John, your work is fantastic! Thank you very much, and a special thanks for the translations.
I wonder if you have come across Paul Gerber? He also derived a formula that exactly described the anomalous precession of Mercury’s perihelion, and this was seventeen years before Einstein's general relativity. In Gerber’s paper, ‘The Spatial and Temporal Propagation of Gravity’, he derived his equation from Newton’s universal law of gravity by proposing that gravity propagated at the speed of light (instead of instantaneously, as Newton had assumed). Gerber achieved the correct result by employing a time-delayed radial distance between the two masses (Mercury and the Sun), proving that relativity is not required. Reference: Die raurnliche und zeitliche Ausbreitung der Gravitation. Zeitsch. f. Mathem u. Physik 1898 vol. 43 pp.93-104 Cited in: Jaume Giné’s On the origin of the anomalous precession of Mercury’s perihelion. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 38 (2008) 1004–1010.
Thanks for your enjoyable work. I can finally shake off the sense of wrongness I felt when I studied physics. I offer my best wishes for the new year for you and your family.
There was a jarring misfit learning equinoctial precession last year. Looking at astrology vs. the same planet's astronomical position, the less precession aligned or described the difference over time; that is, precession wasn't enough to describe the difference though ancient astrologers had made notes and calculations... Tried to ignore it but it became glaring/annoying.
Recently, astronomical "trepidation" appeared which goes a fair way to describe the issue. The idea being the Sun (with planets in tow) charges "northward" in a corkscrew with Sirius as Earth's brother across the way (current), keeping Earth company through the aeons. Egyptians spied Sirius carefully because it didn't move as the others did. Always bright, always loyal. Torque is as good a word, a slow ascension of a curving trajectory returning above the previous spot once per 26,000yr cycle. Makes sense the perihelion of planets would then routinely change by tiny fractions each 70-100 years and makes more sense of precession too.
Didn't know this about Mercury and can use it, thanks.
This is an interesting diversion into the history of science. I would otherwise have never heard of these early theories. Thanks!
There are a couple of notable problems right up front in Lévy's (1890) paper.
1) He follows Tisserand's (1872) mistake of adding in an extra factor of the square of the mass of the planet.
2) He uses the radius, not the square of the radius.
I find these notes on Weber to be fascinating:
"This means that Weber electrodynamics explains the Lorentz force by means of the principle of relativity, albeit only for relative velocities that are much smaller than the speed of light. Gauss's hypothesis of 1835 therefore already represents an early interpretation of magnetism as a relativistic effect. This interpretation is not included in Maxwell's electrodynamics."
"Since Weber electrodynamics is an approximation that is only valid for low velocities and accelerations, an experimental comparison with Maxwell's electrodynamics is only reasonable if these conditions and requirements are satisfied. In many experiments that disprove Weber electrodynamics, these conditions are not met. Interestingly, experiments that respect the limitations of Weber electrodynamics often show a better agreement of Weber electrodynamics with the measurement results than Maxwell's electrodynamics."
John, your work is fantastic! Thank you very much, and a special thanks for the translations.
I wonder if you have come across Paul Gerber? He also derived a formula that exactly described the anomalous precession of Mercury’s perihelion, and this was seventeen years before Einstein's general relativity. In Gerber’s paper, ‘The Spatial and Temporal Propagation of Gravity’, he derived his equation from Newton’s universal law of gravity by proposing that gravity propagated at the speed of light (instead of instantaneously, as Newton had assumed). Gerber achieved the correct result by employing a time-delayed radial distance between the two masses (Mercury and the Sun), proving that relativity is not required. Reference: Die raurnliche und zeitliche Ausbreitung der Gravitation. Zeitsch. f. Mathem u. Physik 1898 vol. 43 pp.93-104 Cited in: Jaume Giné’s On the origin of the anomalous precession of Mercury’s perihelion. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 38 (2008) 1004–1010.
Brent, thank you for the kind words. I'll have a look at Gerber's paper.
Another strong argument for the electrical nature of the Cosmos!
Perihelion, not periphelion.
Thanks, fixed.
Thanks for your enjoyable work. I can finally shake off the sense of wrongness I felt when I studied physics. I offer my best wishes for the new year for you and your family.
There was a jarring misfit learning equinoctial precession last year. Looking at astrology vs. the same planet's astronomical position, the less precession aligned or described the difference over time; that is, precession wasn't enough to describe the difference though ancient astrologers had made notes and calculations... Tried to ignore it but it became glaring/annoying.
Recently, astronomical "trepidation" appeared which goes a fair way to describe the issue. The idea being the Sun (with planets in tow) charges "northward" in a corkscrew with Sirius as Earth's brother across the way (current), keeping Earth company through the aeons. Egyptians spied Sirius carefully because it didn't move as the others did. Always bright, always loyal. Torque is as good a word, a slow ascension of a curving trajectory returning above the previous spot once per 26,000yr cycle. Makes sense the perihelion of planets would then routinely change by tiny fractions each 70-100 years and makes more sense of precession too.
Didn't know this about Mercury and can use it, thanks.
Thanks for bringing this forward.
Very revealing and relevant post! Thank you for your work and providing your translations.
This is an interesting diversion into the history of science. I would otherwise have never heard of these early theories. Thanks!
There are a couple of notable problems right up front in Lévy's (1890) paper.
1) He follows Tisserand's (1872) mistake of adding in an extra factor of the square of the mass of the planet.
2) He uses the radius, not the square of the radius.
I find these notes on Weber to be fascinating:
"This means that Weber electrodynamics explains the Lorentz force by means of the principle of relativity, albeit only for relative velocities that are much smaller than the speed of light. Gauss's hypothesis of 1835 therefore already represents an early interpretation of magnetism as a relativistic effect. This interpretation is not included in Maxwell's electrodynamics."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber_electrodynamics#Lorentz_force
"Since Weber electrodynamics is an approximation that is only valid for low velocities and accelerations, an experimental comparison with Maxwell's electrodynamics is only reasonable if these conditions and requirements are satisfied. In many experiments that disprove Weber electrodynamics, these conditions are not met. Interestingly, experiments that respect the limitations of Weber electrodynamics often show a better agreement of Weber electrodynamics with the measurement results than Maxwell's electrodynamics."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber_electrodynamics#Experimental_tests