Requiem for Relativity

Javanese temples also indicate 2012

The largest Buddhist temple in the world is Borobudur in Java. It is collinear with two other Buddhist temples, Pawon and Mendut.

Coordinates from Wikipedia articles:

Borobudur 7deg36'29"S 110deg12'14"E
(= 7.60806 S 110.20389 E)

Pawon 7.6061596 S 110.2195215 E

Mendut 7.604873 S 110.230034 E (from "Wikigogo", corroborated by others)

Most likely these all are accurate either to the nearest 0.0001deg or to 1" = 0.0003deg. The great circles between any one temple and any adjacent temple, always make a 7.0deg angle with the parallel of latitude (where 0.5" error in the latitude of a temple typically corresponds to 0.6deg error in the result; so a true angle of 7.6deg is not excluded).

Petrie's determination of the ancient pole was 340" +/- 10" W of N at Giza. For a spherical Earth this shift decreases the latitudes of all three temples by 289.2". Their corrected latitudes are:

Borobudur 7.68839 S
Pawon 7.68649 S
Mendut 7.68521 S

In Mesoamerica (see above article) pyramid sites tend to be at geographic latitudes equal to minimum Declinations of stars (Arcturus) or planets (Jupiter, Venus). For Saturn, let's consider not the point where the time derivative of the apparent Declination of date is zero, but rather the point where the time derivative of the Declination is largest, that is, where the second time derivative is zero. This point is near opposition, rather than stationarity. For Saturn in 2012 AD, opposition defined as maximum Sun-Earth-Saturn angle, is Apr 15, 18:27 GMT; opposition defined as opposite ecliptic longitudes for the Sun & Saturn, or as minimum Saturn-Earth distance, differs by only a few minutes from this. However, the largest (positive) time derivative of Saturn's apparent Declination according to the equinox and ecliptic of date, is five days earlier, Apr 10, 16:58 GMT; at this time, Saturn's Declination is -7.663614. This is only 77.7" N of the temple of Mendut, or 89.2" N of the temple of Borobudur. If the corrected geographic latitude of Borobudur is converted to parametric (a.k.a. reduced) latitude, assuming flattening of 1/297.5 in its meridian as per Zhongolovich 1952, the result is 7.662854, which differs from the relevant Declination of Saturn by only 2.7".

The interspacing of the temples corroborates this information. The above largest time derivative of Saturn's Declination, is (from a centered 12 hr interval) +0.027830 deg / Julian day; the above distance between the temples Borobudur & Mendut is A+B = 0.02611 deg (let's denote the Borobudur-Pawon distance by A, and the Pawon-Mendut distance by . Also, B/(A+ = 0.40213; the tangent of the angle which Saturn's path makes at that time, to the parallel of Declination, is (from a centered 12 hr interval) d(Decl)/d(RA)/cos(Decl) = -0.3924702.

The book, "Barabudur" (Gomez & Woodward, ed., 1981) contains a map of the three temples on p. xv, by Janet Opdyke. On Opdyke's map, by my ruler measurements and retaining barely significant digits, A+B = 0.0258 deg in units of geographic latitude. Also, B/(A+ = 0.394, in perfect agreement with theory. The slope from Borobudur to Pawon (from the centers of the topmost temple levels that are shown on the map) is 8.6deg; from Pawon to Mendut 7.6deg; and from Borobudur to Mendut 8.2deg. The theoretical slope, 7.66deg (to echo Borobudur's parametric latitude) thus lies halfway between the slope, 7.0deg found from online GPS coordinates, and the slope 8.2deg found from Opdyke's map.

Some non-quantitative information. It's well known that in Egypt, temples often were rebuilt on the same foundation, repeatedly for many centuries. Other examples are the large Roman temple built upon the much older megalithic foundation at Baalbek, and the Christian church atop the pyramid of Cholula. Building on the same site, could happen because the site was thought to be sacred, or thought to need exorcism, or because it was cheaper to reuse the foundation, or because there was a town there but all the other land nearby was being used for something else already. That Borobudur is dated to the 9th cent. AD, but the greatest Mesoamerican pyramids seem to have been started a millennium earlier, does not preclude a common date for the original site selection of them all.

The simplest "precessional alarm clock" is a monument at the Declination (i. e. latitude) which some bright star or planet will have at the date for which the "alarm" is set.

A star like Arcturus changes position slowly due to precession and proper motion, but also there is a small short-term periodic change, mainly due to "aberration of starlight" from Earth's yearly orbital motion. It is most convenient to define the Declination as an extremum (i. e. a top or bottom of the yearly wiggle). Thus the pyramid of Cholula was placed (if corrected for the pole shift indicated by Giza's layout) at the minimum of Arcturus' Declination which occurs in March 2013.

Planets have large periodic changes in Declination due not only to their own orbital motion but also to Earth's. It is most convenient to define the Declination as that at stationarity (either before or after retrogression) or, for superior planets, at opposition. Since we must calculate their Declination anyway, the definitions of stationarity and opposition which require the least additional work, are as zeros of the first and second derivatives of Declination, resp.: that is, stationarity can be defined as when the Declination reverses direction, and opposition as when the Declination is changing at the largest rate. Thus El Castillo seems to correspond to the stationarity of Jupiter in Jan 2013; Mundo Perdido to the stationarity of Venus June 2012; and Borobudur to the opposition of Saturn April 2012. Borobudur's choice of the April 2012 opposition suggests that by the next opposition in April 2013, we will have "overslept".

