An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity:

http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3104321

Interesting huh?

Dominic :-)

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Humans Are History.
See why at www.tigerworld.tv

Thanks man!

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TEAM
LL

An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity:

http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3104321

Interesting huh?

Dominic :-)

It is interesting, although I have some issues with the implied conclusions. For one, it seems that attempts to recreate the effect have met with mixed results. Another issue is that exactly how the effect violates general relativity doesn't appear fully reasoned. But you never know...

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Well, the moon has always been there as well as the sun. Why should it change during the eclipse? Lensing? The point is that it remains unexplained and Einstein is not around to bend his theory into shape to explain it. Although, that piece was not really didn't delve into the relativity analysis and suggest that no one has calculated it.

The anomolous accelerations are grouped with the Pioneer 10 and 11 anomolies.

A comprehensive Resolution f the Pioneer 10 and 11 anomalous acceleration....

and

Study of the anomalous acceleration of Pioneer 10 and 11

If you can work it out, you have a paper on your hands.

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TEAM
LL

Is there any effect on the pendulum during a total lunar eclpise? Would that make the pendulum alter its movement in some way?

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rickardh

Yes, what they were seeing was that it took was a change in the period and it took a canonical swing which they measured as the azimuth angle.

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TEAM
LL

I have a question that probably fits in with this General Relativity thread so will ask it here.

According to the theory as an object increases towards the speed of light it gains mass and time, relative to an outside observer slows.

I'll try to make this as clear as I can. What is the 'starting point' when calculating a thing's speed?

For example, the solar system is moving at X speed relative to the center of the Milky Way.

If we send a spacecraft in the opposite direction that the earth is travelling the ship is in effect slowing down relative to its original direction and velocity. So this space ship would be losing mass even though relative to the craft itself it is accelerating from its starting position. Similarly since our galaxy is also moving at some speed going somewhere on the whole it has slightly more mass than it 'should' have if it were remaining still. But what is the reference point for all of this motion? Where would the point in the Universe that you would quantify what 'standing still' is?

I hope I've made sense....

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I have a question that probably fits in with this General Relativity thread so will ask it here.

According to the theory as an object increases towards the speed of light it gains mass and time, relative to an outside observer slows.

I'll try to make this as clear as I can. What is the 'starting point' when calculating a thing's speed?

For example, the solar system is moving at X speed relative to the center of the Milky Way.

If we send a spacecraft in the opposite direction that the earth is travelling the ship is in effect slowing down relative to its original direction and velocity. So this space ship would be losing mass even though relative to the craft itself it is accelerating from its starting position. Similarly since our galaxy is also moving at some speed going somewhere on the whole it has slightly more mass than it 'should' have if it were remaining still. But what is the reference point for all of this motion? Where would the point in the Universe that you would quantify what 'standing still' is?

I hope I've made sense....

I've got to say "huh"?

1. So first you fixed the the center of the galaxy as the observation point.

2. then assuming that you can, you fixed the gaze direction by defining an orbit velocity (assume circular, reality: pitch angle somewhere between 4-24 deg, 12 deg about average)

3. define m(o) as original mass of spaceship

4. send it in opposite direction of earth at velocity v. thus it experiences mass and time effects relative to the center of your galaxy with a fixed gaze.

5. assume that the galaxy is possibly experiencing similar motion relative to the universe

6. and ask "where would the center be"

First you need to ask yourself how the center of the galaxy was found. Basically, they looked at the stars and saw that there was a clustering. i.e. there were distinct density variations in stars. From there they could chose references, define relative velocities, and normalize the velocities to triangulate the center. Theoretically, the same process could be used to find grouping of galaxies (instead of stars). This has to be severely limiting because we first have to see outside of our galaxy which is surely blinding us to a good portion of the universe. We can not even see to the other side because of the galactic center and cirrus. The first thing to do is to determine if it's planer like the galaxies.

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TEAM
LL

I think you are misunderstanding me.

Let me put it another way....let's imagine our planet was moving in a 'straight' line instead of rotating in the galactic plane.

Ship leaves earth moving in opposite direction earth is headed. It is therefore decelerating. It is approaching a point where it will be 'stopped' relative to the velocity of the planet. What happens? Relative to itself it was accelerating but in reality it was decelerating from its starting point (the planet). To put it another way. How does any body that is in motion 'know' it's in motion?

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

How does any body that is in motion 'know' it's in motion?

That's the whole point of relativity. It does not know that it's in motion. There have been philosophical quandries on this. Such as if you are in space with no reference and you are spinning, would your arms fly out?

I personally would say yes because you should be able to detect that the outer part is making bigger cicles than the inner parts. But if you think about it, you have no reference but yourself and from your view point, you can't see yourself spinning. I'll try to find the names associated with those quandries.

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TEAM
LL

Ok, but we know that as a body accelerates toward the speed of light it gains mass. When it's going backwards what does it 'know'?

Where is the reference point for any body in motion.

