Recent content by PeterDonis

If by "stop the gravitational wave" you mean "absorb all its energy", no. A gravitational wave is not just one graviton. Indeed, we don't even know if "graviton" is a correct model of gravitational waves at any level, as I pointed out in post #3 of this thread. We have no evidence of any...

I've tried constructing an approximate model by using small segments of circles to approximate the elliptical planetary orbits near perihelion and aphelion. Unfortunately that model isn't working out well--even for small segments, the error using circles instead of the actual ellipses is too...

I don't think images are the best source to use. I'm going by the actual ephemeris data I pulled from JPL Horizons and gave in post #16: 401 / 146 arc minutes.

Actually, using motion along the ecliptic makes the difference almost a factor of three, so if anything it increases the "mystery".

To expand on this a bit: suppose we try to model the planetary motions in order to try to understand what determines the apparent size of the retrograde loop in the sky. What plane are we going to construct our model in? Obviously that plane is the ecliptic. Which means that angular motion in...

Wikipedia, referencing a dictionary, not a scientific textbook or paper. Note here that the term "ecliptic longitude" is used, not "celestial longitude". They're not the same thing. Again, this does not appear to be a scientific textbook or paper. This makes me question the source's validity...

Please give a source for this definition. "East-west" does not properly capture the actual motion of the planet in the sky--the actual motion of the planet also has a north-south component. In both of the cases under discussion here, the ephemeris data shows that most of Mar's motion in the sky...

But he doesn't give any new "conception of causality" to replace the classical one. Perhaps he thinks that isn't required. But that doesn't help at all if one thinks (as many do) that that is required.

@Sylvain9595 you mentioned JPL Horizons, and I was able to find that app here: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/ I pulled the data for the 2003 and 2012 Mars oppositions, and I see where you got your numbers now, but they're wrong, because you only looked at right ascension. You...

@Sylvain9595 where are you getting your figures for the retrograde arc covered? Your numbers seem too small by roughly an order of magnitude.

No.

In other words, violations of the Bell inequalities don't require "communication" between the systems according to his definition. Which is fine as far as definitions go, he can define words any way he wants, but I don't see that this helps at all to explain why Bell inequality violations...

They may be "geometrically distinct", but they are not independent. You seem to be assuming that they are, which is a wrong assumption. Reasoning from wrong premises will lead to wrong conclusions. The angular diameter of an object of fixed size decreases inversely as the distance. But that's...

Thread closed for moderation.

"Science" as it relates to thread discussions here does not mean "something that I can plausibly argue is possible based on our current scientific knowledge". As I've already pointed out, that is sci-fi. The whole point of sci-fi as a genre of literature is that it is constrained by having to...