Cambodian temples indicate 2012

Wikipedia gives the coordinates of Angkor Wat as 13deg24'45" = 13.4125 N, 103deg52'00" = 103.8667 E. Mercury's maximum Declination Jul 22 2012 07:26 GMT, near the end of retrogression, is +13.242038deg. As usual, I find that the latitude correction for the pole shift indicated by Giza, is

-340"*cos(29.9792)*sin(103.8667-31.1344)
= -0.0781deg

Also, just as the Borobudur result was accurized by using parametric latitude, the Angkor Wat result might be accurized by using geocentric latitude. Using the Zhongolovich 1952 ellipsoid, this correction is

arctan((296.7/297.7)^2*tan(13.4125))
- 13.4125 = -0.08674deg

Thus the geocentric latitude of Angkor Wat, corrected for the Giza pole shift, is +13.2476, only 20.2" greater than Mercury's maximum Declination in Jul 2012 near the abovementioned stationarity.

Under the category "Buddhist Temples in Cambodia", Wikipedia lists, among others, eight Cambodian temples for which coordinates are given and which are within a few arcminutes latitude (all of them north of it) and longitude (most of them east) of Angkor Wat:

Preah Palilay ("PP")
Preah Khan ("PK")
Krol Ko ("KK")
Ta Som ("TS")
Bayon ("B")
Angkor Wat ("AW")
Neak Pean ("NP")
Ta Prohm ("TP")

When I plot these on graph paper, I find with the long edge of a Keuffel & Esser "Doric" A88231 French curve, that PP, PK, KK & TS all can be fitted on one curve. Generally the extra degree of freedom of a given French curve accommodates only three arbitrary points, vs. two for a given circle.

Joe,

A while back, if memory serves me well, you mentioned something about having observational evidence for an anomalie at 53 AU from Sol that causes light to behave a little differently than we would expect based on present theories.

Would you briefly summarize your thinking on this, and are you interested in discussing it?

LB

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Larry Burford</i>
<br />Joe,

...observational evidence for an anomaly at 53 AU from Sol...

LB
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Thanks for inviting me to discuss this. I haven't yet had time to review my old posts on it, but here is a summary of my somewhat revised thinking now:

Years ago I saw an online article by another physicist, whose name I don't recall, in which he suggested that the so-called "Cosmic" Microwave Background (CMB) really is a Sun-caused phenomenon, because "Big Bang" dreams aside, the Sun is the only object that we really know of, which is big enough and symmetrical enough to cause the CMB. I elaborated on his idea, by speculating that the Sun is the center of a spherical surface many AU in radius, a surface at which some physical interaction, causing the CMB, occurs between the Sun and the rest of the universe, a surface analogous to, but not the same as, the heliopause.

I guessed that this surface would bound the solar system; if so, it would be related to the size of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. Then I considered the equation:

G*M*m/r = 1/2 * k * T

where G = 6.670/10^8 dyn-cm^2/gm^2 is the Gravitational constant, k = 1.3805/10^16 erg/deg is Boltzmann's constant, M = 1.9918*10^33 gm is the solar system's mass (Sun + 4 gas giants + Earth + Venus), m = 9.1090/10^28 gm is the electron mass, and T = 2.7255 K is the apparent blackbody temperature of the CMB. 1 AU = 1.49605 * 10^13 cm.

The equation signifies, that an electron at this radius r from the Sun, would have, if heated to the CMB temperature, a gravitational potential energy that is equipartitioned with its mean energy in any other degree of freedom. The solution is r = 43.00 AU. This happens to be within an AU of the observed median semimajor axis of classical Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects. So, we have a radius of obvious physical importance in our solar system (the Kuiper belt radius) which also just happens to define the CMB temperature, via an electron's gravitational potential energy at this radius from the Sun.

The Sun could be at the center of a big ball of "ether". The Kuiper belt formed on the equator of this ball. The CMB is emitted by electrons that are continually falling from (or to) infinity onto the ball.

That's about as far as I went before. To go further, we could consider how the refraction of light at the surface of this ether ball moving through a larger external ether at some velocity (in an ether theory of light transmission, like that of Stokes & Maxwell) would be affected by Earth's position in its orbit. This would be a secondary, nonrelativistic term in the equation for the aberration of starlight.

Dr Joe, I have tried to use your equation you just posted above. Can you tell me how to get it to balance-or what I am doing wrong? It looks like something is missing on one side of it.to me.

Joe,

Can any of the data you have be interpreted in such a way as to suggest that there might be other **approximately**[1] Sol-centered-spherical EM anomalies within the solar system?

Specifically, between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. Other places are possible but for theoretical reasons this one ought to be the most 'detectable'.

The magnitude of the anomalies between Jupiter and Saturn could be significantly different (probably smaller) from the magnitude of the anomalies at the outer edge of the Sol system.

There ought to be some other differences, as well.


LB

[1] Sol is not at the center of the heliopause, and Earth is not at the center of the magnetopause. And neither of these boundaries is spherical, except in a loose approximation. Both are dynamical systems: particles that move within one or more media while influencing at least one of the media.

These hypothetical new boundaries we are discussing ought to be subject to similar physical restraints, if they are physically real.