long time to slow down enough to let star formation kick in.

Now that seems to work with electromagnetic angular momentum transfer but but what about gravitational transfer? Aether particles in Vega's gas cloud are going to be affected by a near instantaneous force. They have to wait years for the electromagnetic angular momentum to arrive.

I get 1.000000007717000698 for the refractive index of the vacuum.

(Edited) I think what's interesting about this, is that if we pushed the speed of gavity upward, then refractive indexes would bunch up together. WE wouldn't see any aether drift. Conversely, lower the speed of gravity towards that of light and it would be obvious that we are moving through an aether.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Stoat</i>
<br />I thought I'd put up an image of our solar system heading toward Vega. On the right can be seen the rough position of Joe's planet Barbarossa...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Thanks for these posts, and for this beautiful chart!