Requiem for Relativity

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim</i>
<br />...how to get it to balance-or what I am doing wrong? <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I've used this equation many times over the years and am sure it is mathematically valid. I just now checked again that the units do balance.

Maybe you could show your work to a high school physics teacher or someone with equivalent qualifications? It must be a matter of finding a simple error in your application.

- Joe Keller

First crop circle of 2013: bell curve & Delta Pavonis

The first crop circle of 2013, anywhere in the world, appeared in NE Tennessee, USA, and is shown on the Earthfiles website, in an aerial photo by Siri Karta. The circle was reported Monday, May 13, and therefore may well have appeared Sunday, May 12 (being difficult to report on a weekend, or less likely to be discovered then).

The New Moon was May 10. The curving line within the righthand (as shown on Earthfiles) circle, signifies that Luna was about 2 days = 24deg past New Moon when the circle was made, i.e. that the circle was made May 12. The gap in the circle itself, signifies that at the future time indicated by the circle, Luna will be about 70deg past Full Moon. (As usual, there is no cartographic-quality information available about the circle. There is only an amateur aerial photo taken from unknown distance and angle. It tells us something about the world's governments, that while they make accurate topographic maps and astronomical databases available to the public, there never has been a geographic-quality photo or map of any crop formation released to the public by any government.)

The lefthand circle also has a gap, symmetrically placed and at least roughly equal in length, to the gap in the righthand circle. To me, this signifies that Earth is to be the same angle past the vernal equinox, that Luna is past full. This occurs May 30.146 GMT, when both these angles are equal at 68.896deg (according to the JPL Horizons ephemeris, using longitudes for the equinox and ecliptic of date).

This time I used a quicker and more transparent method of correcting for the angle of view. I made the Earthfiles photo of the crop circle, into the background of my browser, then plotted the inner and outer ends of the arcs, and of the intersections of the arcs with the connecting bar, on translucent Keuffel & Esser graph paper. I was holding this graph paper orthogonal to what I estimated by eye as the axes of the apparent ellipse shape of the crop circle on which I plotted. Then I measured the major and minor axes of each apparent crop circle ellipse, and corrected the points on the graph paper, multiplying their ordinates by the appropriate axis ratio factor. I supposed that what appeared to be nearly diameters, really were diameters, and found the subtended angles by applying the 2*arcsin(x/2) formula to the angle and then to its supposed supplement, averaging these two results whose errors should largely cancel. This gave two independent results, an inner and an outer, for each crop circle, affording estimates of the mean and sigma for each circle's arc gap:

Lefthand circle : 65.25deg +/- 2.86deg
Righthand circle: 64.32deg +/- 0.85deg

Later I found a less oblique aerial photo by John Mayers, featured by cropcircleconnector.com and elsewhere. By basically the same method I found:

Lefthand circle : 67.90deg +/- 4.45deg
Righthand circle: 75.95deg +/- 5.80deg

From all eight independent determinations together I find 68.35deg +/- 5.78deg SEM, agreeing with the theoretical 68.90deg.

For the end of the curved line which I allege shows Luna's position past New Moon at the time of the formation's appearance, the same method gives about 23.07deg (only the short leg of the inner triangle gives a useful result here). This is Luna's elongation from the Sun at 02:30 GMT May 12, or 21:30 May 11 Eastern Standard Time. (From the second photo, I find about 22.00deg, corresponding to 19:09 May 11 EST).

If the probability distribution for some catastrophe is, as I've guessed based on my interpretation of previous crop circles, normal with mean Feb 17 and sigma = 54 days, then the "tail" beyond May 30 is, to the accuracy of rounding to the nearest day, exactly half the area (~ 2.95%) of the "tail" beyond May 12 (~ 5.99%) or beyond May 13 (~ 5.77%). That is, the date signified by the circle, May 30, is the median expected date of catastrophe given that there has been no such catastrophe up to the date of the circle's appearance, May 12 or May 13.

