Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti

Article: <[email protected]> 
Subject: Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti
Date: 17 Apr 1998 13:22:03 GMT

In article <[email protected]> Jim Smith writes:
>> The only way I can see of having a stable orbit about both 
>> stars in a binary system is if the object has a small eccentricity
>> (fairly circular), a large perihelion and the orbiting object has 
>> the baryonic center of the binary system as one of it's foci.
>> Paul Campbell
>
> Highly circular focused on the barycenter, but it's interesting to 
> note that a few stable orbits may be found in oddball spots closer
> than you might think (before resonance). Here's an interesting 
> article: "Stability of outer planetary orbits (P-types) in binaries" 
> Dvorak, Froeschle, Froeschle (c) 1988 ESO

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
None of the planets in your Solar System are circular, and this is the
ONLY model you can entertain, a circular orbit?  You must create an
imaginary mass between the binaries before you can even start?  We take
it that this is an admission that your math programs in these matters
are utterly deficient. Why do you SUPPOSE that orbits are elliptical? 
Before you present us with a repeat of one of astronomy's religious
precepts, the Magical Ellipse icon, we will state that there is a
REASON for the elliptical orbits, and it is not because the planet is
following a little track in the sky, making curves just to be dutiful. 


Your planets pull OUTWARD because they are reaching for another mass
that they are gravitationally attracted to, and return because that
mass is not strong enough to drown out the gravitational voice of your
Sun.  This is intuitively obvious.  That your math programs cannot
account for an extreme ellipse without placing an imaginary mass WITHIN
the elliptical orbit, where it is not, shows how pathetic they are. 
Have you none better?  This is not a hypothetical system, it is YOUR
SOLAR SYSTEM, which you presumably should be able to describe without
creating dummy masses to account for the bulge of highly elliptical
orbits. Jeff only rises out of bed in the morning because there is an
immaginary mass above him, drawing him upward?  Get real!
(End ZetaTalk[TM])

In article <[email protected]> Jim Smith writes:
> The greatest distance between stars in the examples was 37.84 
> Aus - this also had the highest eccentricity.  One system 
> separated by 33+ AUs had an error of less than 1 per cent in
> the UCO.  I have no idea if this can be extrapolated out for the
> question as it has been posed (?).

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
If this is a math formula, all parameters should be able to be
manipulated.  Just DO IT!  Unless you stretch one of the parameters so
far that it becomes the mythical zero, creating the infamous divide by
zero that crashes computer programs, you should have no problem.  Here
you have a real example, an orbit that DOES have a real mass at the
second focus, and you hestiate.  Is there some rule that you can only
utilize your math programs if the issue is hypothetical?  You can place
an imaginary second mass into the orbits of hightly elliptical orbits,
but you cannot run that same program when the second mass is presumed
to be REAL?  Is it that the situation is too scary?  Is it scary that
your math programs will be challenged with real data?  Can you only
proceed when you are all sitting around like good 'ol boys, discussing
hypotheticals?  Or is it that the orbit we defined, one given to a
woman with only a high school degree, would prove to be correct!  Is
this what you're avoiding?
(End ZetaTalk[TM])