Ye Olde Inn

by **Anderas** » April 27th, 2015, 8:37 am

Well, this is the main difference between two orbiting objects and two objects in flat space.

In flat space, they would attract each other, change course, and that's it for eternity as they will then part and fly separate routes and meet never again.

In an orbit however, the sun is playing its role. You don't just push an object the size of Mercury to a more outer orbit by tugging on it for some hours with the force of Venus a lot of million kilometers away.
After the passing of Venus, Mercury continues to fly on it's orbit. But now Mercury is set a little bit higher on the "gravitation bowl" of the sun, with a course pointing outward the circle and a speed not quite matching the attempt to escape. The effect is, he gets slower like any object that is rolling uphill, and then he starts to roll down the bowl, effectively coming closer to the sun as he would have in normal years, on a circular orbit.
As he rolls down the bowl in a combination of downhill and circular vector, he gains speed again and rolls up the bowl on the other side.... And so on. His orbit has become elliptical.

So, no, Venus does not shift Mercury's orbit in a way that he disappears in outer space forever (like it would be in your example), but instead just misaligned his course and position a little bit away from the perfect round orbit. (A very small tiny little bit!)

If Venus would regularly meet Mercury on orbital positions that allow her to reinforce the effect, she would lose enough energy and Mercury would gain enough energy so that Mercury slowly shifts his position. This, however, can happen only in resonance - if Venus meets Mercury always on positions where they exchange energy in the same direction.

Today, they meet irregularly because every orbit is connected to a different orbiting speed, so sometimes Mercury receives and sometimes he loses energy, totaling in a neutral zero. That they meet out of resonance, is not a random effect. In fact, it is quite possible that they shifted each other some billion years until they finally lost their resonance. Today they are no more in resonance and therefore stable on their orbits.

If Venus pushes Mercury outwards on the tip of the ellipse, it gets more pointy. If Venus pushes rather on the broad side of the ellipse, the ellipse gets more round (up to a perfect circle).

That the planets align in such a lucky way is not prescribed at all. In fact, that we have a magnificient moon like ours, is in most theories the result of a collision between earth and an object of martian size that was coming up from behind - apparently we have shifted each other long enough to meet in the end.
But today, the system had time to settle for four billion years now. All that is left are planets in non-resonating zones. Everything in the resonating zones has been shifted away by these effects.

Well, I'm being literal guys. He's not bearing gold. He's bearing pseudoScience to the point where he claims that the actual Scientific community is lying, refuses to acknowledge proofs that are based upon observational data, and does all this from the position of a high school dropout. Seriously?

Maybe I have shown far too much impatience and contempt. If a crackpot accuses the Scientific community of lying, what is accusing me of lying about my own life compared to that? I'm very pissed that he would lead others uneducated in Science down his fantasy garden path - that is why this world is going straight to hell; most people have no idea what the actual reality of any given topic is.

There should be no mistake that this guy is deliberately trying to destroy Science; good intentions on his part are irrelevant. People like this make a wild statement that damages Science, and it takes Science three times as much space and wording to show where that is wrong. Few laymen want to read dry, pedantic facts, and so in their minds a crackpot "won" because others finally got tired of his BS and walked off. Now they vote based on ludicrousy. The world suffers because of it; just as religion forced a Dark age on us in the past and is threatening to force another one on us now - it already technically exists in Canada.

I think maybe we need the same sensational sound byte, because make no mistake: BSbearer is an enemy of mankind, good intentions notwithstanding.

by **whitebeard** » April 27th, 2015, 1:44 pm

el_flesh wrote:Maybe I have shown far too much impatience and contempt. If a crackpot accuses the Scientific community of lying, what is accusing me of lying about my own life compared to that? I'm very pissed that he would lead others uneducated in Science down his fantasy garden path - that is why this world is going straight to hell; most people have no idea what the actual reality of any given topic is.

The accusation is way over the top, and it is upsetting. Somehow the scientific community is wrong, and they are conspiring to hide there own errors on the stability of the solar system... Clearly they are overlooking a fundamental truth because I can see from my armchair that this system is unstable... Yeah. It's tough.

