Concerning the title of this thread: What demise?

Rough and dirty at times? Perhaps.

A lot of BS (bad science) flying around at times? Perhaps.

Dead? No way. The action in this part of the forum is alive and kicking vigorously.

This is by far the most activity seen since the turkey timer was invoked; I think it was triggered by more queer observations near Saturn, Mercury, and in navigational data from near Earth flybys; and two big NULLs: No gravitational waves down to new sensitivites, and no WIMPs - no Weakiy Interactvie Dark Matter Particles down to constrants that make galaxy behavior even more difficult to explain. By the rules of the board, there are a LOT of threads that could be reopened on the bases of new evidence.

One question for moderators is: the new Mercury gravity anomaly data came in while this thread was in progress: should the turkey timer be automatically reset? Who decides; and how; when new evidence is new evidence? The first cut of LIGO science run 5 is in - do we have to wait until the scientific examination is exhaustive?

What a silly rule for a science board that has such a rich topic to explore!

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

As a general rule, our earth-based measurements should be the most accurate. There are clearly TWO good data point supporting relativistic interpretations, and I appreciate Tensor revisiting the Icarus data; the significance of which I have overlooked. mmmm...
They didn't say whether the gross gravity anomaly they used to recalculated the flyby path enhanced or diminished the gravitational braking. Since Mercury was rotating, the exact position of this calculated anomally relative to Messenger's flyby path is crucial. Remember that a featureless positive anomally that exactly coincident with Galileo's closest flyby of Ganymede was necessary to explain Galileo's doppler. That is two conicidents too many!

Maxwell's equations have everything to do with the path of light through space.

We know gravity 'bends' light. Newton taught us actions lead to reactions. Have you ever considered light might effect gravity?

Consider this: We observe much more gravitational lensing than Einstein anticipated; but we haven't observed any gravitational waves. Is it possible that they are dissipated? If they are, where does the energy go?

When you try to calculate the strength of a dynamic electromagnetic field, idealized equations will always come up short because of stray impedience: Eddy currents and such. According to Einstein, gravitational waves shouldn't be - no mechanism in his folder.

When I pondered this possibility - the unexpected attenuation of gravitational waves by mechanisms unknown - I realized that if this were happening, there should be measurable interactions between the changes in the sun's gravitational field and the paths of the planets about the sun. Changing the paths changes orbital mechanics, and if the interaction is great enough to be responsible for some of the curious phenomenon we observe, the masses of the planets may be grossly miscalculated.

I was watching Bill Nye the planetary guy's presentation on the moons of Saturn and you know what he did? He showed an real image of Pheobe that was colored as white as Enceladus. We know that is not right - Phoebe is quite dark, and Cassini found a lot of iron on the surface. If iron is turning Pheobe red, red silicate sand is a good fit for Titan - but only if Newtonian physics grossly understates the masses of the outer planets and their moons.

If such a gradient exists in the solar system, there must also be a missplaced gravitation differential for each planet. An orbital pass over a mountain feature must betray this miss-placement. That's when I went looking for the gravitational maps of Venus and Mars and found Mar's mountains are interpreted as being over dense, and Venus's Mountains under-dense - as they MUST be if Newtonian physics are wrong, and the Bouguer anomalies of the rifts and valleys as determined from orbit must be exactly opposite: And they are too. Too many more coincidents too many.

Messenger will be gravity mapping Mercury. After the first pass we know there are tremendous variations in the terrain. If I am correct, the gravity maps will produce stunning over-densities in the rifts and valleys of Mercury, and uplifted regions must appear curiously underdense - an extreme exaggeration of what we have observed on Venus.

Testable prediction - the Messenger Team has been very quick in publishing their findings -
let's hope this holds true once we are in orbit - and enjoy!