I'm not referring to spinning bodies here because it is relative to itself, it's center of mass. For example, your weight at the equater is slightly less than it is elsewhere because of the spinning of the earth; I'm not speaking of this here.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

OK, I'm not sure what you mean by backwards. trying again to understand the question.

I think you are misunderstanding me.

Let me put it another way....let's imagine our planet was moving in a 'straight' line instead of rotating in the galactic plane.

Ship leaves earth moving in opposite direction earth is headed. It is therefore decelerating. It is approaching a point where it will be 'stopped' relative to the velocity of the planet.

OK earth is moving on a straight line with velocity v. A spaceship leaves and accelerates in the opposite direction such that v(spaceship) approaches zero relative the the point of observation P(0) which is not earth.

What happens?

From P(O), one would observe the loss of it's relativistic mass.

Relative to itself it was accelerating but in reality it was decelerating from its starting point (the planet).

Right at this point I think you start switching points of observation. Relative to itself(spaceship), it never experiences acceration and always sees it's rest mass. The planet excellerated away and gained mass. The reality f it decelerating was only from the original P(O).

To put it another way. How does any body that is in motion 'know' it's in motion?

it doesn't.


Did I understand it this time?

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TEAM
LL

I don't think so.

by 'know' I mean it experiences effects due to what it is doing. eg gains mass, becomes 'flat', time slows. I don't know how else to explain it.

When a body gains speed it experiences all of the 3 things above. Gains speed relative to what?

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

OK, this is my last try. it's bed time and i'm not real sure what you're getting at because it's only relative to where ever you chose to observe from. If you are traveling with it, you would see no change. in and of itself, it should not experience change. it would observe everything else around it as changing.

In the real world the changes come from pressure as you acceralate but that's due to the fluids in your body and the air. Perhaps, you could preceive the changes as a pressure of some sort?

ok, maybe my dreams will reveal the meaning of you questions.

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TEAM
LL

No, I'm not talking about being pushed back in your space seat.

I'm talking about time changes, being 'flatter', and gaining mass. That is all.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Robert..this is where the 'relativity' comes in. "Einstein found that what you measure for length, time, and mass depends on your motion relative to a >chosen< frame of reference"
Your theoretical space ship will have different length, time and mass measurements depending on where you observe it from and the relative motion between the two points. From one viewpoint it will be slowing down, from another it will be speeding up. Fun, ain't it? There is no...reference point.. the one place in our universe that all relative motion can be measured against to my knowledge. You can't measure motion against empty space. Postulate an infinite sized universe with exactly ONE particle of matter in it. Is it moving? CAN it move?

http://www.astronomynotes.com/relativity/s2.htm

It's a cliche but true, math is really required to discuss this, not words.

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If you don't touch it, you can't break it.
;

Yeah, I get it, but since I can't express it mathematically I fear I am just not making myself very clear.

edit: sp.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Yeah, I get it, but sense I can't express it mathematically I fear I am just not making myself very clear.

Don't feel bad. Not making myself clear is what I'm best at.

Personally, I think relativity is a hairy subject. I dont' like it in any form. It's difficult to teach because it's not intuitive. In the universities there is a leap of faith that needs to be made when coming from intro physics into relativity and quantum mechanics. To me, this really means that something is missing. Why should anyone take that leap of faith? I would encourage you to sit down and draw pictures out and try defining the components of the problem. The fact is that no one really understands these issues because a lot is missing. The ones that excel at it, tend to be the technocrats. Memerize what you can and move on. Let's assume for a moment that Einstein actually knew what he was doing and understood something that the rest of us didn't. The understanding stopped there and went no further. We are left only with experimental physics. That sounds bad but experimental physics is good. The point of being left with only eperimental physics is that we can't make assumptions and exptrapolate from there with reasonable accuracy. The point of general relativity is lost also. Go to a decent physics library and you'll see huge volumes of publications on gravity increasing in size and yet, no real progress has been made since Einstein and that is assuming Einstein actually went in the correct direction. I personally do not believe this. For example, I've written 5 sets of equations which I was able to derive Schroedingers equations from, one of which is based on exact motion. Only one could be correct. I would chose exact motion over probability. Not to mention, the exact motion equations produced the p orbitals when the electron was placed into the s orbital, much like Schoedingers but without probability. Like Solomon said in a previous post, good math does not mean good physics. This I agree with. I believe this point can be applied to much of modern physics.

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TEAM
LL

This discussion is excellent - you're moving towards the illusory nature of reality that I've been looking for half my life - fascinating. I think reality is an artificial construction, sort of Matrix-y, and this is getting very close to demolishing reality - something I've never had the words to do.

Thanks, great work :-)

Dominic

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Humans Are History.
See why at www.tigerworld.tv

The mass gain isn't "real". The measured mass depends on the motion of the observer relative to the mass. If you had multiple observers moving at different speeds then each would measure a different mass. Today most physicists speak of "rest mass" and "relativistic mass" Rest mass never changes, but relativistic mass all depends on your point of view.

It can get even more interesting with time dialation, two observers moving away from each other at a fixed speed will each percieve the other's clock to be slow.

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