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Talk:Theory of relativity (view source)
Revision as of 22:11, April 14, 2012
, 22:11, April 14, 2012→Newtonian explanation of Mercury's precession: There's plenty of discussion of this, right here.
::I'm curious as to the justification for changing a formula in Newtonian gravity. Do you change it for every situation, or just for this one special case? Can you give us the adjusted formula, and specify the exact change? For such a change in physics which has been in use for over 250 years I would like to see a reference, preferably several good references. [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 18:25, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
::I'm curious as to the justification for changing a formula in Newtonian gravity. Do you change it for every situation, or just for this one special case? Can you give us the adjusted formula, and specify the exact change? For such a change in physics which has been in use for over 250 years I would like to see a reference, preferably several good references. [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 18:25, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
:::The old Newcomb-Hall hypothesis. [http://books.google.at/books?id=oKGlHjDzGjQC&lpg=PA379&dq=newcomb%20hall%20precession&pg=PA379#v=onepage&q=newcomb%20hall%20precession&f=false This book] says that it contradicts the observations of the orbit of the moon, which rules out a change of exponent of of the required magnitude. --[[User:FrederickT3|FrederickT3]] 18:30, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
:::The old Newcomb-Hall hypothesis. [http://books.google.at/books?id=oKGlHjDzGjQC&lpg=PA379&dq=newcomb%20hall%20precession&pg=PA379#v=onepage&q=newcomb%20hall%20precession&f=false This book] says that it contradicts the observations of the orbit of the moon, which rules out a change of exponent of of the required magnitude. --[[User:FrederickT3|FrederickT3]] 18:30, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
::The contributors to this section might be pleased to see that the issue has been discussed, at great length, right here at Conservapedia. An entire debate page was created for it: [[Debate:What is the exponent of r in Newtonian gravity%3F]] This was a discussion that spilled over from [[Essay:Quantifying Open-Mindedness]].
::::"Mathematical physicists" (an [[oxymoron]] - I'll add it to the list) insisted that it was impossible for the exponent in Newtonian gravity to be anything other than '''''precisely''''' 2 (or -2). With the political push to promote the [[Theory of Relavitity]], the influence of the mathematical physicists rose too, and that is what shut down the valid inquiry into whether the Newtonian exponent should be '''''precisely''''' 2 (or -2). But any logical inquiry must admit the possibility, or even the likelihood, that it would not be exactly 2 (or -2).--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 19:31, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
::Furthermore, the subject was discussed on the relativity page itself, in the section [[Theory_of_relativity#Experimental_Verification_of_Relativity]]. There is a large chart showing the precessions of the planets under the Newcomb-Hall theory and under general relativity. They are the last two columns of the chart. The actual observations match the last column very well (see [http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-02/6-02.htm], taking into account that it's very hard to get accurate reading on the outer planets, since their precession is so small.
::One can see that the last two columns of the chart match only for Mercury. That is, Newcomb and Hall "tweaked" the exponent to the value of 2.000000157 in order to get Mercury's precession correct.
::Under the Newcomb-Hall theory, the precession of any orbiting body would be .000000078 revolutions per orbit. This works for Mercury, but is too high for the other planets, and way too high for the Moon. This is why the theory was discarded. With modern artificial satellites, such as the International Space Station, an orbit takes only an hour and a half, and the precession would be enormous. The clearly wrong value for the Moon is why the Newcomb-Hall theory was quickly discarded.
::Under general relativity, we know that the precession per orbit is proportional to the square of the planet's orbital velocity. Mercury has the highest velocity, so it has readily measurable precession. Artificial satellites are much slower, and the Moon is slower still.
::I personally don't see accepting the possible truth of such a thoroughly discredited theory as evidence of open-mindedness, but open-mindedness is admittedly a very tricky issue. [[User:SamHB|SamHB]] 18:11, 14 April 2012 (EDT)
::::"Mathematical physicists" (an [[oxymoron]] - I'll add it to the list) insisted that it was impossible for the exponent in Newtonian gravity to be anything other than '''''precisely''''' 2 (or -2). With the political push to promote the [[Theory of Relativity]], the influence of the mathematical physicists rose too, and that is what shut down the valid inquiry into whether the Newtonian exponent should be '''''precisely''''' 2 (or -2). But any logical inquiry must admit the possibility, or even the likelihood, that it would not be exactly 2 (or -2).--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 19:31, 13 April 2012 (EDT)