On the Earthfiles map, I measure the geographic position of the formation, as 53% of the way along a line from Johnson City to Kingsport, Tennessee. I interpolate the Wikipedia geographic coordinates of these towns, to find the crop formation's coordinates as 36deg26'N geographic (= 36.249deg geocentric), 82deg28'W. So, this map implies coordinates reasonably close to those reported by Roger Sugden on cropcircleconnector.com. He gives coordinates

36deg24'24.08" N 82deg27'35.30" W el. 1520 ft.

which I'll use.

Using Wikipedia's coordinates for Stonehenge, and using geocentric latitudes, I find that the geocentric angle between Stonehenge, and this crop formation, is 0.99821 radian, an error of 7 miles (0.10 degree on the globe) from exactly one radian. Note: the exact geocentric angle can be found with elementary geometry, whereas the geodesic arclength on a spheroid would have required advanced calculus.

Likewise, though finding exact angles between geodesics on the surface of a spheroid, requires either advanced calculus, or spherical trigonometry on an auxiliary sphere, elementary geometry can find exact angles in plane triangles whose vertices are points on a spheroid. Assuming that Earth is a perfect spheroid with flattening 296/297, and using the above coordinates for the crop formation, I find that the Nov 1, 1977 North Geomagnetic Pole (not the same thing as the "Magnetic" a.k.a. "Dip" Pole)(position computed by a downloadable program from www.ngdc.noaa.gov ) was the right vertex of a plane right triangle with Stonehenge and the crop formation at the other vertices. The evident ~ 0.1 deg error in my assumed position for the Tennessee crop formation, corresponds to roughly 4 yrs error in the 1977 date. So, the elapsed time is 35.5 +/- ~ 4 yr, i.e. round trip light time to a star 5.45 +/- ~ 0.6 pc distant.

The Bright Star Catalog (online, VizieR) has nine entries in this distance range. None is type GV, but one (Delta Pavonis, the farthest of the nine) is, according to the BSC, G6-8IV, and six are type KV (three K0, and one each of K1, K3, K4). Two of these KV stars, 36 Ophiuchi AB, form a binary system; another, 70 Oph, has a type K companion slightly too dim to be in the BSC.

From the current Wikipedia article:

"[Delta Pavonis] is a subgiant of spectral type G8 IV...
"It has been identified by Maggie Turnbull and Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute as the 'Best SETI target' among the list of the 100 nearest G-type stars. Properties in its favor include a high metallicity, minimal level of magnetic activity, low rotation rate, and kinematic membership in the thin disk population of the Milky Way. The lack of detected radial velocity variation suggests that there are no gas giant planets orbiting near the star's habitable zone, which may otherwise destabilize a hypothetical Earth-like planet in that orbital zone. As of 1999, no radio source of technological origin has been detected coming from this star. Delta Pavonis is the nearest solar analog that is not a member of a binary or multiple star system. This is a type of star that is a close photometric match to the Sun."

If there were a third major henge collinear with Avebury and Stonehenge, with Stonehenge at the midpoint, this third major henge would be in Hampshire near the river Avon, near Fordingbridge. A distance between the hypothetical Fordingbridge henge, and Stonehenge, equal to 1.054 times the distance between Stonehenge and Avebury, would make the Gray, Tennessee crop formation exactly one geocentric radian distant. This way, the right angle at the North Geomagnetic Pole would be for about Jul 1, 1974, i.e. 466.4 months +/ 1 month prior to the crop formation, implying a parallax of

1/(466.4/12/2/3.261633) = 0.16784" +/- 0.00036"

whereas the parallax of Delta Pavonis is given by the BSC as 0.170" +/- 0.017" and by Hipparcos as 0.16373" +/- 0.00065" (an Hipparcos revision gives the error as 0.00017"); so the agreement of theory and observation is good. Better yet, extraterrestrials likely would not use our standardized parallax corrected to one AU Earth-sun distance and without aberration. They would use the actual apparent angular displacement toward or away from the Sun; a significant part of this is aberration due to Earth's variable speed toward or away from the Sun. From the Bright Star Catalog, I find the J2000, epoch 2013.5 coordinates of Delta Pavonis as RA 20:08:44.7, Decl -66:11:10, which the NASA Lambda utility converts to 328.25199deg J2013.6 ecliptic longitude (J2013.6 is close enough to the ecliptic-of-date coordinates given by JPL for the Sun). According to the JPL ephemeris, the Sun's longitude is 90deg east of Delta Pavonis', at May 19 2013 01:34 GMT, and 90deg west, at Nov 20 2013 10:15 GMT. Earth's radial speeds then are +0.339202 & -0.345495 km/s, resp., causing aberrations of 0.233380" & 0.237709" away from and toward the Sun, resp. So, the observed parallax, including aberration, is