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

You may be mildly offended, but not by my call for good - read that EMPIRICAL - science. But you may be offended by the ideas that here on ATM may shake your 'faith' in what you had come to believe. Niether I, nor anyone, can help you in this respect, if you are offended. Talk to religionists on this issue, but it is NOT science. Can you understand the difference?

The rest of it, I will leave unanswered because it makes accusations of my 'breaking forum rules' so I am not in a position to defend myself if so.

You keep coming back to some error in my hypothetical non-theory, and then expect me to defend it here? Why would I? Stop asking me questions, and I will stop responding to yours, especially OT questions. (It is not to 'defend' that I listed my ideas, but to 'illustrate' a point. Got that?) Cease and desist man. I am not inclined to answer OT, and forum rule breaking, questions from posters.


The OP on this thread was as the title says: "The Demise of ATM Discussions". In this discussion many subjects are broached, such as the possibility in ATM that either gravity or light constant may not be gotten right. Tassel's take on this is what? That we should stop discussing because examples of ATM ideas are mentioned here? For goodness sake! Who's dogma are we supposed to obey here, Tassel? Yours? Or is ATM still a free discussion. If you want to send a complaint to moderators about what I just said, I welcome your complaint. What you are suggesting to us is that we stop talking. If so, then it is truly a demise of ATM discussions. Good grief!!

I therefore, Tassel, forbid you (if you feel 'offended' by what I said) to look at any of my posts, and you may not connect with any of my links posted. Would that suit you better? I do not suffer fools easily.

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Credibility is simply incredible... sometimes even to me.
disclaimer

Here is the original article (since the link back doesn't work):

A New Spin on Earth's Rotation (By Michael Schirber, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 25 February, 2005 7:00 a.m. ET)
http://www.livescience.com/environme...ly_planet.html

Perhaps I misunderstood what the article said, and what you describe as 'conservation of momentum' fits in with what they said. I had it where increased atmospheric winds in direction of Earth's spin would add momentum, not detract. But then the question would remain, where did the accelerated winds come from? Only possible source, in my opinnion, from outside Earth would be solar, but that was not what they claimed. Thanks for pointing this out.

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Credibility is simply incredible... sometimes even to me.
disclaimer

squze me??, but what does that answer have to do with what I commented on?
I said I did not like the big error bar on the Earth's value, but the circularity of the Earth's orbit is to blame. And the theory says so too.

And I said that if an ATM theory describes an effect and has similar errors, but can explain through the ATM theory why there should be such large error bars in some cases, then the ATM theory/explanation will be accecpted.

I seem to remember that they needed a small region with more mass, located somewhere along the orbit. But I would need to find the quote again in this tread. okay I found it in YOUR message (#155) quoting Ladawalla

seems to me that there is MORE mass, exactly opposite to your needing LESS mass.

But there is nothing wrong with irregular distributions of mass in a planetary body. Look at the GRACE satellite mapping Earth's gravity field and see what mountains etc. have as an effect. The fact that on Ganymede there is no feature on the surface to show where and what the gravity anomaly is is hardly surprising, As has been shown by Galileo the whole surface of Ganymede is ice, and as I have shown in a paper, there is an ocean under the icy surface, similar like Europa. So, and ice - water - ice coverager of the rocky innards does not really call for any visible counterpart for a gravity anomaly. (Unless you would carry a deep penetrating radar ofcourse, then you could find out more).

Light is described with Maxwell's equations and well, there are books enough ...
Light is influenced by gravity because of curvature of space time.
If you want Newton (then there would be no bending of light by gravity because light has no mass) then action = - reaction would not have effect on gravity but on the mass that generates the gravity, i.e. the sun pulls on the photon to bend it around in its orbit and as a reaction the photon pulls on the sun. Gravity is not affected, the interacting masses are.

Then a lot of blah blah about gravitational waves, which are totally beside the point of my mail. I was asking about the "second order terms" that you were invoking, I guess you yourself have no idea about what you meant there and decided to write about something else, like below.

