Requiem for Relativity

Larry,

Although I understand how the locally entrained elysium (forming a sphere) would explain the stellar aberration of 20.5 arcsec, I don't think it explains the aberration of the planets (max. planetary aberration increases with the relative velocity of the Earth versus the planets (Mars: 3.9 arcsec; Jupiter: 11.5; Saturn: 13.8; Uranus: 15.9; Neptune: 16.9).

Could you elaborate on the aberration mechanism?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by nemesis</i>
<br />...what do you think this means?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

(regarding the 1889 Jupiter occultation timing anomaly)

I wish I knew more, but it seems that light doesn't always travel the way textbook believers think it does. It seems to have something to do with grazing Luna, because 8 sec (the smaller of the two timing anomalies) gives approx. 8sec/27.3days * 360deg = 4" deviation in Luna's position; the JPL ephemeris is supposed to be more accurate than that, a mere 122 yrs ago, for both Jupiter and Luna. This deviation amounts to 8km in Luna's orbit. A Lunar mountain range, or inaccuracy of the JPL ephemeris, should change both times by almost exactly the same amount, not one by 8 sec and the other by 15 sec.

I'm happy to see that my comparison of the occultation timing, with the JPL ephemeris, has caused some interesting comments to be made on this thread. Keep up the good work!

I submitted my article about the resonances of solar system moons, to the journal "Earth Moon Planets", but the editor rejected it without sending it for peer review. "Peer reviewed journal" means that articles are peer reviewed. It seems that most of these "peer reviewed journals" routinely engage in false advertising.

<b>[Bart] "Could you elaborate on the aberration mechanism?"</b>

Well, I am going to try. This is part of why I made my comments. But there are some problems to be solved (or worked around in some fashion).

With Tom's passing, we no longer have a professional astronomer on staff. When they asked for a volunteer to take his place, I was dumb enough to raise my hand. (But despite the headaches, there are also some rewards.) As a physicist I have some knowledge of astronomy, but my primary interest is in particle physics and experiment design. So I will need to ask questions - and although your practical knowledge of astronomy is most likely greater than mine, you may not be able to answer some of them. (Unless you are a PhD astronomer. And even then, I might not agree with you. Tom and I had a number of 'disagreements' about stuff.)

If this happens, it happens. Either we will be able to work around it or we won't.

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If you think about it, astronomy and particle physics are the two primary subject areas needed to explore something like an 'aberration mechanism' in the context of a (hypothetical but probably physically real) particle field. I am hoping that we can pool our knowledge and our ideas to see if any headway can be made.

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Physics 101

Aberration angle is a function of two properties of three objects<ul>
<li>Relative speed (for objects or places 1 and 2 of 3)</li>
<ul><li>between a source object and a target object</li>
</ul><li>Propagation speed (for object 3 of 3)</li>
<ul><li>of a particle or a wave, or anything else really, moving from one object or place to another</li>
<ul><li>Note that speed (meters per second) is the inverse of [travel] time delay (seconds [per meter]).</li>
<li>In an earlier post you said '... time delay does not play a role ...' in determining the planetary aberration values you are using.</li>
<li>The definition of aberration angle seems to argue otherwise.</li>
<li>I would appreciate comments on this, from you or anyone else.</li>
<li>(This may be one of those astronomy things I'm just not familiar with. But I have a hunch.)</li></ul></ul></ul>===

The small angle approximation allows us to use a simple equation to complete the definition ...
... and to do reasonably accurate calculations.<ul>
If you ever get a result that is larger than about 0.08 radians (around 4 degrees or so), you are starting to lose accuracy in a serious way. Obviously the tiny angular values you are talking about fall well within this restriction.</ul>

This equation clearly shows that a change in the time required for light to reach us from any of the planets will cause the aberration angle to change. Even if the speed difference between Earth and that planet does not change.

This is important to our discussion because if there is a particle field such as we postulate, filling interstellar space and responsible for propagating light waves, and if it does in fact become entrained (statically and/or dynamically) by normal sized objects such as stars and planets, then that particle field will be mostly, but not entirely, stationary with respect to us and each of the other objects in the Sol System.

This means that some parts of this particle field within the Sol System are moving with respect to other parts of this particle field, and that means any package of light waves moving from one place to someplace else is likely encounter a 'wind' that varies from place to place. In other words, in general a light beam is going to follow a path that is not straight.

And that means that the travel time is going to vary.

And that is the same as saying the delay time is going to vary.

And both/either of these mean that the aberration angle is going to vary.

And of course while all of this is going on, Earth and the other planets are following curved orbits, and the relative speed between Earth and any particular planet is constantly changing.

And that also means that the aberration angle is going to vary.

Bart,
Do you, and astronomers in general, have a plan to take all of this into account? And hopefully to model it in a way that makes it easier both to talk about and think about, without oversimplifying it to death.

<ul>(
Jim,
Since you are our resident model basher, would you consider keeping an eye on this, and let us know if you have any issues with a model we are using or talking about?
)</ul>
LB

LB, I am wondering why light particles would follow a curved path. I am trying to compose a reply to Dr Joe who is on a different orbit so I wonder why this is even on this thread. I think Bart should have started a new thread rather than post this here.

<b>[Jim] "LB, I am wondering why light particles would follow a curved path."</b>

We have been observing light beams from distant stars curve around Sol for decades. Hmm. Curved light beams - in the vacuum of interplanetary space?

Light waves travel slower as they move deeper into the gravitational force field around a mass, causing them to bend. But it is not the force field itself that governs this behavior. The amount of bending is an inverse function of distance (potential) rather than distance squared (force). It also causes atomic clocks to run slower.

Thanks to Einstein, we have equations that describe/predict these curved paths. Very accurately.

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As to your question "why do they curve?", that is what we are trying to find out. Why/How (in the physical sense) do light beams curve in a vacuum?

(This brings up that old pet peeve of mine - the difference between math and physics.)


<b>[Jim] "I think Bart should have started a new thread rather than post this here."</b>

Perhaps. But over the years this thread has become sort of a catch-all or general purpose thread. The title subject, relativity theory and whether or not it might be dead, has always been sort of - ignored(?) - not followed closely(?). Our fault (the moderators) I suppose. We have usually tried to be as lenient as possible.

(Sorry, Samizdat. Human discussions are not easy to control, and often go off on tangents.)

Did you notice, Jim, that Joe first opened this thread to the discussion about unusual optical effects (that may or may not be related to relativity issues) within the Sol System?

And did you notice that he did so back in 2007, on page one? As time permits I'm going back through this entire thread to re-assess these nuggets of his and the ensuing discussion (especially Tom's comments). But since it has come up again, I'm also joining the current discussion.

It is probably too late to think in terms of another thread. But if you guys want to, I'll see if I can help.

LB

<b>[Jim] "LB, I am wondering why light particles would follow a curved path."</b>

It might help if you stopped thinking of light propagating as particles, and started thinking of it propagating as waves. If it actually did move around the universe as physical particles, I would also be wondering why it curved, by the exact value observed, near a mass.

LB