0.16373 + 0.237709 - 0.233380 - 0.000025 = 0.168034"

where the tiny last term is due to the sum of radii being not 2.0, but rather 1.999695 AU. The difference between theory and observation is 0.000194", just what would be expected from the errors in Hipparcos parallax and Geomagnetic Pole position.

One of the type K stars, Sigma Draconis, has been revised to G9V. As a prospective home for the evolution of life, seems to have at least two strikes against it:

"[Sigma Draconis] is considered a slightly metal-poor star...
"...large orbital eccentricity about the Milky Way galaxy of 0.30 (compared to 0.06 for the Sun.)"

The K4V star is Gliese 570, which has a cool brown dwarf companion and a pair of red dwarf companions. The K3V star is Gliese 783, which has a red dwarf companion and is approaching us at 130 km/s.

Delta Pavonis is a south circumpolar star. Ancient Greek mythology refers to Apollo and other deities as "Hyperboreans", translated as "beings from beyond the source of the north wind". There is also the myth of Santa Claus (Christianized Wotan) at the North Pole. In a sense the South Pole, which is more or less near the position of the constellation Pavo (during Earth's precession cycle, seldom very visible from northern latitudes) is "beyond" the North Pole: the meridian from any point on Earth, to the North Pole, always eventually passes through the South Pole too. "Beyond the north wind" might have been the way that the position of Pavo was remembered by people unaware that Earth is a sphere.

Dr Joe, It is correct for molecules and usually written: 3kT=mv^2. The electron(whatever it is)is not an ideal gas and not a molecule. I'd say this 43AU radius is not any special place in the universe. Even so what effect would you expect to find at that distance?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim</i>
<br />Dr Joe, It is correct for molecules and usually written: 3kT=mv^2. ...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hi Jim,

Yes, you are correct and now I see what you meant. Before, I thought you meant that my equation was mathematically impossible because the units didn't balance, so I was going to explain, that the units do balance because an erg is the same as a dyn-cm.

My equation isn't from a textbook. It's my hypothesis, that the statistical energy in one degree of freedom, equals the electron's gravitational potential energy at the special distance.

- Joe Keller

Dr Joe, So then the issue is does the electron obey thermal laws? In my world the electron is not real and does not obey any laws(why should it?). It is a sc-fi idea that is deeply embedded in physical theory and the cause of much confusion in all of science. But, that's just me on a rant so getting back to the point-does electric items have any respect for thermal laws? I don't think so.

<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,

...an anomaly at 53 AU...
Would you briefly summarize your thinking...
LB

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

I'd like to add to my previous reply. In order to rationalize the presence of an anomaly at 52.6AU rather than the 43AU that results from the most straightforward calculation

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

I had to introduce a factor sqrt(3/2) on the right side of the equation, something I never was able to justify convincingly. I wanted to rationalize the larger, 53AU distance, because:

1. The Kuiper belt "dropoff", i.e. rather sudden and almost total nonexistence of Kuiper belt objects with longer semimajor axes, occurs there; and

2. The graph of the Pioneer 10 anomaly, from an article by JD Anderson et al, shows unexplained anomalies there.

Also, I tried to rationalize the CMB dipole asymmetry as due to the gravitational influence of a large distant outer planet such as my Barbarossa, but such an explanation would entail much larger higher-order harmonics than actually are observed. Now I think that the likeliest explanation for the dipole, lies in something else I remarked on years ago, the nearly perfect "orthogonal triple" formed by

1. Dayton Miller's ether drift vector as determined by him from his Mount Wilson observations;

2. The CMB dipole; and

3. The line to the galactic center, i.e. the main radio source there.

This suggests that the dipole is due to some kind of gravitomagnetic force involving the gravitational pull of the galactic center and Sol's true motion around that center.