Well, a real picture, sure, there are lots of them, but did he also say how the picture was composed, from what filters on the cameras etc. etc. A real picture does not immediately mean that it is in real colours (otherwise you would have to write that).

And I failt to see where you are going here, Cassini found iron on Phoebe, then why should there be red silicate sand on Titan? Where does that follow? Because Titan looks so red?

And all these stunning over densities will be a conformation for your theory that Mercury would have less mass? If it were not so serious I would ask what you were smoking.

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Optimism does not change the laws of physics. (T'Pol)
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is. (Dao De Jing 27)
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Martin ( http://www.geocities.com/DrMartinV )

I think the theory that Hornblower put forward, is exactly what is in this "livescience article":

[quote = Salstein]
The more forceful winds double the angular momentum of the atmosphere. Angular momentum is a conserved quantity in nature - the example usually given is the spinning ice skater conserving angular momentum by speeding up when she brings her arms in.

In this case, the whole system - comprised of the spinning Earth and swirling atmosphere - adjusts to the blustery winter months by slowing down the solid Earth's rotation. This means the days get longer - by a few thousandths of a second.
[/quote]

(Hornblower gets a round of applause)

Basically, the driver of Earth's weather is the sun and the rotation of the Earth (and the oceans and the mountain ridges ...). This creates the highs and lows which drive the winds in the Earth's atmosphere.

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************************************************** *************************
Optimism does not change the laws of physics. (T'Pol)
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is. (Dao De Jing 27)
************************************************** *************************
Martin ( http://www.geocities.com/DrMartinV )

Fair enough.

In a gravitational braking excercise, the probe will accelerate (w/r to the sun) during the approach to the planet, then lose momentum as it passes 'in front' of the planet. Whether an 'apparent' surface gravity anomaly would lead to more or less gravitational braking would depend upon where the anomaly is w/r to the probe during the approach, and where the anomally is after closest approach. Remember, Messenger was out of radio contact for a few critical moments, so they are comparing before and after Doppler shifts, not always real time. Less gravitation braking could be construde as a positive surface anomaly if the 'heavy spot' was facing the probe during the acceleration phase, and rotated away from the probe after closest approach while the 'braking' force is realized.

If you run across anything that better explains the anomaly experienced, please share.

True, but to be consistent with this particular alternative theory of gravity, the juxiposition in the Bouguer anomalies we observe (between Mars and Venus) is a predicted trait: No juxiposition would null the theory.

As Mercury is mapped gravitationally, it should become clear whether or not a surface anomaly could be possibly responsible for the flight diversion.

We both agree that we need to get back to Europa with some good sounding and surface composition measuring tools. Drilling would be a big plus...and extra fuel for the greater-than-expected mass.

I said I think the phenomenon is a non-linear; a mostly conservative (in terms of energy) increase in real path length when a probe in an elliptical orbit approaches a massive body. This is the property of space I think is mistaken for general relativity - similar - but the implications for cosmic theory are enormous.

Titan is red and sandy - there are areas that appear to be water-ice, but in general the color, spectral ratios and such are inconsistent with the organics, ammonia and water Newtonian physics allow. Sand is too heavy; but it is there. I think Titan looks very terrestrial because it is very Earth or Mars-like.

Dead serious: Mercury will prove to be a total enigma, gravitationally speaking. Under-dense elevated surfaces; over-dense rifts and valleys.

First things first though - The Phoenix lands on Mars in May: The doppler and radar during the descent will indicate thinner-than-expected upper atmosphere, slightly thicker lower atmosphere, an unexpected parachute drag coefficient; and more fuel consumption on 'final approach'. Cross your fingers.

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

[quote=Celestial Mechanic]
Assuming parameters are constant, zero, or unity are parametic assumptions.