We're not even talking about science anymore. This is just math, and we all know how dishonest mathematicians are...?

The orbital deformation is a 1st order system relative to external forces. Without the sun it is a second order system... Two orders of RIgid body modes versus one... totally different stability properties. You can't just explain this in words, you need to study it for a while and do some math.

On the plus side, this particular argument can be settled quickly. And it is his cornerstone, so no excuses after that. We'll build a simulator and all will be right with the world.

by **cornixt** » April 27th, 2015, 2:44 pm

el_flesh wrote:Maybe I have shown far too much impatience and contempt.

That's an understatement.

el_flesh wrote:There should be no mistake that this guy is deliberately trying to destroy Science; good intentions on his part are irrelevant.

The good intentions is the most relevant thing. He's trying to "destroy science" because he thinks it is wrong. Understand that it has no chance of happening though. I have no doubt that he honestly believes what he is saying (at least now, I truly thought he was just messing about when I first read this thread and accidentally offended him), but I also know that there is very little chance that he will ever be convinced he was wrong. Every small error he discovers in his theory will be just routed around, and over time will make its way back in as if it was no longer a problem. I've seen it happen far too many times. It's just a symptom of a much larger issue, and at least this one is relatively safe.

by **cynthialee** » April 27th, 2015, 7:29 pm

Your claims of science being destroyed are over the top.

If some scientists do research down a dead end path, no harm is done. If some uneducated people buy into what turns out to be wrong in the field of astrophysics there is no actual harm done to science.

Science is strong enough to bear the weight of a few dead ends hun.

Now calm down and have some tea.

by **StratosVX** » April 27th, 2015, 8:55 pm

el_flesh wrote:There should be no mistake that this guy is deliberately trying to destroy Science; good intentions on his part are irrelevant. People like this make a wild statement that damages Science, and it takes Science three times as much space and wording to show where that is wrong. Few laymen want to read dry, pedantic facts, and so in their minds a crackpot "won" because others finally got tired of his BS and walked off. Now they vote based on ludicrousy. The world suffers because of it; just as religion forced a Dark age on us in the past and is threatening to force another one on us now - it already technically exists in Canada.

If you truly believe that one man can destroy science, then your belief in science must truly be shaky. These are his beliefs whether they be true or not. Science doesn't need people to believe in it or follow it to exist, it just does. You however, have been acting quite embarrassingly, especially since you say you're an adult. For all of your railings against the religious world, you certainly have been acting like a religious zealot.

by **el_flesh** » April 27th, 2015, 9:01 pm

No Cynthia, the point is that it isn't "over the top".
It would be over the top if Science were not stifled and ignored in Canada.
It would be over the top if Science were not laughed at, marginalized, and constantly challenged in courts in USA.
It would be over the top if people like BSbearer were laughed out of a thread like this one by 95% of the people in here due to understanding of Science.
Do you think Science will be maintained if an idiot like Cruz gets in? He is already telling NASA to ignore the Earth and focus only on space. He does that to do the exact same thing being done in Canada; he wants to remove and erase Science that tells everyone what these slimy bastards are up to: destroying the environment.

This is the result of lying about Science, stifling it, and that can only happen when we allow it.

by **Big Bene** » April 28th, 2015, 3:22 am

el_flesh wrote:This is the result of lying about Science, stifling it, and that can only happen when we allow it.

Exactly what is the result? Executers in the bureau for Freedom of Science?

Sorry, not everybody here is up to date with Canadian politics. Posting some caricatures is not very informative.
I tried to find more information by following the URLs of the pictures, but I still can't find what it is all about. From what I read, working conditions for government scientists are not ideal, which is a pity, and the government does not really care for the environment (at least it is well behind the international standard), wich is arlarming, but I can't see any hint at active surpression of scientific research, or support for pseudoscience or "lies" about science. At least the last caricature would suggest that the artist indeed feels that science is surpressed in Canada, but I could not find any infos on what exactly happens.