I will not reply further as I cannot think of a rebuttal to utter nonsense.

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When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

Yeah, and the joke is that you don't understand the difference between Weight and Mass...something that even a first year Astronomy student would certainly know.

This all sounds very nice...and doesn't make a lick of sense. You can't just "make up" the rules as you go along...where is your evidence to support your claims?

You're right...you need something...but "this" ain't working for ya.

I've gotta agree...the more Jerry posts...the more he demonstrates that he doesn't have any idea what he is talking about.

Since we are observing the probes from Earth, what would that change?

Are you talking about Newton's constant G, or the graviational acceleration g?

What is this "g function"?
The force of gravity between two objects (which obviously depends on the distance), or the acceleration of gravity g on a planet, or the product GM(sun)?

And on what basis do you exclude a force that has not been accounted for?

This clearly shows that you do not actually know Newton's laws.
If there is some net force acting on the probes, the principle of inertia does not apply.
On what basis do you exclude some unknown force?

"No action at a distance": this concept was left behind when gravity started being intrepreted as a field acting locally on a mass (see also electromagnetic fields).
It is still a viable approximation if the objects under analysis move with speeds much lower than the speed of propagation of changes in the field (again see electromagnetic fields).

For which you have experimental evidence?

This shows that you have never studied Quantum Mechanics.

It is correct that gravity is ususally negligible when dealing with microscopic systems.

Whether they make sense to you or you like them, it is of little consequence for their correctness.
Einstein did not like Quantum Mechanics, but he never questioned that it worked nor did he support a rejection in the lack of a better theory.

How would that happen?

Why?

How is angular momentum converted into heat?

This is cherry-picking.
You can argue that the current theoris are incomplete, but you have to show that they do not agree substantially with the observations, before claiming that they are not "workable".


And nothing new, since the Theory of General Relativity came along.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"heavier" and "lighter" can refer to density, as Jerry obviously intended. In any case, isn't it a bit of a straw man to use his bad joke to dismiss his ideas?

To me, it makes a lot of sense. That does not make Jerry correct, of course. A lot more math is going to be required to prove that his theory does not contradict observational evidence.

Dismissing an ATM idea out of hand because it does not conform to conventional science is a bad idea when conventional science cannot explain observations. The entire point of the thread is that there is evidence of something unexpected going on to cause the Pioneer anomaly. Plenty of mainstream scientists are looking at ATM ideas to explain it.

Jerry has cited observational evidence that, at first look at least, can plausibly be explained by his theory. Some of this evidence will surely be eliminated by additional research, and it is likely that the basic ideas can be directly contradicted by hard data. However, having read all of Jerry's previous posts, I think it is worth the effort to actually research the evidence rather than simply dismiss him.

Really, have you two even read his posts in ATM? Certainly not carefully enough, if you think he could mistake mass and weight.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Papageno, I have one nit to pick. You said "Einstein did not like Quantum Mechanics, but he never questioned that it worked nor did he support a rejection in the lack of a better theory.
"

Einstein didn't just dislike quantum mechanics, he did not believe it to be a true description of the world at all. He is famous for having said "God does not play dice with the universe". He never could wrap his head around the idea and vigorously opposed the notion of "spooky action at a distance". He essentially wasted the rest of his life trying to disprove QM.

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When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

He was trying to find a better theory.
He did not like the interpretation of QM that leads to "spooky action at a distance" or probabilities, but his reasons were more philosophical in nature rather than physical.
He did not consider QM wrong as a theory, because he accepted that the predictions match the experimental results.
And he did not go back to classical mechanics, because this does not fit the obsevations.

As much as he did not like QM, he accepted it as a scientific theory, at the same working to replace it with something better.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Because the inertial field strength would be almost uniform in the area of Earth, so experiments would not detect a variable G.

Such as? There have been numerous failed attempts to explain the acceleration (already thoroughly discussed) with known phenomena. If you’re going to consider unknown forces, Jerry’s is as good as any.

Obviously, the hypothetical inertial field is very slightly stronger on the side closer to the Sun. However, does this not contradict the notion mentioned above, that the field is uniform enough not to affect experiments showing a constant G on Earth? The effect is probably lost in measurement error.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Papageno, I disagree. Starting in 1935 with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper he began directly attacking the presumptions of QM and continued to try to prove that QM theory was "incomplete".

He did not propose any better theory nor did he seem to be working on such. He was obsessed with certain aspects of QM that he simply didn't believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox

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When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

Obviously intended? Hmmm, I don't seem to recall Jerry saying that.

Perhaps...but if that's true, someone is going to have to explain to me exactly WHAT the joke is. I'm serious about this because as a "joke" it just doesn't make any sense.

His OP was all about density. His bad joke was that since he was apparently suffering from terminal binary dyslexia, he might have the effect of his inertial field theory on Titan backwards. Humor is such a subjective thing...
:wink:

Jerry,
most accretion models of planetary formation predict that density decreases with increased orbital radius, so shouldn’t we expect the close fit of your equation relating the two?

__________________
Do try not to take me too seriously.

What is this "inertial field"?
Also, a variable G would affect the trajectories of objects. Why wouldn't we be able to detect this effect?

It is not.
Assuming a variable G goes against all the experimental evidence we have about gravity.
It is more likely that there is something that we do not see or did not take into account properly, providing an additional force.


"Obviously"?
Also, if there is such a differential, wouldn't we observe the effect on the Moon's orbit, or the orbits of the artifical satellites?

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Based on Gibbs' paradox, we can say that classical mechanics is not consistent.
Does it mean that we have to abandon it?
Or maybe, we understand better its limitations?

The EPR paradox proved that these three assumptions are incompatible:
1) concept of "realism";
2) concept of "locality";
3) completeness of QM.

Einstein decided that the third one is wrong.
Today, physicists are more in doubt of the second.

He was working on a "Unified Field Theory", which was supposed to merge QM and GR, without the "quantum probabilities" he did not like.
Other physicists have been working on "hidden variables", but it did not work out.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Yes, what we observe is reasonably consistent with accretion models, although there is a minor inconsistency with Uranus and Neptune being more dense than Saturn.

Hey - I was extremely surprised when I plugged in the numbers, and out popped the same densities for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Pluto, and a dozen moons.

There should be subtle changes in the orbital mechanics, things like this:
We are much better at navigation than the uncertainty we are experiencing in missions to other planets indicates: Two-thirds of the missions to Mars have been failures. I don't think this is an accident. We are systematically underestimating the mass of distant planets, and the further we go, the worse it gets.

I believe the masses of the moons of Saturn are more than three times greater than expected, (based upon our inertially challenges probes), we are looking at earth-like planets and expecting them to be worlds made of ice, and this is what experts are saying as they try to interprete these images from near Saturn:

John Anderson has made an exhaustive search for a causal reason for the Pioneer accelerations, and rolled naughta. I’m looking at a host of unknown forces including Dark Energy, Dark matter; and I am looking at a family of cosmic events - supernova light curves, the crab nebula, radio loud regions of space, quasars, cosmic rays and saying “I can tie all of these things together with a new theory, and this theory predicts Earth-like densities for all of the planets". When I do, out pops the Pioneer 10 and 11 accelerations. Simply amazing.


Big g, Newton’s constant. I am saying that there is only limited equivalence between the acceleration of gravity and the acceleration of Einstein’s elevator, and yet paradoxically that they are identical – they both require mass, and you can only create motion within a gravitational framework. Here is how I think it works:

I jump in Einstein’s elevator and accelerate away from the sun. I have my ion drive perfectly tuned so that my acceleration is always at one earth g, and I try to keep my acceleration constant. But as I get further and further away from the sun, not only can I no longer accelerate, I start losing momentum, and my elevator is getting extremely hot – it is as if the space around me has suddenly thickened, when in fact just the opposite has happened:

My momentum is within a gravitational field, and as that field strength diminishes, so does my ability to propel ions through the weakening field behind me. As soon as they leave my linear accelerator, they begin slow down and radiate at frequencies that are proportional to their velocity relative to the elevator-sun system. The elevator itself is also radiating away energy proportional the motion of the ship relative to the sun. I realize I am stuck in the outer edges of the Oort belt, and if I want to start accelerating again, I will have to aim my elevater toward the sun.

What I am clearly trying to say is nobody understands gravity, myself included. Yes, the field equations described by general relativity effectively eliminate ‘action at a distance’, but the causality assigned by Einstein is just plain wrong.

Observational evidence.