GR interpretations make the assumptions that the value of the Eddington parameter is unity and G is a constant - It is a simple elegant geometric solution - the kind Keplar was looking for. That does not make it right. The current best value for the Eddingtion parameter (gamma) is not unity, but close enough that the error margins cannot rule out GR. GR also assumes there is no non-linearity during superpositioning - a parametetric zero; which may be at odds with measurements in accelerating systems during eclipses.

http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/gr-qc/p.../0411082v1.pdf

It is just as simple to attribute procession to impedance which is geometry dependent. The great big assumption here is that gravitational fields contain an enormous amount of energy the is generally unavailable to baryonic systems, and the Eddington parameters should not be one and zero, respectively.

They are remarkably tight - tighter than I think they should be in a non-geometric solution.
It is necessary because too much iron and other heavy stuff is showing up in the outer solar system.

It is necessary because everyone who has tried to model gravimetric systems has been frustrated by their instability. Newton assumed the infinite stretch of the galaxy resulted in large scale averaging, normality. This is not true. Einstein first included a curious constant, but removed it when Doppler measurements seems to indicate the universe is unstable.

Adding dampening parameters that naturally stablize orbits makes it much easier to form nice little orbital systems. In the currently accepted model of the solar system, dust acts a dampening parameter. Using dust to stablize the system, and then getting rid of all of the dust is a challenge. As we study other planetary systems, it will be interesting to see how the dusty vrs non-dusty ratio runs out.

Not. The currently accepted model can't explain the size of the universe without throwing in a completely unjustifiable and unmodel series of inflation parameters. Pretending that the model works by sliding the inconsistancies beyond the visual horizon does not address this failure.

I didn't linearize it, I transformed it to a linear form to analyse the results - simple curve fitting. If the path through space is a function of mass, a geometric attenuation of this path is the most reasonable choice. MOND would be unreasonable.

I explained why: Simplified models are easy to attack. MS theoriest don't face that kind of attack often because the simplifications they use produce results that fall within mainstream expectations. 14% is a ballpark figure - it could be as little as 2%; but I still think 14% is more likely to correct. Attacking a simple model moves the focus away from understanding what is really important: The observational data is inconsistent with estabished theories.

A complete model is needed, but there are several things that need to happen.

1) A consensus of scientists must realize the current model fails, and fails badly.

2) Much of the astrophysical data processed during the last two centuries has to be reevaluated; removing not only systemic errors, but also bias introduced during the analysis by well-intentioned scientist who were making certain that their data are consistent with accepted laws.

3) With an uncorrupted data set, it will be much easier to put constraints upon the new models and eliminate erroneous and unwarrented features.

The close agreement between GR and observational data is one of the problems I am always running into. I don't think it should be so close. But if you look at the gyrations that the gravity B probe scientists are going through in order to extract evidence of frame dragging from this failed experiement, I think you will see why I am skeptical of other studies.

For example, in the Cassini GR test, corrections had to be made for the atmospheric bias in the radio science observations; corrections that are of about the same magnitude as the expected precision of the experiment. An announcement was made that Cassini had improved confirmed accuracy of GR, but later the paper(s) supporting this conclusion were withdrawn.

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

It doesn't. When a spacecraft can be targetted to within less than a km from a range of tens of millions of km - the model does not fail.

Please present the observational data that demonstrates that the current value of the mass of Mars is wrong by 2-14%. Given the exceptionally successful Mars flyby by Rosetta - and the planned flyby by Dawn. Those flybys would deviate- a very VERY significant amount - from predictions. The vehicles in orbit around Mars would be lost, years ago - and the vehicles that have landed on Mars, would not have done so. John Anderson, discussing the flyby anomaly on PR last week, said the effect is so small, it's not worth modeling for interplanetary navigation.

You're continuing to insist that a dramatic, drastic, massively critical value required for interplanetary navigation s wrong by an ENORMOUS amount - and there is not one IOTA of evidence to prove that it is. There is massive massive amounts of evidence to prove that our knowledge of the mass of Mars is DAMN accurate, time and time and time again.

Prove it Jerry - show me evidence that our value for the mass of Mars is wrong. Prove it - just a shred of evidence.


Doug

Quick question: How did we determine the mass of Mars? We studied the orbits of the moons of Mars, then used Newton's central mass formula to determine the mass of the planet. Simple and straightward, this was verified first using flybys, landings and orbiting probes. But all of these determinations are completely dependent upon Newton's big assumption: The Newtonian Equivalance Principle. None of these orbital determinations test this principle because if it is incorrect, the only number that changes in these first-order equations is the mass of the planet.

If the equivalance principle is wrong; and I am arguing that it is, it takes less kinetic energy to sustain an orbit about Mars than it would if Mars were the same distance from the Sun as the Earth. Thus using Newton's equivalance assumption and the 'universal' G constant, the mass of Mars would appear to be less than it really is. When we put probes in orbit about Mars, we do not test the Equivalance Principle; but what we do works because we base the calculation for the mass of Mars upon observed orbital mechanics, not the other way around.

The orbits of thes probes and moons to not provide rigorous tests the equivalence principle, but the landing probes do, as do the gravitational mapping probes, especially while they are in highly elliptical orbits. When I went looking, I really did not expect to find data that is consistent with a failure of the Newtonian Equivalence Principle. But I did, in every Mars mission:

1) Degeneracies in the gravity mapping from different altitudes. In general, the further the probe is from Mars, the higher the surface gravity appears to be...No, it is the other way around.

2) Degeneracies in the Love numbers, the mass distribution of Mars, depending upon whether the surface probe or orbiting probe data is used.

3) Higher-than-expected acceleration during the Viking landings; consistant with a greater drag coefficient in the performace of the Viking parachutes.

4) Higher-than-expected velocity during Pathfinders descent and entry, and an under performance of the Pathfinder's parachute - designed almost identical to the Viking parachutes that over-performed.

How can higher and lower performance of parachutes both by symptoms of the same bad physics? The Pathfinder's descent was tracked using Doppler - no accelerometers. The Viking missions contained accelerometers, but no long-range Doppler. Greater acceleration and greater velocity are both predicted if the mass of the planet is greater than Newtonian estimates; but if a lower mass is used in reducing the data; whether this result in a lesser or greater drag coefficient depends upon whether you constrain acceleration or velocity.

The drag coeffiencents were determined on earth, and they shouldn't have change - one of many, many unresolved landing anomalies. Notice that you cannot use acceleration to derive velocity and visa versa unless the wind gradients are also constrained, which they were not. Phoenix will have both Doppler and radar telemetry data throughout the descent; and without a drag coefficient to blame it on, mission scientists will not understand why the probe fell so fast in the upper atmosphere. (They used a major league downdraft to model the rapid descent of the Jupiter probe, I guess that is always an option.)

Pathfinder Parachute:

http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltr...-2003-2126.pdf


From the Viking descent reports:

http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltr...6-cr159388.pdf

- that's 12-13%

Errors in Viking Lander Atmospheric Profiles Discovered Using MOLA Topography
Withers, Paul; Lorenz, R. D.; Neumann, G. A.
NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI)
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIII, LPI-Contrib-1109 , 20020401; April 2002

The surface gravity measured by the Viking probes is 12.20099-12.24428 ft/sec^2;
which puts a hell of a lot of mass near the surface. However, the Bouguer gravity anomalies find serious under-dense regions in every major rift and low feature. How can the subsurface enviroment be both extremely dense and and underdense at the same time? A poor estimate of the mass of the planet resolves this conundrum: The surface density does not have to be high to explain the acceleration if the entire mass is greater than the mass assumed in making the calculations.

See this thread for more:

Mars: Hard to hit, or are Probes hitting too hard?

I think this is strong enough evidence pointing in the same direction to be considered a trend, and a trend that only makes sense if the Strong Equivalance Principle is not so strong after all.

__________________
jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz